THB 
 
 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 
 
THE 
 
 PIOIfEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM HENRY MILBURN, 
 
 AUTHOR OF " THE RIFLE, AXB AND SADDLE-BAGS," AND " TEN TEARS OF PREACHER LIFE." 
 
 <.... 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 DERBY & JACKSON. 
 
 1860. 
 
Ektkred according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by 
 
 WILLIAM HENRY MILBURN, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern 
 
 District of New York. 
 
 W. H. T1N8ON. Stereotyper. |p- *^ ^ I Geo. Rusbkli. & Co., Printeri. 
 
 MWV- 
 
i4 7^ 
 
 3 L 
 
 THIS BOOK 
 
 18 DEDICATED TO 
 
 FLETCHER H^RFER, ESQ., 
 
 WHO HAS BEEN 
 
 A TRUE FRIEND TO ME AND MINE 
 FOR MANT TEARS. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 It is now nearly two and twenty years since my 
 father pitched his tent in Prairie-land. I was then 
 a lad. The broad savannas, clad with flowers; 
 the emerald groves, that seemed like islands of the 
 deep ; the Father of Waters ; the Mother of Floods; 
 the Beautiful River; the fierce, ostrich-like Piasau, 
 whose outline on the bluffs of the Mississippi above 
 Alton commemorates the Indian's dread of the terri- 
 ble being : these soon took a strong hold of my 
 imagination. From that day to this, the West has 
 been to me a land half of dream and half of 
 reality. To read and hear everything connected 
 with its history became a passion. 
 
 I have sought in this book to set in order the 
 results of this reading and hearing. It would be 
 almost impossible for me to say what parts came to 
 me from tradition and what from the written page. 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 Only I must be allowed to mention two books 
 which have been particularly serviceable. The one 
 is the work of my friend, Francis G. Parkman, Esq., 
 the " History of the Conspiracy of Pontiac," one of 
 the most picturesque and vivid books of history 
 that has ever fallen in my way ; the second is the 
 work of another of my friends, Albert J. Pickett, 
 Esq., the " History of Alabama," naive as it is 
 entertaining. 
 
 I have sought to follow the pilgrimage of the 
 plumed cavaliers of De Soto in their quest of the 
 Great River, and the gold which they fondly hoped 
 was to be found upon its banks; I have floated 
 with Marquette in his bark canoe as he went upon 
 his gentle embassy to the Indians; I have wan- 
 dered with La Salle as he vainly strove to found 
 a French Empire in the West, and mourned by the 
 Texan grave of one of the most unfortunate but 
 heroic of men; I have sat down with the kindly 
 French in their Paradise of Kaskaskia, and enjoyed 
 the spell of their idyllic life ; I have trudged with our 
 own pioneers, as with stout hearts they crossed the 
 Cumberland Gap and entered the Dark and Bloody 
 Ground; I have stood with them at their guns 
 in their blockhouses, have slept on their raw-hide 
 
PKEFACE. IX 
 
 beds, and shared their jerked meat and " dodger ;" 
 and I have sought to appreciate the development of 
 Saxon sense under the tuition of the wilderness, 
 and to trace the schooling of the mind under the 
 auspices of social life, in application to the needs 
 of self-govemment. I have travelled the circuit 
 with the first preachers, sat in the congregation 
 as they expounded the doctrines of eternal life, and 
 welcomed them for their works' sake ; and last, I 
 have summed up in a few words what has been 
 done, since the acquisition of Louisiana in 1803, in 
 the way of exploration and development, on the 
 other side of the Great River. 
 
 To me it has been a pleasant labor ; I hope that 
 the reading will be as pleasant. 
 
 Brooklyn, February, i860. 
 
 1* 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 De Soto, 13 
 
 LECTURE n. 
 Marquette and La Salle, . . . . , , 67 
 
 LECTURE IIL 
 The French in Illinois, 127 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 The Red Men and the War of Pontiac, . . .163 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 The Cabin Homes of the Wilderness, at the beginning 
 
 of the Revolution, 203 
 
301 CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Cabin Homes of the Wilderness during the Ame- 
 rican Revolution, . . . . . .251 
 
 LECTURE Vn. 
 
 Sketches of Character and Adventure in the West, to 
 
 the Failure of Burr's Expedition, 1 806, . . 303 
 
 LECTURE Vm. 
 
 Manna in the Wilderness ; or, the old Preachers and 
 
 their Preaching, ...... 345 
 
 LECTURE IX. 
 
 Western Mind ; its Manifestations, Eloquence and Humor, 3 89 
 
 LECTURE X. 
 The Great Valley ; its Past, its Present, and its Future, 429 
 
Lecture I. 
 DE SOTO 
 
DE SOTO. 
 
 The contrast is most striking between the Span- 
 iard of to-daj, and the Spaniard of three hundred 
 years ago. ItTow, he is indolent, often apathetic, 
 grave, reserved, and whatever his inward capacity 
 of passion or of exertion, an inefficient and idle man. 
 But in those old days, the Spanish race was filled 
 and inspired with a wild and tireless fourfold energy 
 of avarice, religion, ambition and adventure, which 
 swept them round and round the world in a long 
 resistless bloody storm of conquest, conversion and 
 slaughter, gained them their vast colonial realms and 
 wealth, and brought to pass a panorama of achieve- 
 ments, miseries, cruelties and crimes whose very 
 representations, in the antique wood-cuts of De Bry, 
 are horrible to look upon. Governor Galvano 
 quaintly says, speaking of the craze which fell upon 
 Spain in consequence of the early American dis- 
 coveries, that they " were ready to leap into the sea 
 to swim, if it had been possible, into those new-found 
 parts." 
 
 There is no stronger or stranger exemplification of 
 tlie steady obstinacy with which this insane chase 
 
 15 
 
16 PIONEEES, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 after riches and glory was pursued than the long 
 chapter of disastrous Spanish inroads upon the terri- 
 tory of the southern half of the United States, then 
 called Florida, which took place between 1512 and 
 the foundation of St. Augustine in 1565. 
 
 The earliest European name associated with the 
 southern coast of tlie United States is that of Juan 
 Ponce de Leon, a brave old warrior, whose early 
 manhood had been passed in hunting the Moors 
 from Granada and in acquiring that inflexibility of 
 purpose and hardiness of character, which enabled 
 him to play his distinguished part as a conqueror in 
 the New World. Sailing with Columbus on his 
 second voyage, spending most of his remaining life in 
 the West Indies, subjugating Porto Hico, where he 
 ruled with an iron sway as governor, superseded in 
 his command, thirsting ever for gold and glory, and 
 yearning for a renewed life in which to enjoy the 
 fruits of his valor, he turned his prow to the north- 
 ward, in search of the land wliere the crystal waters 
 of the fountain of youth washed those yellow sands 
 of price, the discovery and possession of which would 
 give the happy voyager the realization of the twin 
 dream of Alchemy — gold and immortality. Fables 
 were the faith of the time. Why not ? Could cre- 
 dulity cherish a wilder phantasy than the Genoese 
 mariner's ? Yet this had been fulfilled. Might not 
 De Leon's, too ? So the stout old cavalier took his 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 17 
 
 way to tlie north. Aged Indians had told him that 
 in that direction lay the objects of his search. His 
 many fights had left him full of wounds and scars ; 
 age was bending his manly form, weakness was 
 creeping on apace. 'No matter, for the Fountain 
 shall give him immortal youth, and with it, health 
 and beauty. 
 
 Land was made Palm Sunday — Pascua Florida — 
 1512, near St. Augustine. Beautiful enough for the 
 shore of the Immortals was this which now rose 
 before his eyes, covered with rich greensward, dap- 
 pled with flowers of unnumbered dyes, over- 
 shadowed by giant trees clad with summer leaves, 
 glorious with a rainbow garniture of tropic blossoms, 
 over which hung long pendulous veils as if of silver 
 tissue — spectral veils like Mokanna's, hiding the 
 hideous face of the swamp miasma — veils which a 
 sad experience has taught men now to call the " Cur- 
 tains of Death." Softly came the land breeze 
 freighted with the breath of flowers, upon that tri- 
 umphal Sabbath morning, and it came — so thought 
 the Spaniard — straight from that fabled spring, and 
 with the fever of excitement in his veins, and the 
 throb of rapture at his heart, " Florida," he cried, " is 
 it not the land of flowers !" In honor of the festival, 
 and in honor of the blossom-clad coast, he named a 
 name which it bears to this day. 
 
 But alas for the hopes of Ponce de Leon ! It was 
 
18 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 no morning land of immortality to him, save as tlie 
 name he bestowed preserves for ns and after-times 
 the dim shadow of his antique renown. Upon his 
 second voyage, a poisonous arrow from an Indian's 
 bow brought him his message of doom. Hastening 
 to Cuba, he breathed his last, leaving his Flower- 
 land a fatal legacy to Spain for many a sad year to 
 come. 
 
 In those old days of Spanish rule, there was but 
 one step from the Quixotic to the Satanic, and that 
 step w^as taken by Yasquez De Ayllon, the next 
 adventurer whose keels furrowed the waves of our 
 coast. This monster came for slaves to work the 
 mines of the West Indies, where the atrocities of the 
 Spaniards had in less than thirty years well-nigh 
 exterminated a numerous and happy people. 
 
 Eeaching the coast of South Carolina, De Ayllon 
 entered a river, called, in honor of the captain who 
 discovered it, the Jordan ; known to us by its Indian 
 name, the Cumbahee. Landing on a pleasant shore, 
 which the natives called Chicora — Mocking-bird — 
 they were hospitably welcomed and entertained. 
 But the Christian white man's return for the red 
 heathen's courtesy was betrayal, outrage, and death. 
 Having laid in his supplies, De Ayllon invited the 
 Indians aboard his vessels; an invitation gladly 
 accepted by the unsuspecting red men. While 
 crowds of them were below, the hatches were closed, 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 19 
 
 all sail made, and away oyer the blue waters sped 
 the winged monsters with their prey. But did not 
 that wild, despairing cry from ship and shore, of 
 husbands and wives, parents and children, thus ruth- 
 lessly torn from each other, reach the ear of God ? 
 He heard and he avenged. One of the ships foun- 
 dered, and all on board perished. The remaining 
 Indians refused food, and thus died. The aborigines 
 of this country could not be reduced to slavery. 
 
 Again De Ay lion came with three vessels and many 
 men to conquer Chicora. The natives masked their 
 purpose of revenge, received him kindly, lulled his 
 suspicions into fatal security, and he dreamed the 
 goodly land already his own. They made a great 
 feast for their guests some leagues in the interior. 
 Two hundred of De Ayllon's men attended — ^he with 
 a small party remaining to guard the ships. Three 
 days the banquet lasted. The third night the 
 Indians arose and smote their treacherous invaders 
 and slew them, so that not one of the two hundred 
 was left to tell the terrible tale to his companions on 
 the beach. But the Indians themselves bore the 
 tidings, for they fell upon the guard, killed some, 
 and wounded others, so that but a handful reached 
 their ships and bore away for St. Domingo. De Ayl- 
 lon himself seems to have died, either of his wounds, 
 or shame, or both, at the port in Chicora. 
 
 A few years later Pamphilo de Narvaez, in com 
 
20 PIONEEES, PKEACHEftS AND PEOPLE 
 
 mand of a splendid armament, undertook the subjuga- 
 tion of Florida. At an earlier date he had been sent 
 by the governor of Cuba to arrest the victorious 
 progress of Hernan Cortez in Mexico. Losing an eje, 
 and failing in the attempt, he was conducted to the 
 presence of Cortez, whom he complimented by 
 informing that he must be a remarkable man, as he 
 had succeeded in vanquishing him. '' That," replied 
 the redoubtable conqueror of the Montezumas, " is 
 the least thing I have done in Mexico." 
 
 Landing at Tampa Bay, 12th April, 1528, witli 
 four hundred men and forty-five horses, Narvaez 
 immediately dispatched his vessels to Cuba for fresh 
 supplies, paying no regard to the prudent entreaties 
 of the treasurer of the expedition, Alvar E'ufiez. 
 They soon roused the relentless hostility of the valiant 
 Seminoles by their gi-atuitous barbarities, and e^'ery 
 rood of their toilsome march, through tangled forests 
 and endless quagmii-es, was rendered doubly difficult 
 by ambuscades and attacks. Inspirited, however, by 
 the stories of some captives, acting as guides, to the 
 efi'ect that in Appalache they would find a fertile 
 province, abounding with gold, the object of their 
 eager quest, they urged their way onward. On 
 reaching the land of promise, ISTarvaez, who had pic- 
 tured to himself another Mexico, was bitterly unde- 
 ceived, finding only a rude village of two hundred 
 and fifty cabins. Tliey took possession unopposed, 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 21 
 
 for tlie inhabitants had fled to the woods. Twenty- 
 five days were passed here ; but the army, now more 
 clamorous for bread than for gold, learning that the 
 sea lay nine days' march to the southward, bent its 
 weary steps toward the village of Ante, where, it 
 was said, were plenty of provisions and a harmless 
 people. Their path, however, was beset by yet 
 greater natural obstacles, and by the implacable fury 
 of the savages. At length reaching Ante, not far 
 from the present St. Marks, they found the village 
 burned by the retreating inhabitants, but esteemed 
 the discovery of a plentiful supply of maize, ample 
 compensation. 
 
 What was to be done ? Their hopes of conquest 
 and treasure were gone ; to remain in the land was 
 impossible ; to traverse the shore in search of their 
 ships might be fruitless, and would needlessly expose 
 them to the sleepless ferocity of the Indians. Many 
 of their horses were slain ; so were not a few of their 
 bravest companions. 
 
 A day's march brought them to the banks of the 
 river, which widened into a bay. Here they resolved 
 to build them such boats as they might, and in them 
 seek their ships or attempt a return to Cuba. Right 
 vigorously did they ply their work ; and at length Rye 
 frail barks were launched, in each of which on the 
 20th of September, 1528, were crowded from forty to 
 fifty miserable souls : crowded so that the gunwales 
 
22 PIONEERS, PEEACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 were almost even witli the water. Thus along that 
 tropic shore did they hope to coast in the season of 
 storms. J^arvaez, remaining one day in one of his 
 boats with a sailor and a sick page as a guard, while 
 his crew went ashore to pillage for food, was driven 
 out to sea by a tempest and never heard of more. 
 The only survivors of this ill-starred expedition were 
 Alvar !Nunez and four companions, who, after 
 incredible wanderings along the northern shore of the 
 Gulf of Mexico, westward through Texas to the 
 Eocky Mountains, and thence to Mexico, exposed to 
 every species of hardship and peril — after passing 
 from tribe to tribe of Indians, sometimes starved as 
 slaves, sometimes, we may believe, worshipped as 
 demi-gods, in 1537 — nearly ten years from the time 
 of their sailing, finally reached Spain. 
 
 Such experiences and failures might have caused 
 reflection. The adventurous Spaniards even might 
 have questioned themselves what would be the pro- 
 bable best result even of success. Old Governor 
 Galvano, in his history of the discoveries of the world, 
 says, with rare good sense for that day, " I cannot 
 tell how it commeth to passe, except it be by the iust 
 judgement of God, that of so much gold and precious 
 stones as haue been gotten in the Antiles by so manny 
 Spaniards, little or none remaineth, but the most part 
 IS spent and consumed, and no good thing done." It 
 seems as if these chivalrous aspirants for wealth and 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 23 
 
 glory must have observed the same. And if not, still 
 the sad fate of the pioneers in Florida, one would think, 
 were enough to dishearten and deter any who might 
 thereafter dream of its exploration and conquest. 
 Not so. 
 
 A little before this time, in 1537, there had 
 appeared at the court of Charles Y. a renowned cap- 
 tain, adorned with laurels from the conquest of Peru, 
 and enriched by 180,000 golden crowns, his share of 
 the plundered treasure of Atahualpa. A gentleman 
 by four descents, and therefore entitled to member- 
 ship of the noble order of Santiago, he had neverthe- 
 less commenced life as a private soldier of fortune ; 
 his sword and target his only possessions. And thus 
 far fortune and deeds 'of prowess had won him great 
 success. His lance was said to have been equal to 
 any ten in the army of Pizarro. In the saddle his 
 match was not to be found. Prudent in counsel as 
 he was brave in the field, he was no less knightly 
 in denouncing what he esteemed the wrong — boldly 
 withstanding his commander to the face, and charging 
 home upon him the wickedness as well as bad policy 
 of the Inca's murder. 
 
 He was proud, determined and reserved ; as the 
 Portuguese narrator describes him, "a sterne man 
 and of few words ; though he was glad to sift and 
 know the opinion of all men, yet after hee had 
 delivered his owne hee would not be contraried." A 
 
24 PIONEERS, PEEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 recently publislied fac-simile of his signature, a large 
 and strong autograph, as by a powerful hand more 
 used to wield sword and spear than the pen of the 
 writer, corresponds well with his stately and haughty 
 character. Although not naturally liberal, he was 
 profuse and magnificent in his expenditure in this 
 his first appearance at court, and was attended by a 
 troop of gallant knights wdio had fought under him 
 in Peru, and had brought back each a fortune from 
 the treasure of the Incas. Luis de Moscoso de 
 Alvarado, John Danusco, and a long list of others, 
 with names equally claiming attention, did their 
 histories come within our design, spent their 
 wealth, acquired in soldierly wise, upon soldier's 
 luxuries, mettled barbs and splendid armor ; but 
 Hernando de Soto surpassed in magnificence all the 
 courtiers of the Emperor. Only five and thirt}^ years 
 of age, tall, handsome, commanding in presence and 
 action, was it marvellous that Donna Isabella de 
 Bobadilla, though the daughter of the very earl 
 under whose banner he had first enlisted in the 
 ranks, one of the fairest ladies of Spain, of one of the 
 proudest and most powerful families, should yield 
 her heart to the irresistible soldier ? So fortune and 
 his merit won him his best — alas, that it was also his 
 latest boon ! — a loving, prudent and faithful wife. 
 
 And now could he not rest in that pleasant palace 
 at Seville, and buy him cornfields and vineyards and 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 
 
 25 
 
 olive plantations, and become a great lord? With 
 houses and lands and servants, friends and honor, 
 great connections and a good and noble wife, had he 
 not wherewith to be content ? But when did the lust 
 of fame or power or gold ever allow a man to be 
 content ? Here they united their spells, and De Soto 
 must find new worlds to conquer. Find them he did 
 — but finding and conquering are two things. So he 
 sought for and obtained the magnificent appointment 
 of captain-general for life of Cuba, Adelantado (civil 
 and military governor) of Florida ; and a marquisate 
 of thirty leagues by fifteen, in any part of the to-be- 
 conquered country. He is to imdertake the conquest 
 at his own expense, and to pay to the crown one fifth 
 of the treasure found. 
 
 And now comes the wonderful story of Alvar 
 IsTunez Cabeca de Yaca, like an additional demoniac 
 spell, to tempt this goodly knight. To be sure, the 
 treasurer of IS'arvaez brought home no treasure ; but 
 he threw out dark hints of the great wealth of the 
 land he had explored, and had indeed intended to 
 apply for the very adelantadoship which De Soto 
 had obtained. In default of this, he asked and 
 received the government of La Plata. 
 
 The imagination of De Soto, and of Spain, took 
 new fire. 
 
 The triumphs and trophies of Cortez and Pizarro 
 ehall be as nothing to his ; for what are Mexico and 
 
26 PIONEERS, PEEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 Peru to Florida! Poor Ponce de Leon ! thy fatal 
 legacy liatli fallen to another heir ! 
 
 Florida at that day embraced all the country lying 
 north of Mexico, extending upon its eastern coast 
 from Key West to the banks of Newfoundland ; so 
 that it embraced what we know as the United States 
 of America. E'eed we be sad that it was a woeful 
 heritage to the sons of Spain ? This land was held 
 in reserve for the scions of a nobler stock than 
 Charles Y. g0YerR.ed, and for a sublimer civilization 
 than Castile and Arragon were able to bestow upon 
 the world. 
 
 In fourteen months the armament is ready to 
 weigh anchor. Nine hundred and fifty men, the 
 best blood and chivalry of Spain, gay young knights 
 thirsting for distinction and wealth, well tried war- 
 riors from the fields of Africa and Peru, stout men at 
 arms, halberdiers, cross-bow men and arquebusiers 
 — more have come than the general can take. Men 
 have sold their patrimonial acres to furnish them- 
 selves for the campaign. Shall not every such 
 receive a hundred fold? One disposed of 60,000 
 reals "^ of rent ; one of a town of vassals ; Baltasar de 
 Gallegos, of " houses, and vineyards, and rent corne, 
 and ninetie rankes of Olive trees in the Xarafe of 
 Siuil.-' The usual difficulty in fitting out an expedi- 
 
 * Real, the Spanish silver coin, worth an eighth of a dollar. 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 27 
 
 tion to well-known and rich countries was to find 
 men. De Soto, bound to an unknown wilderness, 
 was unable to find vessels for the multitude of volun- 
 teers, and many of those who had sold their estates 
 for the sake of joining him, unable to find room on 
 board the fleet, w^ere forced to stay behind. 
 
 Amid the braying of trumpets and the roar of 
 artillery, the vivas of the beholders and the shouts of 
 the campaigners, the fleet of ten sail left the port of 
 San Lucar de Barrameda, April 6th, 1538. They 
 reached Cuba about the last of May, and here De 
 Soto spent a year in organizing the government, 
 and making preparations for his enterprise. 
 
 Cuba was noted for its noble breed of horses, 
 wherewith our gay cavaliers supplied themselves 
 amply ; and by way of putting themselves in trim for 
 the work before them, spent much time in tourna- 
 ments and bull-fights. The inhabitants of the island, 
 well-nigh crazed by excitement and the brave show, 
 flocked in throngs to the standard of De Soto. At 
 their head was Don Yasco Porcallo de Figueroa, a 
 doughty old warrior wdio had seen much severe ser- 
 vice in many parts of the world, and had now settled 
 down as a wealthy proprietor in the Queen of the 
 Antilles. As the horse smelleth the battle from afar, 
 so did this veteran. To show him due honor, the 
 Adelantado appointed him his lieutenant general. 
 
 The Portuguese narrator states that Don Yasco's 
 
23 PIONEERS, PEEACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 object was not glory, but Indians; whom he desired 
 to obtain in order to supply the places of those 
 whom toil and cruelty had slain in his mines and 
 upon his estates in Cuba. This purpose seems, 
 at least, consonant with the character of a Spanish 
 Cuban proprietor; and that his treatment of his 
 slaves was such as to require reinforcements to their 
 numbers, may appear from a quaint old story of his 
 steward. This steward, it seems, discovered that 
 certain of the Indian slaves, as was the sad custom of 
 their race, had agreed to meet at an appointed place 
 and kill themselves, to escape from their tormenting 
 taskmasters. So he repaired with a cudgel to the 
 rendezvous, and when the miserable heathen had 
 assembled, suddenly stepped among them and told 
 them that they could neither plan nor do anything 
 which he did not know before ; and that he had now 
 come to kill himself with them, in order that, in the 
 next world, he might treat them worse than in this. 
 The poor wretches believed him, and returned quietly 
 to their labor. 
 
 All things were at last settled, and leaving his 
 noble wife Donna Isabel to govern the island, De 
 Soto sailed from Havana, with mirthful pomp. May 
 18th, 1539. Already Juan de Anasco had made two 
 cruises, to discover an harbor in which to land. A 
 point was selected, and thither the fleet sailed. It 
 consisted of eight large vessels, a caravel, and two 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 29 
 
 brigantines, and contained a thousand men, besides 
 the sailors. Whitsunday, May 25th, they made a 
 convenient bay on the western or Gulf coast of 
 Florida, which, in honor of the day, was named 
 Espiritu Santo : it is now called Tampa Bay. ]N'o 
 sooner had they neared the shore than bale-fires 
 were seen blazing, far as the eye could reach : vast 
 columns of black smoke ascending, in token that the 
 Indians were preparing to receive them. Eight days 
 were taken to sound the bay, and then the debarka- 
 tion commenced. A slight sku-mish, in which the 
 natives were soon dispersed, was all that occurred to 
 impede them. 
 
 A march of two leagues brought them to the 
 deserted village of a chief named Hirrihigua, where, 
 on the capture of some of the natives, De Soto was 
 made acquainted with the horrible atrocities prac- 
 tised by his predecessor, K'arvaez. That worthy hav- 
 ing entered into solemn covenant with the cacique, 
 suddenly became enraged, at what no one could tell, 
 ordered the dogs to be let loose on the mother of 
 Hirrihigua, who was soon torn to pieces, and then 
 commanded the nose of the chief to be cut off. This 
 brutality had implanted in the breast of the Semi- 
 nole an undying hatred toward the Spaniard. To 
 all of De Soto's overtures he returned at first disdain 
 and then evasion. At this village, the stores for the 
 campaign were landed, and at the gathering of the 
 
30 PIOXEEES, 
 
 forces a strange medley did the muster show. A 
 thousand knights and soldiers, twelve priests, eight 
 other ecclesiastics, and four monks ; workers in wood 
 and iron, miners and assajers ; then three hundred 
 and fifty thorough-bred horses, three hundred hpgs 
 to stock the country, and packs of bloodhounds to 
 hunt the natives. There were matchlocks and cross- 
 bows, pikes, lances, and swords ; one piece of ord- 
 nance ; manacles and iron collars for their prisoners ; 
 and a store of baubles, as presents for those whom 
 they might wish to proj)itiate. Wine, bread, and 
 flour for the mass, were there ; and, lastly, cards for 
 gambling — which, by the way, was carried to excess, 
 men often losing the last article they possessed. 
 Stately knights, clad cap-d-jyie in burnished armor, 
 bestrode their prancing steeds, while all the com- 
 monalty were well protected with breast-plates, 
 bucklers, and helmets. There had been no stint of 
 money to supply all that experience could suggest or 
 that taste could hint as necessaries or luxuries in the 
 enterprise of conquest and colonization. 
 
 Rumors having reached the camp that a Spaniard 
 was living in a neighboring village, Baltazar Gal- 
 legos, a dauntless officer, was dispatched at the head 
 of sixty horsemen to secure him for an interpreter 
 and guide. As Baltazar and his troopers were 
 rapidly pushing on, they espied a company of In- 
 dians on the verge of a plain. The Spaniards, 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 31 
 
 anxious for a brush with the natives, manoeuvred to 
 attack them ; but all save two fled to the forest. 
 One of these two w^as wounded ; the other, at whom 
 Alvaro Nieto, one of the boldest troopers, was spur- 
 ring, danced from side to side, seeking to parry 
 Nieto's thrust with his bow, shouting the while, 
 " Seville, Seville !" hearing which, the trooper cried, 
 " Is your name Juan Ortiz ?" " Yes," was the 
 reply. Eeining up his horse, Alvaro caught the 
 other by the arm, raised him to the croup of his 
 saddle, and hurried in triumph to Baltazar. 
 
 Tlie story of Ortiz deserves a brief recital. Born 
 at Seville, " of worshipful parentage," he had joined 
 the expedition of E'arvaez, had returned to Cuba 
 with his vessels^, and had accompanied the expedition 
 which, ten years before, had put in at the bay of 
 Espiritu Santo, in search of his commander. It was 
 not long after the departure of that barbarian, and 
 while Hirrihigua was in the agony of his recent 
 wrongs, that, as the expedition was coasting along 
 the shore, a few Indians appeared, pointing to a let- 
 ter in a cleft reed, evidently left by N^arvaez. The 
 Spanirads invited them to bring it aboard. This 
 they refused ; but four of them, entering a canoe, 
 came off as hostages for any of the crew who might 
 go to fetch it. Four of the whites accordingly landed, 
 and were instantly set upon by a crowd of savages 
 who had been concealed in the thicket. The four 
 
82 PIONEEES, PEEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 hostages sprang into the sea, and swam ashore. The 
 crew, anticipating the fate of their companions, and 
 fearing the like for themselves, made sail w^ith all 
 speed. The captives were conveyed to the village, 
 and condemned to be shot, one at a time. Tlu'ce 
 were thus dealt with, and the fourth, Juan Ortiz, was 
 being led forth, when the wife and daughters of the 
 cacique, touched witli compassion at sight of his 
 youth and comeliness, interceded with Hirrihigua, 
 and gained a respite. His life was still a wretched 
 one, softened only by the watchful kindness of the 
 women, who once even rescued him after he had 
 been half burnt alive by order of his implacable 
 captor. At length, through their aid, he succeeded 
 in escaping to the village of Mocoso, a neighboring 
 chief, who treated him as if he had been a brother, 
 and protected him from all danger. Here he had 
 remained ever since, and was now residing ; nearly 
 naked, browned, painted, with a headdress of fea- 
 thers, so that one might not know him from a savage, 
 on an embassy from Mocoso to the camp of De Soto. 
 Great was the joy of the camj^ at the recovery of 
 Ortiz. The Adelantado received him as a son, gave 
 him all tliat heart could wish, and thenceforth he 
 became the interpreter of the expedition. 
 
 Meanwhile, Lieuten ant-General Don Yasco Por- 
 callo, whom we picked up in Cuba, testy and withal 
 vain-glorious, yet longing to distinguish himself, en- 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 33 
 
 treats to be sent in pursuit of Hirriliigua, that lie 
 may ferret him out of his swampy fastness, and 
 bring him, friend or prisoner, to camp. Despite 
 monitions, he sets off, dashes forward, and is only 
 arrested by a quagmire, where himself and horse are 
 in imminent jeopardy of being smothered. Con- 
 quered by the mire, he returns crestfallen to head- 
 quarters, venting curses upon the country, natives 
 and expedition. " May the devil fly away with the 
 country where they have such names!" quoth he. 
 " Let those fight in this accursed place for fame and 
 wealth who will. As for me, I have enough of both 
 to last me. So I will back to Cuba, and let the hot 
 bloods see it out." Thus does Don Yasco Porcallo 
 de Figueroa disappear from this story ; for, at his 
 request, De Soto sent him home. " The prudent 
 man foreseeth the danger, and hideth himself." 
 
 A strong garrison was left to protect the stores, 
 and the march commenced toward the northeast. 
 As they left the coast, the country improved, and 
 their way lay by pleasant cornfields, over grassy 
 plains, and through forests where the eye detected 
 many a tree familiar to them in the sunny groves of 
 dear old Castile. The wild grapes, too, whose clam- 
 bering vines festooned the branches, were grateful to 
 men who had grown u]3 among vineyards. Fifty 
 leagues brought them, however, to the marge of a 
 morass a league in width, and apparently impassable ; 
 
 2* 
 
34 PIONEEES, PKEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 and hereabouts the natives, although not attacking, 
 had concealed themselves, and were waiting o]3por- 
 tnnities for opening the war. A pass was at length 
 discovered, and after immense trouble, the army was 
 conveyed across. But here they were effectually 
 checked by deep lagoons and bayous that seemed 
 interminable. 
 
 Recrossing the swamp, in order to find a better 
 line of march for the army, De Soto, who was ever in 
 the van when difficulty pressed or danger threat- 
 ened, at the head of a picked corps made an exten- 
 sive tour of observation, and found what he sought. 
 But himself and men were near starving ; for three 
 days and nights they had little rest and less food. 
 Supplies must be had, and the army brought up. 
 Calling to him Gonzalo Silvestre, a bold young sol- 
 dier, '' To you," he said, " belongs the best horse, 
 therefore the harder work. Away, and hold not 
 bridle until you have reached the camp. Bring us 
 what we need and order the forces to join us. Be 
 back by to-morrow night." Without a word Silvestre 
 mounted and spurred away, calling to Juan Lopez, 
 De Soto's page, to follow. Neither of these stout 
 youths was one and twenty. Away over the twilight 
 plain they sped. Fifteen leagues, tired as they and 
 their steeds were, must be ridden that night. If 
 morning found them in the swamp, almost certain 
 death awaited them. Trusting more to the sagacity 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 35 
 
 of their horses than to their own management to find 
 the way on, throngh the thickening night rode onr 
 tired cavaliers ; the silence broken by the moan of 
 the cypress woods, the whir of a startled bird, the 
 croaking of the monstrous frogs, and the plash of 
 their horses' feet : and every now and then, as some 
 camp-fire blazed on an island in the mire, revealing 
 a party of savages engaged in feast or dance, a din as 
 of an infernal orchestra broke npon their ears. The 
 passage of a southern swamp is no easy feat at any 
 time ; but at night, by tw^o youths, surrounded by 
 hundreds of savage foes, it w^as an exploit worthy the 
 hardiest. I mention it here to show the mettle of 
 De Soto's troops. 
 
 Undismayed by sight or sound, they still pressed 
 forward until Lopez, grown reckless through fatigue 
 and want of sleep, threw himself upon the ground, 
 swearing he would go not a rood further until he had 
 slept. Silvestre had nothing for it but to submit. 
 Falling asleep himself in the saddle, he awoke to find 
 it broad day. Hastily rousing his companion they 
 started, but there was yet a league before them, 
 and the Indians were not long in descrying the two 
 horsemen and sounding the alarm. Forthwith the 
 woods swarmed with painted furies. Knowing there 
 was no resource left them but resolution and their 
 horses, they pushed on at a gallop, their mail defend- 
 in f]j them from the shafts of their enemies. The yells 
 
36 PIONEERS, PEEACIIERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 and war-cries of tlie savages at length readied tlie 
 camp, and thirty troopers rushed to their aid. Thus 
 did these brave youtlis reach their goal in safety. 
 
 Taking scarce an hour for rest, Silvestre was again 
 in the saddle at the head of thirty lancers conveying 
 two horseloads of supplies to the general; and not 
 long after nightfall had reached the spot where he 
 had left his commander the evenino; before. When 
 the main body came up, they found the commandant 
 encamped in the plain of Aguera, where maize was 
 growing in abundance. Here they rested after their 
 late privations. 
 
 The Seminoles had now commenced hostilities in 
 good earnest ; not indeed by pitched battle in the 
 open field, but by ambuscades lurking in every 
 thicket, picking off every little knot of Spaniards 
 incautious enough to stray from the camp or line of 
 march. ]N'evertheless they were all ardor to proceed, 
 for some natives whom they had captured, in reply 
 to their eager questions concerning the precious me- 
 tals, assured them that in Ocali, a country to the 
 northward, gold was so plenty that in war the people 
 wore head-pieces of it. 
 
 But Ocali is reached, and no gold is found ; only 
 a poor small town, empty of people. The main body 
 of the troops here came up with the commander, after 
 a difficult and hungry march ; making up for their 
 failing provisions by boiling a few beets which they 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 37 
 
 found here and there in the lields, and chewing the 
 young stems of the growing Indian corn. 
 
 After brief delay, they press forward to the domi- 
 nions of Yitachuco, a powerful chieftain, whose terri- 
 tories are fifty leagues across. After some days of 
 amity the Spaniards discover a perfidious plot to 
 destroy them. Yitachuco has ordered a grand review 
 of his warriors, ten thousand strong. At a signal 
 twelve of his braves are to seize De Soto and the 
 massacre is to commence. Trusting to take the Span- 
 iards unaware, they deem their destruction easy. 
 But forewarned, forearmed. Yitachuco is seized and 
 the Spaniards charge the hordes of natives with head- 
 long valor, mowing hundreds of them down upon the 
 plain, whilst masses fly to adjoining lakes to swim for 
 their lives. One of these lakes, wherein is the flower 
 of Yitachuco's army, is surrounded by the troops, and 
 although they ofi'er quarter, not a savage will submit. 
 I^ight comes on ; the lake shore is vigilantly patrolled. 
 By daylight flfty have yielded ; and at ten o'clock of 
 the morning, after they had been in the water twenty- 
 four hours, all the rest save seven come ashore. 
 These hold out until three o'clock, when De Soto, un- 
 willing that such steadfast valor should find a watery 
 grave, sends twenty expert swimmers after them, 
 who drag them to land more dead than alive. "When 
 questioned, after their recovery, by the Adelantado, 
 why they held out so stubbornly, four of them replied 
 
38 PIONEERS, PKEACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 that they were captains, and that such should never 
 surrender. The other three, neither of whom was 
 over eighteen years of age, replied that they were 
 sons of neighboring caciques, and would be caciques 
 themselves some day, and that it did not behoove 
 such to be guilty of cowardice. This was the 
 indomitable spirit of the men De Soto came to con- 
 quer. 
 
 The warriors of Yitachuco were reduced to slavery ; 
 still the untamed spirit of that chief revolved a plan 
 for the extermination of the hated invaders. Com- 
 municating his scheme secretly, it was soon known to 
 all his braves. On the third day, while the Indians 
 were waiting on their masters at dinner, at the sound 
 of his war-whoop they were to attack their oppressors 
 with whatever they could lay hands on, and at once 
 destroy them. At the aj)pointed time, Yitachuco, 
 who was seated near De Soto, sjDrang upon him 
 and bore him to the earth, dealing him such a blow 
 in the face as brought the blood in streams from 
 nose, mouth, and eyes. Eaising his arm for another 
 blow, w^hich would have been death to the Adelan- 
 tado, he gav^e the whoop, which could be heard for a 
 quarter of a league. At that critical moment a dozen 
 swords and lances pierced him, and he fell lifeless to 
 the earth. At the signal, his warriors fell upon their 
 masters with pots, kettles, pestles and stools, and 
 such arms as they could seize. But they were soon 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 39 
 
 overpowered, for they fought in chains. Thns per- 
 ished Yitachuco, and with him, in all, thirteen hundred 
 of his brave warriors. Some of those slain performed 
 extraordinary feats of valor. One, who was being led 
 to the market-place to be murdered after the fight, 
 first lifted up his master above his head and fiung 
 him down so that he was stunned, then seized his 
 sword, and, in the words of the Portuguese narrative, 
 though " inclosed between fifteen or twenty footmen, 
 made way like a bull, with the sword in his hand, 
 until certain halberdiers of the governor came, which 
 killed liim." Of the Indians who remained alive 
 after the strife was over, about two hundred in num- 
 ber, some were given as slaves to those w^ho had the 
 best claim, and the rest were shot to death in cold 
 blood, by the archers of De Soto's guard, or by the 
 Indian allies. 
 
 And here it may be well to say a word, once for 
 all, of the treatment of the Indians by De Soto and 
 his men. This was such as excuses these high-spi- 
 rited barbarians a thousand times over for their con- 
 stant and unflinching enmity to the Spaniards, and 
 for all the savage arts used to oppose the invaders. 
 As De Soto went from nation to nation, he was ac- 
 customed to demand the services of large numbers of 
 Indians as porters. Four thousand at one time were 
 thus employed in transporting the baggage. This 
 servile drudgery was sufiiciently intolerable to the 
 
4:0 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 warriors of the woods. But the Christians were ac- 
 customed to make occasional expeditions for the ex- 
 press purpose of procuring, not friendly porters, hut 
 slaves to labor in chains. A hundred, including men 
 and women, were thus talvcn in a single expedition, a 
 little after the death of Yitachuco. These were led by 
 irons about their necks, and were made to carry bag- 
 gage, grind maize, and serve their Spanish masters in 
 all things which a captive might do. Although the 
 superior arms of the Spaniards enabled them to retain 
 many of these captives, of whom some even accom- 
 panied the remains of the expedition to Mexico, yet 
 their stubborn and revengeful spirit gave their cap- 
 tors constant annoyance. Sometimes, as one was led 
 in chains to labor, he slew the Christian who led him 
 and ran away with his gyves ; others filed their fet- 
 ters through by night with a stone, and thus escaped. 
 They undoubtedly gave all the information in their 
 power to their countrymen in the woods, which must 
 have aided them materially in their desperate attacks 
 upon the Spaniards. 
 
 De Soto, after the death of Yitachuco, bent his 
 steps westward through the province of Osachile, 
 where they still found their path infested by hostile 
 savages, who stoutly contested every step of the way. 
 At one broad morass, in particular, probably that at 
 the head of the Estauhatchee Eiver, in the middle of 
 which was a lagoon half a league wide, the Indians 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 41 
 
 made a resolute stand. The path downward through 
 the tangled, swampy forest, would admit of but two 
 abreast, and was cleared under water to the same 
 breadth, until the lagoon w^as too deep to be forded. 
 This deep centre was passed by a slender and perilous 
 bridge of logs tied together, and on the other side 
 the same narrow, dangerous path ascended through 
 another tangled, swampy forest. Just beyond this 
 morass, the Indians had impeded a large extent of 
 woods by felling logs and tying and interlacing them 
 among the standing trees, upon a piece of ground 
 very near where, ten years before, they had defeated 
 Narvaez. After three days of dangerous and most 
 fatiguing fighting, up to their waists in water, and 
 afterward in the barricaded forests filled with their 
 yelling, invisible foes, the wearied Spaniards forced a 
 way through into a region less beset, and at length 
 reached the chief village in the fertile and populous 
 province of Appalache, near Tallahassee, where they 
 took up their winter quarters. A scouting party dis- 
 covered the sea at no great distance, and found the 
 bay of Ante, from which the unfortunate I^arvaez 
 had embarked. On the solitary coast were yet to be 
 seen the coals of his forges, the skulls of his horses, 
 and the troughs where he had fed them. The intre- 
 pid Juan de Aiiasco was now dispatched, with thirty 
 troopers, to Pedro Calderon, who had been left in 
 command at the village of Hirrihigua, to order Jiim 
 
42 
 
 to join the general with his men and supplies. The 
 enterprise was beset with difficulties from which 
 the boldest might shrink. To traverse a country 
 peopled by a warlike race, whose undying antipathy 
 to the Spaniards had been aroused, to thread a maze 
 which had w^ell-nigh proved fatal to the main army, 
 was a task which might well have made the stout- 
 est quail. But, notwithstanding incredible hard- 
 ships and ]3eril, the dauntless Juan succeeded. Pe- 
 dro Calderon joined the army, and the two brigan- 
 tines were brought around from Espiritu Santo to 
 the Bay of Ante. These, exploring the coast west- 
 ward, discovered the bay of Achusi, now Pensacola. 
 Appointing this as a rendezvous, De Soto ordered 
 Maldinado to sail for Cuba, and to return with 
 supplies. 
 
 At Appalache, or as it is also named, Anaica Appa- 
 lache, not far from Tallahassee, De Soto went into 
 quart- rs for the winter. The number of his men, 
 his careful strengthening of his defences, and the pre- 
 cautions which he took, enabled him to repel the in- 
 cessant attacks of the natives, who, however, kept 
 him in constant watchfulness, and picked off every 
 Spaniard who strayed from the camp. As a means 
 of preventing these attacks, he succeeded in obtain- 
 ing possession of Capaii, the chief of Appalache, a 
 man so fat that he could not walk; but after a short 
 time, the cunning old chief crawled away on his 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 
 
 43 
 
 hands and knees from his guards while they were 
 sleeping, and was never retaken. The hardy and 
 fearless Spaniards, however, now well experienced in 
 Indian warfare, kept watch and ward, repelled all 
 attacks, and maintained themselves through the 
 winter in comparative comfort. 
 
 And now the second year of the expedition opens 
 upon them. The land is in the bloom of spring. The 
 new-born leaves seem to clap their hands in joy, as 
 they dally with the soft south breeze ; the sward is tuft- 
 ed with flowers of every hue ; the air is flooded with 
 the mocking-bird's rich and ever changeful song ; the 
 tender blade cleaves the mold ; and all the land is 
 gay in the garments of the opening tropic year. Will 
 not this man take her as a bride from God ? Kay ! 
 unless she has yellow treasure on her breast. A yel- 
 low grave shalt thou have, Hernando de Soto ! but no 
 
 gold ! 
 
 The captives tell them of Cofachiqui, a region to the 
 northeast, where the precious earth can be had in 
 plenty; their reports, doubtless, referring to the Geor- 
 gia and South Carolina gold fields, which other au- 
 thorities prove to have been early worked by the In- 
 dians. 
 
 Accompanied on part of their route by four thou- 
 sand friendly Indians sent by the chief of Cofaqui to 
 carry the baggage, and by as many more, under 
 Patofa, the war-chief of Cofaqui, as escort ; with vari- 
 
44 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 ous lot of hospitable welcome from friendly natives, 
 and threatened starvation in immense pine barrens ; 
 now in lonely devouring bogs, and then in fertile and 
 cultivated tracts ; here feasting in the midst of plenty, 
 there famishing in deserts of sand under the pine 
 trees, that ofier them nothing but a tomb — thus they 
 cross the present State of Georgia diagonally from 
 southwest to northeast, until they strike the Savan- 
 nah Eiver at Silver Bluff. On the opposite side was 
 the town of Cofachiqiii, where ruled a youthful 
 queen of rare grace and beauty. Gliding across the 
 river in a canoe, attended by her principal men, she 
 gave the strangers a courteous welcome, presenting 
 to De Soto a j)earl necklace a yard and a half in 
 length. Commanding her subjects to provide canoes 
 and rafts, the army was transported across the 
 river. 
 
 Here the host remained encamped for some weeks, 
 in friendly intercourse with this peaceful and hospit- 
 able nation. In the tombs of their ancestors the 
 Indians showed them vast treasures of pearls, com- 
 puted to be not less than fourteen bushels, of which 
 De Soto, though invited to take them all, preferred to 
 select only a small number, leaving the remainder for 
 a subsequent expedition. Here also, in a depository 
 of Indian weapons annexed to a place of burial, they 
 found a Spanish dagger and coat of mail, evidently 
 the relics of the expedition of Lucas Yasquez 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 4:5 
 
 De Ayllon, which had come to an end so sorrowful 
 and so well deserved, fifteen years before. 
 
 After a time, there came rumors of gold from the 
 west; and bearing their specimen pearls, and inhos- 
 pitably rewarding good with evil by seizing their 
 beautiful and generous young hostess, in order that 
 her authority might secure them good treatment and 
 safety on the road, they march across the southern 
 end of the Alleghany range to northwestern Georgia. 
 On the road, the princess of Cofachiqui escaped, 
 carrying a little treasure of valuable pearls. Travel- 
 ling onward, they arrive at Chiaha, where they find 
 a pot of honey, the first and last seen by the expedi- 
 tion, and the only honey mentioned, it is believed, as 
 existing within the limits of the United States before 
 its settlement by the whites, who are usually sup- 
 posed to have introduced the bee.* Questioning the 
 chief of Chiaha, if he " had notice of any rich coun- 
 trie," the Indian said that at Chisca, toward the north, 
 there was copper, and another finer and softer metal. 
 De Soto sends two envoys with Indian guides to find 
 the place ; but they return with no gold, and with 
 news of none, bearing a bufi'alo hide for their only 
 prize, l^ext they travel through the great province 
 of Cosa, supplied by the inhabitants with porters for 
 the baggage, and with provisions. Resting in one 
 
 * Peter Martyr says that the Mexicans had both honey and way. 
 (Decades of the Ocean, Dec. 5, cap. 10.) 
 
40 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 place twentj days, and twenty-five in another, tliey 
 pass througli this, the goodliest land they have yet 
 seen, and bending southward, march by Talli&e, 
 through the territory now called Alabama, toward 
 the capital of a great chief called Tuscaloosa, whom 
 they meet upon the border of his dominions, near the 
 present city of Montgomery. Tuscaloosa, or Black 
 "Warrior, a chieftain of a tribe probably the Choctaws, 
 was the mightiest cacique in all this region ; ruling 
 apparently over a great part of the present States of 
 Alabama and Mississippi. He was so tall that when 
 mounted upon the largest horse in the army, his feet 
 nearly touched the ground. He was eminently 
 handsome, although grave, stern, haughty and repel- 
 lant in demeanor. This magnificent chief, who was 
 born to rule, received De Soto, sitting upon a simple 
 wooden throne, and shaded by the broad round 
 standard of painted deerskin which was his ensign in 
 war. With a laconic welcome, he set out to guide 
 the Spanish commander to his capital, Mauvila, or 
 Maubila, situated ten days' march to the southward ; 
 a reminiscence of whose name exists in that of the 
 city of Mobile. To insure good treatment from the 
 natives, after his custom, De Soto surrounded the 
 Black Warrior w^ith a guard, professedly of honor, 
 but really to hold him as a hostage. This the proud 
 chief at once discovered; but betrayed no sign of dis- 
 pleasure. At length, within a day's march of 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 47 
 
 Maubila, De Soto with a hundred horse and a hun- 
 dred foot, accompanied by Tuscaloosa, pushed for- 
 ward to the capital, leaving the remainder of the 
 force to be brought up by Luis de Moscoso, master 
 of the camp. The Adelantado apprehended that 
 danger threatened at Mauvila, and was in haste to 
 resolve his doubt. Reaching the town early in the 
 morning, he found it a walled place. A stockade of 
 great tree trunks had been formed, transverse beams 
 had been lashed to these by means of vines, and over 
 all was a stucco of mud hardened in the sun. At 
 every fifty paces were towers on the walls, capable 
 of holding eight bowmen. Many of the trees in the 
 stockade had survived transplanting, and were in full 
 leaf, giving to the fortification a strange beauty. The 
 houses were built on broad streets, and although but 
 eighty in number were yet so large that each would 
 hold a thousand persons. In the centre was a great 
 public square. The town was built in the midst of a 
 plain, finely situated upon a noble blufi* of the Ala- 
 bama River, whose peaceful current was seen in the 
 distance gliding between beautiful banks. The 
 other margin of the plain was skirted by a forest. 
 !N'ear the western wall was a beautiful limpid lake. 
 
 In obedience to the orders of Tuscaloosa, booths 
 had been erected outside the walls for the accommo- 
 dation of the army, while the chief house of the town 
 had been set apart for De Soto and his oflicers. 
 
48 PIONEEES, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 Alighting, the proud chief moved haughtily off 
 toward his peoj^le, to see, as he said, that all was in 
 readiness for his guests. ]^ot returning, and the 
 houses seeming to be filled with warriors and young 
 girls — many of whom were exceedingly beautiful — 
 but no old people or children appearing, De Soto's 
 apprehensions were quickened. Desirous of regain- 
 ing the person of Tuscaloosa, he sent Juan Ortiz to 
 announce that the Adelantado was waiting breakfast 
 for the chief. Thrice was the message sent, but no 
 chief appeared. At last a w^arrior, quitting one of 
 the houses, shouted a threatening defiance to the 
 Spaniards. Baltazar de Gallegos, who was near at 
 hand, cut him down. The warrior's son attempting 
 to avenge him, shared his fate. And now began the 
 fierht in frigihtful earnest. Indians swarmed from 
 every lodge, and the earth seemed suddenly covered 
 with. them. De Soto and his men, fighting despe- 
 rately, fell back outside the walls to where the horses 
 were picketed. Gaining these, they flung themselves 
 into the saddle and fiercely charged the foe. Back- 
 ward and forward swept the tide of battle. Some- 
 times, driven by flights of deadly arrows, the Span- 
 iards retreat to the edge of the forest. Then rallying, 
 they come thundering down, with the war cry " San- 
 tiago and our Lady," upon the hordes of naked 
 savages awaiting them. These, borne down by the 
 terrible shock, retreat to the walls and close the 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 49 
 
 ponderous gates, but send clouds of deadly missiles 
 against their enemies. Hour after hour does the bat- 
 tle rage. The mail, the weapons and the discipline 
 of the Spaniards give them a fearful advantage 
 against the naked bodies and undrilled array of the 
 savages ; but the odds of numbers are overwhelming, 
 two hundred against thousands — for Moscoso has not 
 arrived. He and his men loiter in the shady glades, 
 picking grapes and flowers, singing songs of dear old 
 Castile, light of heart that they shall soon hear ncAvs 
 from Cuba and receive abundant supplies — for it is 
 now October, the month in which Maldinado is to be 
 at Pensacola, and hence to that place is less than 
 thirty leagues. As thus they loiter through the plea- 
 sant woods, the sunny river peeping every now and 
 then between the branches, the land seemed as 
 lovely as the valley of the Xenil, outspread beneath 
 the towers of the Alhambra. 
 
 But suddenly the distant sound of trumpet-calls, 
 and shouts and savage war-cries are faintly heard, far 
 in front ; and soon they discern a column of smoke 
 slowly rising into the air in the distance. There is a 
 battle ! 
 
 The word is passed along the line ; stragglers fall 
 in, and at a rapid pace come up the reinforcements. 
 The battle rages with redoubled fury ; the Spaniards 
 dash at the gates and force them. The streets and 
 the square are filled with combatants and corpses. 
 3 
 
50 PIONEEES, PKEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 The Christian's war-cry joins with the deafening 
 shout of the Indians. They fall like grain before the 
 mower's scythe nnder the swords and lances of their 
 foemen ; yet no one cries for quarter. The only tar- 
 gets which the steel clad Spaniards offer the Indian 
 archers is mouth and eyes and the joints of the 
 armor. The Indian women join their husbands and 
 lovers in the fight, and are the fiercest of the throng. 
 Everywhere De Soto is seen in the thickest of the 
 melee. Kising in his stirrups to deal a fatal blow, an 
 arrow strikes him in the thigh through the openings of 
 his armor. Tlienceforth he fights standing in his stir- 
 rups. But the Spaniards have fired the town, and the 
 flames spread fearfully, enwrapping every dwelling. 
 As their forked tongues lapped^up Maubila and 
 its brave people, the sun, hidden by clouds of 
 smoke, was casting a sickly glare from behind 
 the tree-tops. The tragedy is finished, l^ine hours 
 did the battle rage. At least five thousand Indians 
 are slain. "Nov is the plight of the Spaniards envi- 
 able. Eighty-two of their best w^arriors have fallen, 
 while among the survivors seventeen hundred griev- 
 ous wounds are distributed, and there is but one 
 surgeon in the camp, and he unskilled. Forty-two 
 horses, mourned as companions and friends, are slain. 
 All the camp furniture, baggage and supplies, the 
 pearls and trophies of savage wealth which had 
 been placed in the houses or carelessly cast down 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 51 
 
 about the walls, are consumed ; and worst of all, the 
 wlieaten flour and wine, preserved with sedulous 
 care for the Eucharist, are burned also. 
 
 A dismal night, indeed, was that after the battle 
 of Maubila. Numbers of the wounded died before 
 their hurts could be attended to. Eight days they 
 remained, attending on the disabled, in wretched 
 sheds within the town; and then, carrying them to 
 huts constructed on the open ground without, they 
 remained twenty days longer, ere the troops are in 
 marching order, having recovered from the wounds 
 of the battle, and measurably from a strange disease, 
 occasioned by want of salt. This commenced with 
 fever and speedily corrupted the whole body, end- 
 ing, after three or four days, in a fatal mortification 
 of the intestines. The use of the ashes of a certain 
 plant was a preventive of this disorder ; yet it de- 
 stroyed, says Garcilasso de la Yega, as many as sixty 
 of the Spaniards in one year. 
 
 But whither shall they go ? Intelligence has 
 reached the camp that Arias and Maldinado are 
 arrived at Ochus, their appointed rendezvous, but 
 seven days' march to the southeast, with provisions 
 and supplies for founding a colony. At first, De 
 Soto is filled with joy, for he sees at hand the means 
 of establishing the settlement which he has always 
 designed to make the headquarters for his further 
 search after gold. But he is told that the army is 
 
62 PIONEERS, PEEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 full of murmurs at their endless and profitless hard- 
 ships, and that his leaders and men are proposing to 
 seize the opportunity, and sail for Mexico or Peru. 
 There is gold for him who can win it ; here are only 
 toil, wounds, danger, disease, death. The Adelantado 
 sees that, once at the seacoast, his army will desert 
 him. ITo new troops will undertake an enterprise 
 already branded with failure ; and he has no second 
 vast fortune to embark in the undertaking. He has 
 staked his all on this one throw — ^fortune, fame, 
 hope, honor, life. Shall he now slink back to Cuba, 
 a hundred of his brave companions dead, poor in 
 purse, vanquished by the poverty and the savage- 
 ness of these wild forests and grassy savannas? 
 These bitter reflections drive him to a desperate 
 resolution, which he seems here deliberately to have 
 formed, and silently to have adhered to until just 
 before his death ; namely, to send home no news of 
 himself until he had found the rich regions which he 
 had set out to seek. And, as if he had at the same 
 time been hopeless of success, and acted merely in 
 shame and desperation, his demeanor was thence- 
 forth changed. Always stern and reserved, he grows 
 now moody, silent, savage. The word of command 
 is given, and the line of march resumed to the north- 
 west, back into the wild forests, away from ships and 
 home. And none dare demand a reason from the 
 gloomy and severe commander 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 63 
 
 They resumed their march Sunday, Nov. 18, 1540. 
 Crossing the Black Warrior and Tombigbee rivers, 
 they at length reached the heart of the Chickasaw 
 country, in the northwestern part of Mississippi, 
 where it was determined to winter in a village called 
 Chicasa. De Soto, on one occasion, treated the 
 natives to hog meat, whereupon they acquired such 
 a taste for it that his pig-pens were constantly 
 invaded. He punished some of the hog-thieves 
 severely, and this, together with the robberies and 
 assaults committed upon the persons and property 
 of the Chickasaws, kindled the wrath of that warlike 
 people, and they determined upon summary revenge. 
 They attacked the village at night, firing the houses, 
 and succeeded for a time in throwing the Spaniards 
 into confusion. Many of the latter were slain, 
 together with a number of horses, which were more 
 dreaded than the Spaniards themselves. But the 
 natives were routed, with great loss, before daylight. 
 It was, however, a victory dearly purchased, for the 
 Spaniards lost forty men, fifty horses, and three 
 hundred of their four hundred swine, besides nearly 
 all their remaining clothes and effects ; and were left 
 in such evil plight, that, had the Indians attacked 
 them again the next night, they must have won an 
 easy victory. Attributing this damaging surprise to 
 the negligence of the camp-master, Luis de Moscoso, 
 who had already been so dilatory at the battle of 
 
64 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 Manbila, De Soto deposed him, and appointed Bal- 
 tasar de Gallegos in his stead. Removing to Chic- 
 kasilla, a league distant, the Spaniards erected a 
 forge, and re-tempered their swords which had been 
 much injured by the fire, made saddles, horse-furni- 
 ture, and lances, and wove mats of the long grass to 
 shield them from the cold, which in March was still 
 piercing. These mats, in their future wayfarings, 
 served a valuable purpose, as bucklers, to protect 
 them from the arrows of their enemies. At Chicka- 
 silla they wintered, amid cold and snow, and in great 
 want of clothing. 
 
 As the spring of the third year of the expedition 
 opened, the fierce Chickasaws renewed their attacks, 
 but were repulsed ; and on the 25th of April, the 
 army set forward for a third summer of wandering 
 after gold, marching northwestward. At the for- 
 tress of Alibamo, on one of the head branches of the 
 Yazoo, the Indians made a resolute stand. But the 
 invincible Spaniards took it by storm, and put to the 
 Bword all who fell into their hands. Hence to the 
 northwestern corner of Mississippi, or the south- 
 western of Tennessee, they journeyed, through dark 
 forests and deep swamps, until they struck a mighty 
 river, which they named Rio Grande. Alvar Nunez 
 and the survivors of the expedition of JSTarvaez must 
 have crossed it much lower down ; but we are accus- 
 tomed to name De Soto as the first European who 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 55 
 
 set foot on tlie banks of tlie Mississippi — for this was 
 their Eio Grande. 
 
 In April, 1541, they stood npon the bluffs which 
 overlook that sublime stream, rushing from the icy 
 regions of the north to a summer sea. This was the 
 pioneer pilgrimage of European civilization to its 
 banks, the advanced guard of that innumerable mul- 
 titude which was here to be gathered together to 
 make another attempt at solving the problem of 
 man's relation to the earth, his neighbor and his 
 God. 
 
 Building boats, they crossed the river, and after 
 four days' march into the wilderness beyond, came 
 to the village of Casqui, or Casquin, supposed to 
 have been inhabited by the Kaskaskias Indians, 
 afterward settled in Illinois. This village was in a 
 province also called Casqui, and governed by a 
 cacique of the same name. The chief inhabited a 
 village about seven leagues further on, whei'e he 
 hospitably received the army, and provided it with 
 provisions and quarters. 
 
 During the encampment here, the chief suppli- 
 cated De Soto to pray to his God for rain, which was 
 much needed. Hereupon the Spanish commander 
 caused a vast cross to be erected, in a commanding 
 situation, on a lofty hill near the river, and conse- 
 crated it by a solemn religious ceremony, in which 
 both Spaniards and Indians joined. Then De Soto 
 
66 PIONEERS, PEEACHEE8 AND PEOPLE 
 
 endeavored to make Casqui understand how prayers 
 should be offered to the one invisible God, and 
 related to him the life and sufferings of Christ. 
 
 As the intonations of the Litany, and the solemn 
 strains of Te Deum laudamus rose upon the air, the 
 children of the forest took up the strain, with plain- 
 tive voice and uplifted eyes, invoking the white 
 man's God. Here, then, upon the shore of the 
 Father of Waters, in the northeastern corner of Ar- 
 kansas, was the symbol of our religion first planted, 
 eighty years before a Puritan had touched the rock at 
 Plymouth. And as if to substantiate the instructions 
 of the Spanish commander, a plenteous shower of 
 rain came down that very night. 
 
 De Soto delayed some days in the village of Cas- 
 qui, and then set out northward, for the village of 
 Pacaha or Capaha, who was at feud with Casqui, and 
 whom the latter trusted to destroy by means of the 
 Spaniards. He accompanied the latter, with his 
 warriors, for that purpose ; and did actually destroy 
 numbers of his people, and laid waste his town. 
 But De Soto, on his arrival, at once put a stop to 
 these proceedings, and, after considerable difficulty, 
 induced Pacaha to return home, and issued orders 
 that none should do any injury to the inhabitants of 
 the province or to their possessions. In this place he 
 rested forty days, during which he sent two men to a 
 hill country, forty leagues westward, where, the 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. '67 
 
 Indians said, tliere was mncTi salt, and much yellow 
 metal. Tliej retm^ned, in eleven days, with a quan- 
 tity of rock salt and some copper, but no gold. The 
 Lidians also said that northward, and beyond the line 
 of their exploring trip, the country was cold, barren 
 and overrun with buffaloes. 
 
 De Soto, therefore, resolved to return to the village 
 of Casqui, and thence to strike southward for a coun- 
 try which the Indians called Quigaute, and repre- 
 sented as extensive and wealthy. Here he remained 
 a little time, and then, turning westward, entered 
 upon that long and dreary circuit in the regions of 
 the Arkansas and Eed Elvers, which at last brought 
 him back to the shores of the Mississippi, to die. 
 He passed through Coligoa, at the foot of a moun- 
 tain, beyond which he fancied there might be gold ; 
 came to Palisema, in the country of Cay as ; to Tunica, 
 where were found salt lakes, from which the army 
 furnished itself with a quantity of good salt ; to Tula 
 or Tulla, whose inhabitants, differing from all they 
 had met before, were exceedingly ill-looking, hav- 
 ing immense heads, artificially narrowed at the top, 
 and faces horribly tattooed ; whose ferocity was 
 more brutal and untamable than that of any race 
 they had met before, and who could not be ter- 
 rified by threats and slaughter, nor cajoled by gifts. 
 Thence they marched to Utiangue or Autiamque, 
 where, fortifying part of a large village, the forlorn 
 
 3* 
 
58 PIONEERS, PEEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 Spanish liost went into winter-qnarters for the third 
 time. The cold was severe, the snow deep, and the 
 attacks of the savages incessant ; but as food and 
 fuel were plentiful, the condition of the troops was 
 on the whole quite comfortable. 
 
 In Autiamque died Juan Ortiz, the interpreter — 
 an irreparable loss to De Soto, who thenceforth 
 found very great difficulties in maintaining even a 
 circuitous and obscure intercourse with the natives. 
 
 "When the spring returned, there remained, of the 
 magnificent host of a thousand men, only three hun- 
 dred soldiers, besides non-combatants ; and of three 
 hundred and fifty horses, only forty, and many of 
 these lame and useless, and all unshod during the 
 year past, for want of iron. Fatigue, sickness, priva- 
 tion, and the weapons of the fierce savages of theMo- 
 bilian and Muscogee races, had destroyed the rest. 
 And even this scanty remainder were destitute and 
 discouraged. The disastrous fires of Maubila and 
 Chicasa had devoured clothing, arms, and wealth. 
 They were now dressed in skins, and their weapons 
 were, in many cases, such as they had wrought out 
 themselves. His goodly armament thus worn out 
 and wasted in endless hostilities with the savages, 
 and thus rapidly diminishing, and his hopes of gold 
 so long disappointed, even the obstinate and perse- 
 vering courage and hopefulness of De Soto began to 
 fail ; and he at length decided to return to the Mis- 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 69 
 
 sissippi, fortify himself there, build vessels, and send 
 to Cuba for snj)plies and men. 
 
 The troops accordingfy set forward from Auti- 
 amqne on Monday, March 6, 1542, being now the 
 fourth year of their wanderings ; and going through 
 Ayas, or Ayays, and Tultelpina, reached Amilco, capi- 
 tal of the province of that name, and standing in the 
 midst of a country more fertile and populous than 
 any they had yet seen, except Cosa and Appalache. 
 Hence they proceeded to Guachoya, on the Missis- 
 sippi, apparently at the mouth of the Arkansas, 
 where De Soto proposed to establish himself and 
 build his vessels. 
 
 Setting the necessary preparations on foot, De Soto, 
 having heard of a certain powerful chieftain called 
 Quigalta, or Quigaltanqui, ruling a vast province on 
 the opposite side of the Great River, sent an embassy 
 to him, to say that he, De Soto, was the child of the 
 sun ; that all men along his road had hitherto obeyed 
 and served him ; and requiring Quigalta to accept 
 his friendship and come to him, bringing something 
 valuable in token of love and obedience. But the 
 chief dryly and sourly answered, that if De Soto 
 were the child of the sun, he might dry up the river, 
 and he would believe him ; and as to the rest of the 
 message, that he was wont to visit nobody, but that 
 all were wont to visit him, and pay tribute to him. 
 Tliat, therefore, if De Soto desired to see him, it was 
 
60 PIONEERS, PKEACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 best that he should cross the river himself and come ; 
 that if he came in peace, he should be received with 
 special good will ; but if in war, he, Quigalta, would 
 wait for him in the same place, and would not shrink 
 one foot back for him or any other. 
 
 But when the messenger came back with this keen 
 and haughty reply, the Adelantado was already on a 
 sick-bed, confined with a slow fever. Ill as he was, 
 he was irritated at the bold savage, and still more 
 that he was unable to cross the river and seek him, 
 to abate his pride. But the Indians were so nume- 
 rous and so fierce, his own forces now so reduced, and 
 the current of the vast river so furious and dangerous^ 
 that he was fain to think upon fair means, instead of 
 foul. 
 
 And even while lying here, sick and discouraged, 
 while the fever grew upon him, De Soto performed 
 an action most characteristic of the deliberate, bloody- 
 minded, brutal carelessness with which the Spaniards 
 of that day regarded the Indians. Many reports 
 came in of proposed attacks upon the camp, some- 
 times from one side of the river, sometimes from the 
 other. In order, therefore, to intimidate the tribes 
 about him, De Soto determined to devote one of 
 them to destruction, and accordingly, sending a suffi- 
 cient force, surprised the town of Amilco. The fierce 
 troopers burst into this j)eaceful and unsuspecting 
 village, with orders not to spare the life of any male ; 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 61 
 
 and not only was tins cruel order fulfilled, but sun- 
 dry of the soldiers slew all wlio came in their way, 
 though the surprise was so complete that not an 
 arrow was shot at any Christian. This savage butch- 
 ery was an astonishment even to the Indian allies 
 who accompanied the troops, and served no good 
 turn ; and it was afterward noticed that those most 
 active in it showed themselves cowards where true 
 valor was needed, and that shameful deaths were 
 visited on them in retribution. 
 
 But all the earthly projects of De Soto now 
 drew to a close. Deeply feeling his fatal error in 
 wandering so far from the sea, grieved at the losses 
 and sufferings of his men, harassed with anxious fore- 
 bodings as to the future, and his powerful frame at 
 last undermined and shattered by the destructive cli- 
 matic fever, he now sinks rapidly ; and helpless and 
 liopeless, one of the noblest cavaliers of the age lies 
 dying in a rude Indian wigwam. Instead of gaining 
 vast treasures, he has lost them, and found no more. 
 Instead of founding an empire, he has exterminated a 
 savage tribe or two, but has scarcely retained his au- 
 thority over the relics of his small and shattered army. 
 Instead of winning world-wide renown, he has dis- 
 appeared from view in those vast western wilder- 
 nesses, and for years has not even been heard of by 
 Christian men. A sad and disastrous close for an expe- 
 dition whose outset was so splendid and so hopeful I 
 
62 
 
 And now liis last hour draws nigh, and with the 
 steady courage of a soldier and a Christian, for such 
 he was to the best of his ability, whatever were his 
 faults, Hernando de Soto calmly prepares to close up 
 all worldly transactions, and to die. He makes his 
 will ; requests his officers to elect a captain to suc- 
 ceed him, and when they, in turn, desire him to 
 choose, appoints Luis Moscoso de Alvarado, remem- 
 bering only the virtues and ability of that captain, 
 and no longer preserving anger for the errors for 
 which he had removed him from his place of camp- 
 master. He causes the officers and troops to swear 
 obedience to their new leader, and then, calling them 
 to him by twos and threes, and the soldiers by twen- 
 ties and thirties, thanks them for their love and loy- 
 alty to him, expressing his regret at leaving them 
 unremunerated for all their toils ; charges them to 
 remain at peace with each other, and asks pardon for 
 any wrong or offence of which he may have been 
 guilty toward them ; and so, with tenderness, he bids 
 them all farewell. Thus, resigning his soul to God, 
 and confessing his sins, three years absent from Donna 
 Isabella, and in the forty-third year of his age, on the 
 21st of May, 1542, perished in the wilderness, Her- 
 nando de Soto. 
 
 Anxious to conceal his death from the natives, and 
 thus to preserve the spell of his name, his companions, 
 with whispered prayers, and silent but fast-falling 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 63 
 
 tears, buried him in tlie darkness in a pit, near tlie 
 village of Gnaclioya, where they were encamped. 
 But fearing lest the body should be discovered by the 
 savages, and subjected to inhuman outrage, they dis- 
 interred it the following night, and, having prepared 
 a coffin of evergreen oak, bore it to the middle of the 
 Great River and sank it in a hundred feet of water. 
 A sullen plunge, a murmured Itequiescat in jpace ! 
 from priest and cavalier, and the canoes return to land. 
 The army mourned as if every man had lost a 
 father. 
 
 l!Tevertheless, they resolved to abandon his plans 
 and strike westward, thus hoping to reach Mexico ; 
 not seeming to know that their latitude was far north 
 of that. Westward for months they wandered 
 through swamp and canebrake, now in luxuriant 
 meadows and again in waste howling wildernesses. 
 "Waylaid by savages, famishing, nearly naked, they 
 kept on until the eye was filled with mountains tow- 
 erins: to heaven. Back in haste ; no Mexico is here. 
 Returning, they are overtaken by fall rains, and winter 
 rigors. Jaded, dispirited, miserable, their numbers 
 reduced to thrfee hundred and fifty, they reach Minoya, 
 on the Mississippi, late in the year. Here they 
 summon all their remaining energies and resources, 
 and gird themselves for a last desperate struggle with 
 fate. By spring they have built seven brigantines, 
 of short and thin planks, insufficiently nailed together, 
 
64: PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 undecked, and calked only with, bark and grass. In 
 these, on the second day of July, 1543, they de]3art, 
 three hundred and twenty-two Spaniards all told, 
 taking twenty-two of the horses alive, and the rest 
 salted for provisions ; and leaving the wretched inha- 
 bitants of Minoya starving to death for want of the 
 maize which the Spaniards had used for subsistence 
 and for provisioning their vessels. They also leave 
 at their place of embarkation ^ve hundred Indian 
 slaves, retaining a number, including twenty or thirty 
 women. Committing themselves to the current, they 
 float down the river for nineteen days and nights, beset 
 a great part of the way by a flotilla of canoes filled 
 with hostile Indians who kept up incessant assaults 
 upon them, by which they lost all their surviving 
 horses and over fifty men ; having now no weapons 
 left except a few swords and shields, and being thus 
 helpless against the arrows of the savages. This voy- 
 age down the river w^as subsequently computed at 
 five hundred leagues. 
 
 They reach the Gulf, and here trusting themselves 
 in their frail brigantines to the treacherous deep, 
 after a painful and eventful voyage, they reach the 
 river and village of Panuco in Mexico. They are 
 kindly received, and Mendoza, the viceroy, causes 
 them to be brought to Mexico, where they are treated 
 with much attention and honor. Less than three 
 hundred survivors of that gallant expedition which 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 65 
 
 four years before had set out from Cuba witli much 
 music and rejoicing, now apppeared, haggard, black- 
 ened, with tangled hair, skins of wild beasts almost 
 their only covering, a wretched band of wrecked, 
 despairing men. And even now, the hearts of nearly 
 all lust for Florida again. Each curses his fellow as 
 the cause of his leaving that land, which they aver to 
 be the goodliest on which the sun shines. Fierce 
 words and fiercer blows are given, and thus amid 
 execrations and contentions these worthies disappear 
 from history. 
 
 A word of Donna Isabel, fair hapless lady. Faith- 
 fully had she sent Captains Maldinado and Gomez 
 Arias with ships and plentiful supplies in the fall of 
 1540. Waiting for a long time, they then coasted 
 east and west in search of intelligence concerning the 
 Adelantado. The next spring they came again, and 
 the next, and the next, spending each summer in 
 searching for some traces of the ill-fated party. At 
 length in 154:3 the tireless captains touched at Yera 
 Cruz, and heard the sad tidings. Hastening to 
 Havana, they broke the news to the Donna Isabel. 
 Having thus long borne up against racking suspense 
 and torturing doubt, hoping against hope, she now 
 yielded, and died in the prime of her glorious beauty, 
 the victim of ill-fated love and man's wild ambition. 
 
 Oh, river of the future ! thy discovery was made 
 at heavy cost, of gallant lives and a broken heart I 
 
66 PIONEEKS, PEEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 Thy yellow waves are the enduring sepulchre of Her- 
 nando de Soto, and the murmur of thy floods the 
 ever-chanted du-ge of the lady Isabel, the noble and 
 faithful wife ! 
 
Lecture II. 
 MARQUETTE & LA SALLE, 
 
MARQUETTE XNJ) LA SALLE. 
 
 Whatever else Jesuitism may have done, it has 
 given to History one of the noblest of those armies of 
 Heroes and Martyrs, with the record of whose deeds 
 and sufferings its pages are glorified. N'owhere 
 does the love of souls, the contempt of danger and 
 death, patient endurance of hunger, cold, nakedness 
 and bonds, serene self-possession under stripes, and 
 the joyful welcome of martyrdom, stand out in more 
 illustrious contrast to the ordinary sordid and selfish 
 phases of our nature, than in the early mission story 
 of one region of this continent. 
 
 In the first settlement of Canada the two classes 
 which most enlist our interest are the missionaries 
 and the voyageurs — the one giving themselves to 
 the service of the Church, and man's salvation ; the 
 other, almost equally energetic and hardy, opening 
 the resources of the Fur-trade, and thus connecting, 
 by the ties of commerce, the kings and nobles of the 
 old world with the hunting-grounds and wigwams 
 of the Algonquins and Dacotahs, by the banks of 
 Superior and on the headwaters of the Mississippi. 
 
70 PIONEERS, PEEACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 Trade carried its votaries far into the wilderness, 
 over pathless snows, through interminable forests, 
 lip mighty rivers, over the bosom of lakes that seemed 
 like seas. The spell of gold was mighty then, as 
 now ; bnt for once Traffic was outdone by Keligion, 
 and the Cross inspired men with a daring enterprise 
 and lofty resolution, such as the world has seldom 
 witnessed. 
 
 Father Dreuillettes penetrated the forest lying 
 between the St. Lawrence and the Kennebec, down 
 which he floated to the sea. Sojourning with the 
 savages ten months, bearing them company in their 
 hunts, suffering hardships like a good soldier, every- 
 where showing fortitude and courage, patience and 
 strength equal to their own, he completely won their 
 love and reverence. Youges, taken prisoner by the 
 relentless Iroquois, was made to run the gaimtlet 
 three times, suffered torment of many kinds, saw his 
 converts inhumanly butchered, cheered them by his 
 ministrations of pitying love, although by so doing 
 he exposed himself to their fate ; and raising the 
 chaunt in his captive journeyings, provoking the 
 brutality of his persecutors by steadfastness, carving 
 the cross on the trees near Albany, he showed him- 
 self faithful in all things. At length liberated by the 
 Dutch of New York, he sailed for France, as the only 
 way by which he could reach Canada again, 
 returned thither, went upon an embassy of peace to 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 71 
 
 his old tormentors the Mohawks, and there he met 
 the death of which he had had presentiment. 
 
 Daniel fell beneath the remorseless blows of the 
 same barbarians, as he knelt in pious ministry to the 
 spiritual needs of his Huron converts. Breboeuf, a 
 great strong man whose brawny courage knew no 
 fear, whose ruling passion was a cupidity for martyr- 
 dom, could yet in humble patience bide his Master's 
 time. Employing himself the while in uninterrupted 
 missionary labors, he is taken with his associate L'Alle- 
 mand, a man of delicate frame, but dauntless cour- 
 age, by the Iroquois, in the midst of their neophytes. 
 They refuse to save themselves by flight, lest the 
 offices of the Church should thereby be lost to the 
 dying around them. Breboeuf is tied to a stake, and 
 exhorting his tormentors to repentance, and his con- 
 verts to be faithful even until death, his brother 
 priest is led before him robed in a garment of bark 
 filled with rosin. As the torch is applied the 
 unshrinking L'Allemand exclaims, " "We are made a 
 spectacle this day unto men and angels." Breboeuf s 
 holy counsels are checked, as his upper lip is cut off, 
 and hot irons thrust down his throat. He too is set 
 on fire, and then boiling water is poured over both 
 to extinguish the flames. Breboeuf entered through 
 the gates into the City above, Jerusalem, the Mother 
 of us all, in three hours. L'Allemand lingered 
 seventeen ; then he too joined that company which 
 
72 PIONEERS, PEEACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 no man can number, that liave come up out of great 
 tribulation. When we hear of faith and love like 
 theirs, can we say, contemptuously, " they were 
 Jesuits," and forget that they were also Christians 
 sealing their testimony with their blood ? 
 
 As the ranks were thus thinned, they were filled 
 by others, who pressed forward, coveting to wear the 
 thorny crown, persuaded that in due time it would 
 become a crown of glory. Among these was Jaines 
 Marquette, a young Frenchman. Born in the small 
 bat stately city of Laon, perched upon a hill-side 
 in the provence of Aisne, his family name was a lus- 
 trous one in the annals of France before his time, 
 and has been since. Our own land is indebted to 
 others, bearmg it, besides himself. Three Marquettes 
 fell in the French army which aided in our Kevolu- 
 tionary struggle. 
 
 Born in 1637, our young Frenchman's early years 
 were blessed by the care of a devout, godly mother, 
 who infused into his mind a reverent simplicity and 
 an ardent love which kept him pure unto the end. 
 From our mothers we borrow our best treasures. 
 They lend in gladness, not dreaming of return. But 
 they receive a hundred fold in this world, and in 
 the world to come life everlasting. 
 
 At seventeen Marquette renounced the world and 
 became a Jesuit. Twelve years were spent in teach- 
 ing, and then, burning with a holy zeal to do good to 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 73 
 
 the heathen, his mind inflamed by the devotion of 
 Francisco Xavier, the model he had chosen for imita- 
 tion and emulation, he embarked for Canada in 1666. 
 Buoyant with health and hopes of usefulness, the 
 young missionary touched the shores of the new 
 world. Behind him rolled the sea which separated 
 him from home, friends and mother. Before him lay 
 a wilderness continent, with its mighty lakes and 
 rivers, its inaccessible forests and endless plains, now 
 clad in tufted verdure and then garmented in snow 
 and ice. The roving tribes that peopled the land were 
 savages ; but they had souls to be saved. True, their 
 tomahawks had drank the blood of his brethren, and 
 their scalping knives were yet red with the gore of 
 martyrs. Still they had immortal souls which might 
 be won for Christ. Wa s it not work for an angel ? 
 Surely it was for a Christian disciple. But he might 
 perish ? "No matter. Would he not fall with his face 
 toward Zion, die where he might ? So he girded up 
 his loins and betook him to his labor. 
 
 'Not in haste are life's great achievements 
 wrought ; but slowly, and by sure degrees. So Mar- 
 quette first patiently studied the Indian dialects, be- 
 coming a learner that he might fitly teach. 
 
 He was at first destined to a mission far to the 
 northward, and we find him in 1667 at Three Elvers, 
 preparing himself under Father Dreuillettes. But 
 this design was abandoned and he was next ap- 
 
 4 
 
74 PIONEERS, PREACHEKS AND PEOPLE 
 
 pointed to the Ottawa Mission — as that of Lake 
 Superior was then called — to labor with Father 
 Allouez. Quebec had been founded by Champlain 
 in 1608. Le Barron, a RecoUet missionary who 
 came with him, had ascended the Ottawa River, and 
 reached Lake Huron. In 1629 Canada fell into the 
 hands of the English, but in 1631 it was restored to 
 France. In 1639 Nicolet, interpreter of the colony, 
 had descended the Wisconsin to within three days' 
 sail of the Mississippi, or sea^ as he understood the 
 Indian name " Great Water," to mean. Two years 
 later Isaac Yonges and Charles Rambout, Jesuits, 
 stood upon Sault Ste. Marie, looking down upon the 
 land of the Sioux and the basin of the Mississippi, 
 with hearts longing to enter it. But an Iroquois war, 
 the next year, frustrated their design. Thus, while 
 the Dutch of IsTew Netherlands were huddled around 
 Fort Orange, five years before Eliot addressed his 
 first Indian audience six miles from Boston, and 
 while the country between Massachusetts Bay and 
 Connecticut was almost a pathless wilderness, Jesuit 
 Fathers stood upon the water-shed dividing the 
 streams of the Atlantic from those of the Gulf. 
 Honor to whom honor is due ! " There is nothing 
 new under the sun " is a well-worn adage which 
 comes to us from a man of many experiences. And 
 as our knowledge increases, the same cry is more 
 than once forced from our lips. You will pardon me 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 75 
 
 I trust, for diverging from mj narrative to furnisli 
 you another example of its truth. Two of the chief 
 movements of our time were antedated on this Con- 
 tinent, nearly two centuries. I refer to the Ivnow 
 N'othing and the Maine Law parties. About 1670 it 
 was made death, by a statute of New York, for a 
 Jesuit to plant foot on soil of that colony ; and 
 about the same period there arose a formidable dis- 
 pute in Canada between the civil and clerical 
 authorities, as to whether the vending of ardent 
 spirits to the Indians should be allowed. Tlie ques- 
 tion embroiled the colony, and was hotly contested 
 for a long time. It even served to discolor the his- 
 toric page of the time. At length the church side 
 of the case was shown to be unconstitutional, or 
 something of that sort, and the Indians were mur- 
 dered the same as before, public opinion settling 
 down into what is now the verdict of juries in rail- 
 road accidents — ISTobody to blame. 
 
 But to return to our young missionary, whom we 
 left in Canada, a little over thirty years of age, about 
 to embark for his field of labor, the Ottawa Mission. 
 His ultimate destination was the founding an estab- 
 lishment among the Illinois ; but the novice must be 
 tried in a vineyard already opened, before he 
 attempts to plant one himself. 
 
 The south shore of S aperior near Ste. Marie, and then 
 La Pointe, are the centres of his operations. Allouez 
 
76 PIONEERS, PEEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 has gone to Green Bay, and so up Fox Eiver, and he 
 is alone with the savages. But nol the less faithfully 
 does he labor, that he has no superior to overlook 
 him, nor brother to give him sympathy. On him, as 
 on all, the Master's eye is fixed, always on ns, never 
 off ns ; and the exceeding great reward, does it not 
 await the faithful workman's toils ? And fellowship ; 
 has he not one ever near him, in his lonely lodge, 
 who is touched with the feelings of his infirmities, 
 who was tempted in all points even as he ? 
 
 It is pleasant and helpful too, to read the unvar- 
 nished tale of this simple minded man's efforts to do 
 good to the untutored children of the forest ; how he 
 taught the lessons of virtue and chastity, of forbear- 
 ance and forgiveness of injuries ; how he strove to win 
 them from their idle superstitions to the worship of 
 the living and true God; to go with him as he 
 administers the holy rite of baptism to a dying child, 
 or speaks kind words to sick and suffering men and 
 women ; to be near him as he devoutly performs the 
 offices of the church or expounds the mysteries of the 
 faith in his little thatched chapel of bark. He with- 
 stands the proud and willful to their face ; the way- 
 ward he admonishes firmly but gently ; he cheers the 
 penitent and encourages the desponding ; everywhere 
 he seems striving to possess his soul in patience, 
 to do the work of an evangelist, and make full proof 
 of his ministry. Ever and anon news of the great 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 77 
 
 river and tlie miglitj tribes inhabiting its banks 
 readies him, and he longs to discover it and them. 
 His heart yearns for the Illinois ; for are they not his 
 people ? But the time has not come yet. The dis- 
 coverer of the age must wait — as who must not? 
 History were indeed a dead letter — were less service- 
 able by half than the debris of perished races, 
 whereon the geologist reads the autograph of every 
 separate cycle — did we not gather from it words and 
 thoughts to inspire ourselves with strength. From the 
 fields of the almost silent Past there comes a whisper 
 which is yet mightier than thunder, a word for all the 
 lowly and great, the striving and despairing, but 
 most of all to the impetuous, easily discouraged 
 young, who need it most : Haste not, Host not ! 
 Time, Faith, Energy, these conquer the world. This 
 lesson do I learn from Marquette's lodge in the 
 wilderness. Therefore is his life, as that of all truly 
 noble souls, of perennial interest to mankind. 
 
 Next year he will go to the Illinois. He has 
 been studying their language from a young Indian 
 of that tribe, and is already pretty well master of the 
 tongue. But his hope is defeated, for a war breaks 
 out between the Sioux and the people among whom 
 he lives. With them he must voyage eastward, with 
 his back upon the land of promise. But at length he 
 is with his Hurons at Mackinaw, and his glance wan- 
 ders over the lake to the west and southwest ; it jour- 
 
78 
 
 neys wMtlier his feet would go, his moutli filled with 
 glad tidings to the people of the Illinois and the 
 river Mississippi. 
 
 Long, as men count it, must he yet wait. Never- 
 theless, humbly but fervently does he pray that, if it 
 be Heaven's will, he may go whither his heart leads. 
 At last, on the eve of the festival of the Immaculate 
 Conception, tlie feast of all the year to him, a canoe 
 from Canada comes up the glassy plain. Its occu- 
 pant is the Lieutenant Joliet, an old fur-trader, and 
 he brings important letters to Father Marquette. 
 
 The minister of France has written to Talon, Inten- 
 dant of Canada, to cause the South Sea to be disco- 
 vered. This was the vision of the time, as the short 
 route to China and the East is of ours. Then, they 
 thought a river might bear them on its brimming 
 flood to the South Sea ; now, we opine the iron road 
 will take us thither. M. do Talon, the retiring gov- 
 ernor, suggests to Frontenac, the newly appointed, 
 that Joliet is the best man for the purpose, and tlie 
 ecclesiastical authorities appoint Father Marquette. 
 Here are the letters. The winter is spent at Mackhiaw 
 in preparation.. "With crowds of Indians around them, 
 the trader and the priest, kneeling on the ground, 
 drew maps of such countries as the savages knew, 
 lying toward the setting sun. After much study and 
 prayer, with great hopes, yet lowly hearts, our friends 
 set out for their long journey in the spring of 1673. 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 79 
 
 Across the lake to Green Bay ; tlien to the head of 
 Fox River, where is an Indian village, in the centre 
 of which stands a great cross planted by the zeal of 
 Allouez, and crowned by the Indians with wampum 
 and peltries of the choicest kind. The Indians, with 
 hearts warmed toward the French, throng aronnd 
 Marquette and Joliet with proffers of hospitality and 
 kindness ; but when told the object of their expedition, 
 their faces express great solicitude, and their mouths 
 are filled with dismal tales of the dangers of the way. 
 The land of the Great River and the vast stream 
 itself are filled with frightful monsters and terrible 
 men. Every effort was made to dissuade the good 
 father and his party from their mad enterprise. But 
 they were not to be moved. A party of Indians 
 helped them across the portage to the Wisconsin 
 River, where, launching their canoe, they were quit- 
 ted by their guides, commended their way to God, 
 and committed themselves to the stream of the sky- 
 colored water. Floating upon its tranquil bosom 
 seven days, they passed through a country of marvel- 
 lous beauty and fertility. It w^as the month of June, 
 and IN'ature had donned her gayest colors. Yines 
 clambered among the trees. Sometimes from a bold 
 bank the grassy plain stretched as far as the eye 
 could reach, without a mound or grove to obstruct 
 the view — ^the green land at last melting into the 
 blue-rimmed horizon. Tlien the bottom land meeting 
 
80 PIONEEES, PREACHERS AJiTD PEOPLE 
 
 them with verdant freshness at the river's edge was 
 terminated ere long in a noble bluff, whose sides and 
 summit were crowned with stately trunks and branch- 
 ing foliage, casting lines of grateful shadow on the 
 sward. The unHecked blue above them painted 
 itself in the flood, seeming to create an azure vault 
 beneath their birch pirogue. The breezy stillness 
 was only broken by the river's lapse, the paddle's dip, 
 or their own low murmurs of delight at the fairy-land 
 scene around them. Thus for a week they floated, 
 until, on June 17th, their placid stream swept them 
 with its parting wave into the swifter current of the 
 Great River, whose affluence makes glad a continent. 
 Streams with broader openings to the sea there are, 
 with grander historic associations, with more roman- 
 tic memories thronging their banks ; but what one of 
 all earth's watercourses can vie with this in its majes- 
 tic appeal to the imagination and the hope of man- 
 kind 2 Oh, James Marquette, can the rivers of thy 
 goodly land of France, the Oise, by whose sedgy 
 marge thy childish feet so often wandered, the Seine, 
 traversing the great town of Paris, the Rhone, " the 
 arrowy Rhone," the Rhine, burdened with its pur- 
 ple hills clad in vines and crowned with castles — 
 can any bear comparison with this? They flow 
 through the dreamy lands of the Past ; its realms 
 are the Future's. Like some great royal conqueror 
 it leaps from its almost unnoted birth-place, Itasca 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 81 
 
 Lake, rushes forward to exact the tribute brought 
 from far provinces, east and west, and after its tri- 
 umphal procession of two thousand five hundred 
 miles, freely receiving, freelj giving in many a belt- 
 ing zone, hurls broad and far its accumulated trea- 
 sure, that thereby a world may be enriched. 
 
 A great silent joy is in Marquette's heart, and as 
 grateful tears wet his eyes, he offers a fervent thanks- 
 giving that he has been permitted to look upon this 
 wonder. The devout spirit thinks of the greatest birth 
 of Time, and in commemoration of it he names the 
 river "The Conception." This is the 17th June, 
 1673. 
 
 For eight days they glided over the crystal pave- 
 ment between shores widening to the distance of a 
 half league, and then approaching in rocky bluffs, as 
 if they were the towers and battlements of hostile 
 cities, to within a few hundred yards. In vernal pas- 
 ture lands they beheld the moose and elk and deer 
 cropping the herbage ; and lower down vast herds of 
 buffalo grazed in the meadows, and the woods weru 
 filled with flocks of wild turkeys. But for fifteen days 
 they had not come in sight of trace or habitation of 
 human beings. At length they discern a well- 
 marked trail on the west bank of the river, and land 
 to seek the men whose feet have left this trace. Si- 
 lently, with minds moved alternately by hopes and 
 fears, Marquette and Joliet proceed six miles, wher 
 
 4* 
 
82 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 they descry three Indian villages. Uttering a loud 
 cry, they rapidly approach them. A company of old 
 men came forth to meet them, and when asked by 
 Marquette who they are, replied, " we are Illinois." 
 Great was the good father's joy. He explained who 
 he and his companion were ; whereupon they were 
 joyfully welcomed with the peace-pipe. Then fol- 
 lowed a six days' feast. Heartily did the simple natives 
 urge the Frenchmen to tarry with them. But their 
 task was not half performed, and they must up and 
 away. Taking an affectionate leave of their kind 
 hosts, they were escorted to their canoe and pre- 
 sented with a calumet magnificently adorned, than 
 which no more valuable gift could have been made 
 them. 
 
 Passing the mouth of the Illinois, our voyagers 
 sighted the Piasau bluff, where frightful monsters were 
 traced high up on stupendous rocks, and the relics of a 
 rude limning are still to be seen. Soon after there 
 arose upon the air a roar as from a distant cataract. 
 As they drew nearer they found it to be the rush of 
 the Pekitanonie (the muddy river, as the Algonquins 
 had named the Missouri), which rushed like some 
 untamed monster upon the peaceful Mississippi, hurl- 
 ing it with tremendous violence w^on the opposite 
 shore. In the boiling muddy tide, seething and 
 tumultuous, were borne great trees which it had 
 uprooted in its wild career. Already had the Father 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 83 
 
 heard of a western river wliich flowed downward to 
 the sea, and by this one, he hoped some day to reach 
 it. ]^ow his course was southward. Passing an 
 eddy which the natives held to be a demon, they 
 reached the Ohio, then called the Oubachi or river of 
 the Shawnees. Still descending, they came to the 
 warm lands of the cane, where the mosquitoes 
 seemed to be holding a carnival. Wrapping them- 
 selves in their sails as a protection against the pesti- 
 ferous insects, they were after a time hailed from the 
 shore by a party of wild wanderers, who were armed 
 with guns and knives, obtained they said by trading 
 with Christians to the eastward. Further on they 
 were threatened by a hostile demonstration from a 
 large party of natives, who advanced with menaces 
 and brandished arms to meet them. It was a trying 
 moment. But Marquette was equal to it. Invoking 
 the protection of the Yirgin Mother, he calmly stood 
 in the prow of his bark, holding aloft the calumet. 
 It saved their lives. The warriors were pacified, 
 received the strangers kindly, and entertained them 
 with great courtesy. This was about the thirty- 
 third parallel of latitude. Below this our little party 
 only ventured ten leagues. They learned that the 
 sea was ten days sail to the south ; and that there 
 were many tribes near it, who traded with Europeans 
 and who were at war among themselves. Satisfying 
 themselves that the river emptied between Florida 
 
84 PIONEEES, PKEACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 and Tampico, and fearing to fall into the hands of the 
 Spaniards, they determined to return. The main 
 object of the enterprise was accomplished. Until 
 this time it had been a vexed question whether the 
 great river emptied into the sea near Virginia, into 
 the Gulf of Mexico, or into that of California. Hav- 
 ing discovered the river, learned the location of its 
 mouth and above all else in the mind of the good 
 Marqnette, preached the religion of the Cross to the 
 heathen, opening the way for other missionaries, they 
 reascended to the mouth of the Illinois, to the head 
 of which they went, passing through the most delec- 
 table land they had yet looked upon. Here 
 they were met by the Kaskaskias, who hailed them 
 with great joy, and conducted them in triumph 
 across the portage to the Lake ; for Marquette pro- 
 mised to return and preach to them. 
 
 Four months from the time of setting out, they 
 reached the mission of St. Francis Xavier ; and 
 thus these seven men — five boatmen bore them 
 company — ^performed one of the notable feats of 
 history. The following spring Joliet embarked for 
 Quebec, but as he was attempting to shoot a rapid 
 in the St. Lawrence, not far from his destination, his 
 canoe upset, causing the loss of his journal and maps 
 and nearly of his life. We catch one more look at 
 this worthy on the island of Anticosti, in the Gulf 
 of St. Lawrence, which was granted him for his ser- 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 85 
 
 vices; and then tlie shadow Joliet joins his fellow 
 shades and vanishes forever. 
 
 Marquette, without thought of worldly fame or 
 honors, or reward of any kind, studies only how he 
 may recruit his health, which has been sadly shat- 
 tered, and thereby be able to redeem his pledge to 
 the Kaskaskias. This is his only earthly wish — to 
 preach to his beloved Illinois. He shall not die 
 until it be fulfilled. 
 
 Spending the winter of 1674-5 near Chicago, in 
 great feebleness, suffering from cold and want, but 
 cheered by a peaceful, loving heart, he is able to 
 reach his Indians in the spring, and solemnize among 
 them the Easter ceremonies. But his old malady 
 returns. jN'othing is left him now but to die. And 
 with the mighty instinct of the human heart, long 
 ing to breathe his last among his brethren, he bids 
 farewell to his sorrowing neophytes, and takes his 
 way to Mackinaw. His three faithful boatmen 
 accompany him, tending him with all gentle care, 
 lifting him in and out of the canoe, for the wasted 
 man is too weak to walk. As they reach the outlet 
 of a small stream in Michigan, Avhich now bears his 
 name, he can go no further. A rude lodge is reared 
 on the edge of the stream, with an altar before which 
 the dying saint is laid. He calmly gives directions 
 to his sobbing attendants concerning his burial. 
 They take his crucifix from the breast, where it has 
 
86 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 lain through all these years of self renouncing toils, 
 and hold it up before him. His face glows with a 
 holy transport, as if it were an angel's ; one word, 
 " Jesus," is on his lips, and then — he is dead. 
 
 'Tis well. J^ine years of untiring labor for the sal- 
 vation of the heathen, a life of perfect self-abnega- 
 tion, a discovery rivalling in magnificence any ever 
 made, are thus terminated by a lonely death on a 
 desolate shore. Thus died Xavier, his elected model, 
 after living as he had lived. Two years after, in 
 1677, a flotilla of canoes from Mackinaw came to 
 that dark wood at the mouth of the little river ; the 
 Indians among whom he had long and faithfully 
 labored exhumed his remains and bore them to Mac- 
 kinaw. A fleet advancing from the shore met them, 
 with tearful eyes, and amid the slow solemn strains 
 of " De Profundis," chanted by priests and Indians, 
 the remains were borne to the shore and finally depo- 
 sited beneath the church, on whose site he had so 
 often led their worship. 
 
 For many a long year after, when the forest 
 rangers abroad upon the stormy lake were endan- 
 gered by sudden tempest or wild billows, their 
 piteous cries were heard, and Marquette was the 
 name they cried, asking his intercession, as of an all- 
 powerful and undoubted saint. 
 
 Important as his discovery was, it is certain that it 
 would have been of slight advantage to France, but 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 87 
 
 for the exertions of a young adventurer, whose story 
 we h^ve next to trace. 
 
 When Joliet was on his way to Quebec, after quit- 
 ting Marquette, he stopped at Fort Frontenac, on 
 Lake Ontario, where the town of Kingston now 
 stands. The commandant of this post drank in with 
 greedy ears the trader's recital of his voyage. He 
 was one of the few that ever saw the Journal and 
 map of Joliet. The trader went his way and the 
 young soldier of fortune remained to dream in the 
 wilderness and work his way to renown. 
 
 Robert Cavelier de la Salle was born of an ancient 
 and honorable family in Rouen. Renouncing his 
 patrimony, or in some way deprived of it by unjust 
 laws, he became a Jesuit, and received in a college 
 of that order a thorough education. But finding the 
 life of a priest incompatible with his tastes, he 
 quitted the fraternity, receiving high testimonials of 
 capacity and fidelity, and embarked as an adventurer 
 for Canada, where he arrived between 1665 and 1670. 
 Here the force of his character soon displayed itself 
 by his successful prosecution of various difficult 
 enterprises. In 1674 we find him commanding at 
 the fort named in honor of Frontenac, governor of 
 the province. The confidence of this functionary he 
 seems to have completely gained. The next year he 
 visited France with strong recommendations from 
 the governor to the ministry. Colbert was then at 
 
88 PIONEEES, PEEACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 the head of the cabinet of Louis XIV. This great 
 statesman listened attentively to the plans of the 
 young soldier, and induced his royal master to grant 
 his request. To La Salle was accordingly given a 
 title of nobility, a monopoly in the fur-trade around 
 Lake Ontario, the command and ownership of Fort 
 Frontenac, and the lands in its neighborhood, on 
 condition of his erecting a stone fortress, and estab- 
 lishing a mission — for to overawe and convert the 
 L'oquois, was the double object of the establishment. 
 While engaged in this undertaking, he showed him- 
 self an able politician, by his skillful management of 
 the tribes around him. On the completion of his 
 task, he found himself ruined. To while away the 
 long winter evenings in his frontier post, and to ban- 
 ish the demon of anxiety, he betook himself to the 
 study of the Spanish accounts of America and its con- 
 quest. His mind now reverted to the narrative 
 of Joliet, little heeded at the time, and he seems to 
 have been the first to identify the river which De 
 Soto had discovered, with that explored by Mar- 
 quette. To the Mississippi and its valley, the heart 
 of our adventurer now turned in his extremity. 
 There his failure might be retrieved, and fortune be 
 secured. If he can obtain a monopoly of the fur- 
 trade in that vast region, extend a line of posts from 
 Canada to the Gulf, found a colony at the mouth of 
 the great river, and ship his peltries thence to 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 89 
 
 France, what easier ? Gigantic enterprise, yon will 
 saj. But what can not one strong will do ? 
 
 Hastening again to France in 1677, he readily 
 obtained, through the friendship of the great Colbert, 
 and of his son, the Duke de Seignelai, minister of the 
 marine, the sanction and authority he needed from 
 the crown. His patent confirmed the previous one, 
 empowered him to construct forts wherever necessary 
 in the western part of New France, and gave him a 
 vast monopoly of the fur-trade, including, with some 
 excejDtions, the whole Mississippi valley. Recruiting 
 a company of mechanics and mariners, he starts a 
 a third time for Canada, and September of the next 
 year, 1678, found him once more at his seigniory of 
 Fort Frontenac, on Lake Ontario, with sixty men, 
 prepared and resolved to carry out his great scheme 
 of discovery, trade and settlement. He brought with 
 him one Henry de Tonty as his lieutenant. This 
 Tonty, said to have been the son of the inventor of 
 those life insurance schemes called Tontines, was an 
 Italian, who had been highly recommended to La 
 Salle by a great noble of the French court ; and he 
 thenceforth ever proved himself an unswerving ally, 
 a faithful and able officer, and a trusty friend. He 
 had been a soldier seven years in the French wars, 
 and having lost a hand by a grenade in Sicily, had 
 supplied its place with a rude claw of iron. 
 
 With liis vast plans revolving in his mind, shaping 
 
90 PIONEEKS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 out tlie conception of that belt of forts and missions 
 and settlements twelve hundred miles long, which 
 was at once to secure the great continent for the 
 Grand Monarch, to gird in and overawe the English 
 and Spanish seaboards, to gather the Indians into 
 the Catholic church, and to give himself imbounded 
 riches and a mighty lordship — with all these magni- 
 ficent dreams in his soul, La Salle nevertheless applied 
 himself diligently to the details and drudgery of their 
 small mercantile beginnings, sending forward traders 
 to gather furs, and organizing matters at and about 
 the Fort. 
 
 His design was to build a vessel above Niagara, to 
 sail in it as far on his way as the upper lakes would 
 admit, and then to cross by land to the Mississippi, 
 and proceed down the great river in another vessel. 
 He therefore sent Tonty in a small craft of ten tons 
 which had been built at Fort Frontenac the year 
 before, with workmen, tools, materials, and provisions, 
 to select a proper spot for building his brigantine, and 
 also for erecting a fort. 
 
 They arrived at the mouth of the Magara River in 
 the beginning of January, 1679, and leaving their 
 vessel and going round the falls, chose their dock- 
 yard ; but finding the Indians dissatisfied with the 
 plan of erecting a fort, they pacified them, not with- 
 out dlfiiculty, and confined themselves to palisading 
 the cabins in which they passed the winter. 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 91 
 
 La Salle embarked from Fort Frontenac, a short 
 time after their departure, in another small vessel with 
 merchandise, provisions, and rigging for the new ship, 
 delaying, as he came, to conciliate the Senecas. He 
 reached Niagara on the 20th of January ; and already 
 there began to lower over him the dark clouds of that 
 long series of misfortunes against which he bore up 
 for so many years, with such heroic but unsuccessful 
 strength and resolution. All at once he was assaulted 
 with all the evils which afterward pursued him ; timi- 
 dity or dislike or senseless obstinacy in his men, bitter 
 and unscrupulous enmity from the traders with whom 
 his monopoly interfered, and rapacious severity from 
 his creditors. Tlie two pilots of his vessel quarrelled 
 about the route, and wrecked her on the south shore 
 of Lake Ontario. The anchors and the rigging were 
 secured with great difficulty; but the goods and pro- 
 visions were lost. The Indian traders too, with whom 
 his monopoly interfered, and those connected with 
 them in business, had begun to poison the minds of the 
 Lidians, by representing that his forts and ships were 
 intended, not for trade, but to subdue the tribes. 
 
 But La Salle, with the able diplomacy of the 
 French, conciliated the Senecas in his one short visit. 
 Deferring his fort at ISliagara to please them, and 
 urging on his main expedition to the West, he at once 
 chose, from among the sites which had been explored 
 for a dock-yard, a locality about six miles above the 
 
92 PIONEEES, PEEACHEE8 AND PEOPLE 
 
 falls, on the English side, at the mouth of a creek, and 
 himself drove the first bolt in the frame of his in- 
 tended vessel, a week after his arrival. Then, leav- 
 ing Tonty in charge of the ship-building, he hastened 
 back again to Fort Frontenac by land, almost three 
 hundred miles through snowy forests, with a bag 
 of parched corn to eat, and with two men and a boy 
 as guides and baggage-train. His errand now was to 
 complete his arrangements for raising money, and for 
 the management of his property during his absence. 
 For nearly six months he was thus industriously at 
 work in preparation, and struggling against the busy 
 and unscrupulous intrigues of his enemies. His 
 creditors too, in Montreal and Quebec, frightened at 
 the stories which they heard of his wild schemes and 
 monstrous expenses, seized and sold at ruinous sacri- 
 fice whatever of his property they could lay hands on. 
 But he could not stop to set these things right — 
 that would have been precisely what his enemies 
 designed ; so letting his peltries and merchandise go, 
 and making a farewell grant out of his estate at Fort 
 Frontenac to the Franciscans, of a hundred and eigh- 
 teen acres of land — ^he had already erected for them 
 dwellings and a chapel — he set off again for IN'iagara, 
 hearing that his new ship was launched and ready. 
 Coasting the southern shore of the lake in a canoe, he 
 renewed his friendship with the Indians by the way. 
 He found his vessel already launched, and towed up 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 93 
 
 the river to within a mile or two of Lake Erie. She 
 was named the Griffin, was of sixty tons burden, 
 armed with two brass guns and three arquebuses, and 
 adorned with a wooden griffin for a figure-head. 
 
 After some delay the expedition, of thirty-four 
 souls, including three Franciscan missionaries, em- 
 barked on the 7th of August, 1679, amid shouts and 
 salvoes of artillery, upon the untried waters of Lake 
 Erie, westward bound. They steered boldly into the 
 unknown depths of the lake, confident in their com- 
 passes and in the skill of their pilot ; crossed the lake 
 in less than three days ; threaded the shallows of the 
 straits of Detroit and St. Clair, and the lake between 
 them, to which they gave its present name in honor 
 of the day ; then entered the broad expanse of Lake 
 Huron. In crossing this, th^y encountered a tempest 
 so terrible that they gave themselves up for lost, La 
 Salle himself even crying out that they were undone, 
 and offering fervent vows to the great St. Anthony 
 of Padua, in case they should escape alive. Only 
 the tough old sea-dog of a pilot would neither fear 
 nor pray, but, Hennepin says, " did nothing all that 
 while but curse and swear against M. de la Salle, 
 who had brought him thither to make him perish in 
 a nasty lake, and lose the glory he had acquired by 
 his long and happy navigation on the ocean." They 
 escaped, however, and arrived safe at Mackinaw. 
 
 Here La Salle found that the influence of his ene« 
 
94: PIONEERS, PEEACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 mies, the traders, had gone before him. They had 
 made the Indians believe that he intended both 
 to restrict to himself all trade in skins, and also 
 to subject them to the crown of France; and thej 
 received him coldly and suspiciously, though with 
 ceremonious politeness. They had also tampered 
 with his advanced guard, most of whom had been 
 indolent and unfaithful in their task of gathering furs 
 and provisions. Still, the energetic leader was not to 
 be diverted from his purpose. He left his faithful 
 lieutenant, Tonty, to collect some of the deserters, and 
 himself pushed on again in the Griffin for Green Bay. 
 At the entrance of this arm of Lake Michigan, on a 
 small island occupied by Pottawatomie Indians, lie 
 found some of his missing fur-traders, with great 
 store of peltries, the proceeds of their barter with the 
 Indians. 
 
 La Salle here takes a sudden and singular resolu- 
 tion ; and one not pleasing to his men. But he is not 
 wont to ask counsel at their hands, or indeed at the 
 hands of any. Of few words, and of reserved and 
 even harsh manners, he evolves his plans in silence 
 and alone within his own soul, and sets himself to 
 accomplish them with a will seemingly incapable of 
 diversion or discouragement ; but he asks no man's 
 advice, " talks things over " with no one ; only 
 resolves, and then orders. Strange character for a 
 Frenchman — and not only strange, but unfortunate, 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 95 
 
 at least so far as popularity was important to him. 
 For a chief impediment to his plans, and the cause 
 of his own untimely end, was the insubordination 
 and enmity of his own men. In truth, there seems 
 to have been not one faithful and thoroughgoing 
 helper among them all, except Henry de Tonty the 
 iron-handed Itahan, and one poor Indian of some 
 distant eastern tribe, called Mka, a hunter of exqui- 
 site skill, who followed his fortune hither and thither 
 as closely and steadily as a dog, often the sole sup- 
 port of La Salle himself and all his party for days 
 and days together, and finally murdered with his mas- 
 ter, for his faithfulness to him. Peace to the poor 
 forgotten shade of that brave and faithful red man ! 
 
 This strange resolution was, to send the Griffin, 
 laden with the furs at Green Bay and what others 
 could be gathered on the road, back again to 
 Niagara, that her cargo might pay his debts. All 
 the rest would much prefer the stanch and hitherto 
 fortunate brigantine, for the remainder of the peril- 
 ous navigation through Lake Michigan, to the frail 
 slender canoes, exposed to furious tempests and 
 thievish or hostile savages. But none thinks it best 
 to remonstrate ; and with a prosperous westerly wind, 
 the Griffin sets sail on the 18th of July, manned with 
 five men and the swearing unterrified pilot, firing a 
 farewell gun as she departs. 
 
 She was never heard of more. Somewhere in the 
 
96 PIONEERS, PREACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 depths of the north end of Lake Michigan, between 
 Green Bay and Mackinaw, her decayed timbers, and 
 the rusty relics of the " two brass guns and three 
 arquebuses," her vaunted armament, yet repose. 
 All else must long since have disappeared. Father 
 Hennepin, with unclerical, careless disregard for the 
 six unfortunate souls, her ship's company, dismisses 
 the subject by saying, " This was a great loss for M. 
 de la Salle and other adventurers, for that ship with 
 its cargo cost above sixty thousand livres," — twelve 
 thousand dollars. 
 
 But La Salle, hopeful and cheery, as trusting in 
 speedy freedom from debts behind, and speedy glory 
 of great discoveries before, now pushes on southward 
 in four canoes, burdened disproportionately with 
 weighty property, even including a blacksmith's 
 forge, and with a party now reduced by detachment 
 and desertion, to fourteen. After a most toilsome 
 and dangerous journey along the western side of the 
 lake, sometimes entertained generously by friendly 
 Indians, once embroiled with a roving squad of 
 Outagamies or Foxes on a thieving expedition, on 
 the first of ITovember they safely entered the 
 Miami River, now called the St. Josephs, the 
 appointed rendezvous for Tonty and for the Griffin. 
 
 All that winter was spent in waiting for the 
 expected comers. The men, weary of living by the 
 uncertain fruits of the chase, dreading the winter 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 97 
 
 and its famine, dreading the dangers of this vast 
 unknown region into which they were to be led, 
 murmured and complained, and desired to proceed 
 into the Illinois country, where there was corn. But 
 La Salle refused, gave them good reasons, and kept 
 them busy in building Fort Miamis on a hill at the 
 mouth of the river, while he sounded and staked out 
 the channel, and sent two men to Mackinaw to 
 hasten the coming of his ship. 
 
 After long delay, Tonty appeared, gladdening the 
 hearts of the party by the reinforcement and the 
 two canoe-loads of venison he brought, but also 
 bringing to his commander the heavy tidings that 
 the Griffin had not been heard from. La Salle had 
 already become apprehensive respecting her, since 
 nearly twice the time had elapsed which should have 
 brought her to the Miamis. And thus disappeared 
 a large part of his means, and his hopes of promptly 
 paying his debts. But the strong-hearted man 
 wasted no useless grief over misfortunes now past. 
 Delaying yet a little longer, until it became neces- 
 sary to depart to escape from the winter, the expedi- 
 tion left Fort Miamis on the 3d of December, in 
 eight canoes, leaving instructions for the captain of 
 the Griffin, in letters conspicuously fixed on branches 
 of trees. Ascending the Miami about seventy miles, 
 they make a portage across to the head of the Kan- 
 kakee, follow that slow and crooked stream through a 
 
98 PIONEEES, PEEACHEKS AND PEOPLE 
 
 hundred miles of desolate frozen marsli, then emerge 
 into a prairie country, and after two hundred miles 
 more of voyaging, enter the river Illinois. 
 
 Thus they navigate southward, descending the two 
 rivers, during the whole of December, supplying 
 themselves with corn from the caches of a large 
 Indian town whose inhabitants had departed to the 
 hunt, leaving their cabins empty. Floating onward 
 through Lake Peoria, they come suddenly, at its 
 southern end, into the midst of a great camp of the 
 Illinois tribe, occupying both sides of the river. But, 
 putting on a bold face, and forming in order of battle, 
 the brave commander of the little band meets the 
 Indians as their superior in force, and only holds out 
 the calumet of peace in answer to their signals ; satis- 
 fies them for the abstraction of their supplies of corn, 
 explains his designs, and concludes a solemn alliance. 
 
 That same night came an emissary of his busy foes 
 the private traders, a Mascouten chief named Monso, 
 and poisoned the minds of all the Illinois — a fickle, 
 cowardly, suspicious, thievish and lascivious race — 
 w^ith the same old story that his plan was to exter- 
 minate their nation, and that an army of the terrible 
 Iroquois would soon be upon them. This he indus- 
 triously told to one and another all night long, con- 
 tirmed the tale by valuable presents of knives and 
 hatchets and such coveted goods, and fled away 
 before morning, that the unsuspecting Frenchman 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 99 
 
 might be ruined without knowing whence came the 
 blow. La Salle saw at once, when next day he went 
 among his savage hosts, that their yesterday's jovial 
 friendship was quite changed into suspicion and fears. 
 But discovering the trick by means of an Illinois 
 chief who had imbibed a strong liking for him, his 
 frank and judicious explanations soon dispersed this 
 threatening cloud, in appearance at least. Yet the 
 minds of the Illinois were not entirely at rest, and an 
 eminent chief, one Kikanape, took occasion, at a great 
 feast which he gave the French, in along speech filled 
 with flaming descriptions of terrible savages on the 
 land, and vast monsters and hideous whirlpools in 
 the great river, to dissuade them from going further. 
 It may easily be supposed that the steadfast leader 
 of the French was not moved by this savage rhetoric, 
 whose plain meaning he saw clearly to be, " We do 
 not want you travelling about our country at all ; so 
 please go straight back by the way you came." He 
 calmly rebuked the oratorical Indian for the veiled 
 unfriendliness of his purpose, and the feast proceeded. 
 Yet the infection worked among his men, as usual, 
 and six of them, including two sawyers upon whom 
 he depended to build the vessel in which to descend 
 the Mississippi, ran away, like faint hearts as they 
 were. It is even said that they basely planned 
 a cruel death for their bold commander, and that he 
 only escaped the effect of the poison they gave him, 
 
100 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 by a stroDg dose of treacle^ a sovereign antidote in 
 that day, and which, as well as orvietan^ another 
 ancient antidote, La Salle seems always to have had 
 in his medicine chest. 
 
 To prevent the rest from further dwelling npon 
 future dangers, he explained to them the peril of 
 leaving him in the winter, promised that those who 
 desired it should be permitted and aided to depart in 
 the sj^ring, showed them how unsafe was their unde- 
 fended condition, and proposed to build another fort. 
 To this they agreed, and he at once laid out the 
 ground, and employed part of them in erecting a 
 stout stockade, and the rest in building the vessel in 
 which he proposed to descend the Great River. 
 When the fort was completed, and it only remained 
 to give it a n^^me, La Salle for once took counsel of 
 his sorrows. He remembered the virulent pursuit of 
 the revengelul traders ; the disappearance of the 
 Griffin, with its rich freight of furs, and its richer 
 freight of human souls ; the wasteful seizure of his 
 goods by the creditors at Montreal and Quebec ; the 
 long, weary journeys to and fro across stormy lakes 
 and wintry forests; the base desertions, and vile, 
 murderous schemes of coward followers ; and named 
 his little stockade Crhvecceur^ "The Fort of the 
 Broken Heart." 
 
 But this first and last access of discouragement was 
 soon repelled, and the clear, strong mind of the great 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 101 
 
 discoverer regained its steady balance. Having 
 completed tlie bark on the stocks so far as was pos- 
 sible without the rigging and other materials in the 
 Griffin, and having given np hopes of seeing her, he 
 recognizes the fact that his means for proceeding are 
 exhausted, and qnickly and quietly prepares for an- 
 other winter's trip to Fort Frontenac, to refit, recruit, 
 and return. He sends Father Hennepin, one of his 
 Franciscans, with two stout French canoe-men, to 
 explore the upper Mississippi during his own absence ; 
 takes with him three Frenchmen and his faithful In- 
 dian hunter, and departing, passes over the twelve 
 hundred miles between Forts Crevecoeur and Fronte- 
 nac, taking the route along the south shore of lakes 
 Ontario and Erie, either near their coasts or upon the 
 highlands dividing their afi[luents from those of the 
 Ohio, deterred now no more than before, by the deep 
 melting snow of the forests, or the floods and floating 
 ice of so many rivers. Sending word back to Tonty 
 to build another fort on the strong site afterward 
 occupied by the French, Fort St. Louis, and even 
 now called Rock Fort, on a bluff two hundred feet 
 above the Illinois Eiver, he disappeared in the path- 
 less woods ; and neither of his adventures nor of his 
 solitary thoughts during the weeks of that long, toil- 
 some way, have we any record. But experienced 
 woodcraft, a hardy frame, and a strong will, brought 
 him safely through. 
 
102 PIONEERS, PREACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 Of course, misfortune and Lis enemies liave played 
 into each other's hands and against him all the time 
 of his absence. Besides the loss of the Griffin, he 
 has been heavily swindled by his agents in trade on 
 Ontario ; has lost a whole cargo of merchandise in the 
 lower St. Lawrence ; several valuable canoe-loads in 
 the rapids above Montreal ; a quantity more by other 
 employees, who stole them and ran away to the Dutch 
 at " Nouvelle Jorck ;" and still another large quan- 
 tity by forced sales at the instance of creditors, who 
 had heard (or wished they had) that he and all his 
 party were drowned. 
 
 Penniless, deeply in debt, all Canada full of his 
 enemies, all his plans crushed, is he helpless, too, and 
 will he succumb and disappear from Canada and from 
 history ? IN^ever ! He has still one powerful and 
 trusty friend — Count de Frontenac, the governor ; 
 and one more, yet more powerful and more trusty — 
 himself. "With the aid of these two he bestirs him 
 with such energy and success, that he again secures 
 men and means, and only varying his scheme by 
 giving up the idea of navigating the Mississippi in a 
 large boat or brigantine, and trusting to canoes in- 
 stead, he departs again, July 23d, 1680. After a long 
 journey, delayed by contrary winds on the lakes, he 
 arrives, by way of Fort Miami s, at the chief village 
 of the Illinois. It is burned and empty. In surprise, 
 he proceeds to the site where he had directed Tonty 
 
OF THE ivnssrssippi. 103 
 
 to build his second fort. There is not a vestige left 
 of human labor or human presence. He turns about, 
 without going further down the river, and returns to 
 the Miamis, where he remains during that winter, 
 occupied in negotiating peace among the Indians. 
 In the course of this season he learns, from some 
 wandering Illinois, a sad story of the disasters of 
 their nation, but gains no news of Tontj or his 
 men. 
 
 But without them, his party is not large enough to 
 proceed down the Great River. In the end of May, 
 1681, therefore, he returns again toward Canada for 
 further reinforcements, and at Mackinaw, to their 
 mutual surprise and joy, finds Tonty and his men. 
 Tliey exchange the stories of their separate experi- 
 ence. Tonty related how mutiny had obliged him 
 to give up both Fort St. Louis and Fort Crevecoeur, 
 and had driven him to take shelter with the Illinois ; 
 how an L'oquois army had invaded and scattered that 
 tribe, and destroyed the villages ; and how, after long 
 endeavors to avert the destructive purposes of the 
 savage Iroquois, he and his few men had been forced 
 to flee for their lives to Green Bay, some scouting 
 Kickapoos murdering Father Gabriel de la Eibourde 
 on the road. If he had taken the south road at Lake 
 Dauphin, instead of that to the north, Tonty would 
 have met his commander, on his last outward expe- 
 dition, with a well furnished little fleet of canoes. 
 
104 PIONEEES, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 Then La Salle, with a steady countenance, as in- 
 differently as if they had been the mishaps of 
 another, in turn related a still longer and heavier ca- 
 talogue of misfortunes and disappointments. Father 
 Membre says, in admiration, that though any one 
 but he would have renoimced the enterprise, he was 
 " more resolute than ever to continue his work and 
 complete his discovery." 
 
 We must here advert for a moment to the liar 
 Hennepin, who had, during La Salle's absence, made 
 an exploring voyage on the upper Mississippi, and 
 endured a short captivity among the Indians. From 
 this he had escaped, and a few weeks after La Salle's 
 meeting with Tonty at Mackinaw, he passed that 
 post, made the best of his way to Canada, and thence 
 to Europe, where he afterward published an account 
 of a pretended voyage down the Great Eiver, in 
 which he endeavored to rob La Salle of the glory of 
 discovering: its outlet. 
 
 ]^othing could be done at Mackinaw for the great 
 object of the persevering La Salle, so he and his 
 party soon returned to Fort Frontenac. Here he 
 rearranged all his finances, selected a strong body of 
 Frenchmen and of 'New England Lodians, Abenakis 
 or Mohegans, with these returned to Niagara, and in 
 August, 1681, embarked thence once more for the 
 mysterious mouth of the "Hidden Eiver," as the 
 Spaniards named it ; at last, after undaunted and 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 105 
 
 indescribable exertions, this third time destined to 
 succeed. 
 
 With fiftj-four souls in all, including ten Indian 
 women to cook, and three children, the expedition 
 passed from the Miamis to the Chicago Eiver, up 
 this on the ice to the portage, down the Elinois to 
 Lake Peoria, and thence by water, the river being 
 open, toward the Mississippi. They swept past the 
 Fort of the Broken Heart, barely delaying to look in 
 upon the garrison now reestablished there, and press- 
 ing forward with happier auguries, glided down a 
 deserted river— the Indians being at their distant 
 winter hunting-grounds— and on the 6th of February, 
 1682, floated upon the long-desired stream, which 
 La Salle now named the Colbert, after his staunch 
 patron, the great French statesman. 
 
 They swept downward, with various adventure; 
 fishing or hunting ; holding peaceful intercourse with 
 many a savage tribe ; erecting a splendid cross, bear- 
 ing the arms of France, near the mouth of the Ar- 
 kansas Eiver, in token of the proprietorship of the 
 French king, and amid the ignorant rejoicing of the 
 savages, who took the ceremony to be a show for 
 their amusement, instead of a formal theft of their 
 land, and after their departure carefully inclosed with 
 palisades the ornamented cross. 
 
 Onv/ard still; past the sun- worshipping Tensas 
 whose ceremonies, large canoes, and profound reve- 
 
106 PIONEERS, 
 
 rence for tlieir chiefs, seemed to indicate that they 
 were of kin to the brave and interesting tribe of the 
 ISTatchez. Onward still, past the Katchez themselves; 
 past the Koroas and the Quinipissas, and sundry 
 other tribes ; past a village jnst plundered, and ten- 
 anted by the corpses of the slain ; and now, all at 
 once, the vast stream divides before them into three 
 mighty channels. The brave commander's heart 
 beats high, for he nmst be near the southern sea ; 
 and sending detachments down the eastern and mid- 
 dle channels, under Tonty and Dautray, he himself 
 pursues the western, the largest. The muddy waves 
 of the broad flood are gradually found to become 
 brackish, and then quite salt ; and now the measure- 
 less expanse of the Gulf of Mexico lies wide before 
 them. The mouth of the Great Eiver, the Hidden 
 River, is found. 
 
 Of the emotions of the stern and lofty-minded La 
 Salle, as he thus floated out toward the goal of his 
 vast and long-pursued enterprise, no record exists. 
 "Whatever they were, his high and resolved features 
 gave small trace of them ; and speedily returning 
 to the prosaic duties of the mere discoverer, he spends 
 one day in exploring and sounding the river's mouths 
 and the neighboring shores, and another in finding a 
 spot dry and firm enough, amidst those dreary ex- 
 panses of fat alluvium, all overgrown with rank sedge 
 and reeds, to afford a site for a memorial column and 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 107 
 
 its attendant cross, tokens of the empire of Christ, 
 and of the great French king. " Henceforth," saith 
 La Salle, " my God and my king are supreme forever 
 over the innumerable souls and the immeasurable 
 lands of this great continent." 
 
 Having selected a suitable place, on the 9th of 
 April, 16S2, La Salle draws up his whole party un- 
 der arms ; they sing the Te Deum^ the Exaudiat^ and 
 the Doinine salvum fac Begem — thanking God, im- 
 ploring his continued help for themselves, and then 
 loyally asking it for their king, by the three sonorous 
 old Latin chants. They fire a formal salute of ijius- 
 ketry, and shout Vive le Boi ! Tlien the column is 
 erected, and with a long enumeration of nations, and 
 rivers, and lands, he formally proclaims that all the 
 lands and waters of Louisiana, " along the Kiver Col- 
 bert or Mississippi, and rivers which discharge them- 
 selves therein, from its source beyond the country of 
 the Elious or ]N"adouessions, and this with their con- 
 sent, and with the consent of the Motantees, Illi- 
 nois, Mesigameas, [N'atchez, and Koroas, as far as 
 its mouth at the sea," are henceforth part of the 
 realms of the king of France. And he demands of 
 Jacques de la Metairie, the notary, his ofiicial certifi- 
 cate of the transaction. The scribe draws up the in- 
 strument, and it is signed by the notary himself, 
 and by La Salle, Father Zenobius Membre, the 
 missionary, Henry de Tonty, and the other French* 
 
108 PIONEEKSj 
 
 men of the party, and delivered to the com- 
 mander. 
 
 Then they erect a cross , bury at the foot of the 
 tree to which it is attached a leaden plate, with an 
 inscription commemorating their discovery and their 
 claim ; chant more Latin hymns , shont again Vive le 
 Eoi ; and thus the Mississippi valley is made French 
 for almost a centnry — until the peace of 1763. 
 
 But they are hard pressed for food ; and barely de- 
 laying to finish the ceremony, must push rapidly up 
 the river. This they do ; and after a combat with 
 the Quinipissas — the first into which La Salle had 
 ever been driven with the Indians, so wise and skill- 
 ful had been all his actions toward them — and after 
 some suifering from hunger, the party proceeds safely 
 on its return. At Fort Frudhomme, however, the in- 
 trepid chief is stricken down by a wasting fever. He 
 sends his faithful lieutenant, Tonty, with an account 
 of his voyage and discovery, to Count de Frontenac, 
 with orders to return at once ; and himself remains 
 forty days on his sick-bed, under the care of the good 
 priest Father Zenobius Membre, and was even then 
 so worn down by illness that it was almost the end of 
 September before he reached his establishment at 
 the Miamis. 
 
 La Salle now purposes to return down the Missis- 
 sippi during the next spring, and to establish a strong 
 colony near its mouth. He sends Father Zenobius to 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 109 
 
 France with full accounts of his doings hitherto ; but 
 for nearly a year he is occupied — probably, for he 
 has left no record of his deeds — in trading, travelling, 
 and keeping up his influence and connections with 
 the Indians, the plan of the colony being postponed 
 or modified by circumstances, or, more probably, by 
 his own thoughts. 
 
 For during the long months of that sojourn in the 
 wilderness, the scheme of his Mississippi colony has 
 grown and expanded within his mind. Twice has he 
 proved his influence upon the rich and magnificent 
 government of Louis the Fourteenth. "Why should 
 he not a third time look to a mighty empire for the 
 assistance he needs, rather than to his small indivi- 
 dual resources ; and cross the ocean with a strong 
 company in great ships, instead of boating obscurely 
 dow^n the vast wilderness river in frail canoes ? 
 
 He resolves to try ; and leaving the Chevalier de 
 Tonty his financial agent and lieutenant command- 
 ing, he departs down the St. Lawrence, takes ship at 
 Quebec, and lands at Eochelle, December 13th, 1683. 
 
 As usual, he find that his enemies have been ac- 
 tive, and that fortune has aided them. His munifi- 
 cent patron, Colbert, is dead. De la Barre, now go- 
 vernor of Canada, has written to the home govern- 
 ment^that La Salle stirs up Indian wars ; that all his 
 tales of discoveries are lies ; that he has acted the 
 part of a petty tyrant among those far-off wilder- 
 
110 PIONEEKS, PKEACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 n esses, with a small band of vagabond followers, steal- 
 ing and figliting. But it was not sncli an attack as 
 this which could obstruct La Salle. Aided by his 
 friends, Father Zenobius Membre, and Count Fronte- 
 nac, now returned to France, by the inherited pre- 
 possessions of Colbert's son, the Duke de Seignelai, 
 now high in office, and by his own inexhaustible en- 
 ergy and strange power over the court, he goes 
 straight on with his plans. The absurd slanders of 
 the spiteful De la Barre die in silence ; and the au- 
 thority and means now confided to him were far 
 greater than before. 
 
 The king gives him a free gift of a ship of six guns, 
 and the use of three more, a thirty-six gun frigate, a 
 transport of three himdred tons, and a ketch; and 
 fm^nishes supplies, sea and land forces, colonists : in 
 short, the whole personal and material constituents 
 of a colony. And not only has La Salle the supreme 
 command of this great expedition, but territorial ju- 
 risdiction over all the great valley whither he is 
 bound, and over all colonies established therein. 
 
 The reputation of the enterprise and its leader 
 draw to him a number of volunteers, all respectable, 
 and including several families, a brother of La Salle's, 
 who was a priest, two of his nephews, and another 
 relative, also a priest. 
 
 And even now, at this very moment, when the im- 
 pregnable, steady energies and inexhaustible wise 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. Ill 
 
 perseverance of this man seem at last to have brought 
 him to a point promising the full reward of so many 
 years of labor and incessant wanderings — even now 
 opens the longest and saddest of all tlie long sad 
 chapters of his fateful life. On the very point of em- 
 barking, the careful chief, who had been forced to 
 enlist his soldiers, mechanics, and laborers by means 
 of others, found that these faithless hirelings had 
 raked together the very scum of the sea-ports ; giv- 
 ing him for soldiers beggars, vagabonds, and cripples 
 so deformed that they could not handle a musket ; 
 for skilled artisans, men perfectly ignorant of their 
 pretended trades. In urgent haste, he partly reme- 
 dies the evil, but, as usual, must let much of it pass ; 
 trusting, not without reason, to the calm and ready 
 strength w^hich has made head against so many trou- 
 bles before. But another evil he cannot remedy. 
 The generous king has appointed to the naval com- 
 mand a l^orman, M. de Beaujeu ; and it would be 
 ungracious, and is now too late to endeavor to dis- 
 place him : a little-minded, obstinate, quarrelsome, 
 pompous man, ridiculously vain of his rank of cap- 
 tain, snappish and irritable, of all men on earth the 
 very one to be vexed at the silent, self-reliant, haughty 
 reserve of La Salle. Even before sailing, this un- 
 happy captain writes peevish and dissatisfied letters to 
 the marine department. How fatally and bitterly the 
 fool vented his spite afterward, will quickly appear. 
 
112 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 Let US hasten ; the narrative is painful ; who would 
 protract the sorrowful story ? They had to return 
 one hundred and fifty miles to replace a broken bow- 
 sprit ; then sailing again. La Salle, with wise and 
 cautious speed, refused to stop uselessly at Madeira, 
 and the wretched ITorman, Beaujeu, and all the lazy 
 ships' companies, murmured and were enraged. 
 Then he positively forbade the sailors to subject his 
 followers to the brutal abuses usual at crossing the 
 tropic line, and they grumbled and complained still 
 more. As the fleet approached St. Domingo, a storm 
 scattered it ; and eagerly seizing the opportunity of 
 making trouble, the mean Beaujeu, instead of enter- 
 ing Port de Paix, the rendezvous agreed upon, and 
 where were the royal officers whom La Salle was to 
 meet and who were ordered to aid and promote his 
 designs, passed round the island and landed at Petit 
 Goave, far to the southwest. And now, also, the in- 
 scrutable purposes of God add to fierce tempests and 
 hatefully perverse unfriends aboard, two other ene- 
 mies. Tlie Spaniards, now at war with Prance, sur- 
 prise and seize his ketch, the St. Francis, with thirty 
 tons of merchandise and military stores — a grievous 
 loss, which would not have happened had Beaujeu 
 put in at Port de Paix, as he should have done. But 
 La Salle calmly adds the item to that long list of 
 shipwrecks in Canada, and dismisses it from his 
 mind. A wasting disease, however, is the second and 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 113 
 
 worst of these added foes ; and under the furious 
 assault of a tropical fever, his life even is despaired 
 of. But he is not yet to die ; we may even suppose 
 that that powerful will urges him through this peril 
 of disease : that he will not die — unless God so de- 
 cree. And in three weeks, though yet feeble, he 
 consults with the governor and intendant, who came 
 to Petit Goave to meet him ; takes on board provi- 
 sions and domestic animals ; obtains sailing direc- 
 tions, and hastens away ; for his miserable band of 
 vagabond soldiers, living in licentious disorder, are 
 diseased and dying, or desert the jangling and 
 ill-omened fleet for the luxurious ease of St. Do- 
 mingo. 
 
 Embarking in the slowest sailer, and taking the 
 lead in her, he sets sail again ; coasts the southern 
 shore of Cuba ; stops three days at the Isle of Pines ; 
 weathers Cape Corientes, and then Cape San Anto- 
 nio, and after being once driven back, steers north 
 west into the great Gulf of Mexico, straight for the 
 mouth of the Mississippi. They sail eight days, and 
 now the soundings tell of land not far off. In two 
 days more they discern it. "Where are they? Con- 
 sulting and hesitating, they conclude that they are 
 in the great Bay of Appalache ; for the pilots at 
 St. Domingo told them of strong currents, which 
 they accordingly believe have carried them east- 
 ward. Fatal error ! They were, doubtless, already 
 
114: PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 far west of that strangely-hidden river, in one of the 
 bays of the coast of Texas. 
 
 But thus they judge ; and coasting further west to 
 find the Mississippi, they leave it yet further behind 
 them. Sailing a whole week, they still imagine 
 themselves in the Bay of Appalache. Sailing two 
 weeks more, they become convinced of their error ; 
 the coast trends southward ; they are approaching 
 Mexico. They turn about, and it is proposed to find 
 the Mississippi by coasting eastward again. But 
 Beaujeu flatly refuses, without a supply of provisions, 
 which La Salle will not give, lest the wicked captain 
 should sail away to France. 
 
 Returning, however, a little way up the coast, 
 they enter Matagorda Bay, which La Salle names 
 the Bay of St. Louis, and which he vainly hopes to 
 find one of the mouths of the Mississippi. It is de- 
 cided to disembark, and all the emigrants go ashore, 
 leaving the crews only on board the ships. The 
 neighborhood is ex]3lored, the harbor sounded, and 
 the Aimable, the transport, ordered in. Her captain, 
 a brute or a villain, or more probably both, refuses 
 a pilot, and running his vessel ashore, slie bilges ; 
 some one takes pains to destroy her boat ; and the 
 greater part of her cargo — the very sustenance of the 
 colony — is lost. The Lidians take some goods whicli 
 float ashore; and a party of Frenchmen, sent to 
 reclaim them, seizing some canoes and skins in repri- 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 115 
 
 salj the enraged savages make a night attack upon 
 them, kill two and womid two more. 
 
 The demoniac cunning and ferocity of the red men 
 thus cooperates with these devouring shipwrecks. 
 And the colonists already begin to lament, to mur- 
 mur, and to talk of returning to France. But their 
 leader, though cruelly grieved, is not discouraged nor 
 moved ; his fearless resolution is a tower of strength 
 to all the band, and the enterprise proceeds. 
 
 Beaujeu departs, still angry and venomous, carry- 
 ing away all the cannon balls for the eight great guns 
 of the colony, because, forsooth, he would have had 
 to move part of his cargo to get at them ; leaving on 
 that wild and distant shore about two hundred souls, 
 the small vessel, La Belle, and that portion of provi- 
 sions and goods saved from the Spaniards and the 
 sea. 
 
 This is in the middle of March, 1685. The com- 
 mander orders a temporary fort to be constructed, and 
 then explores the coast. Finding a pleasant site 
 some distance west, he moves his colony thither, and 
 in the course of July they are all there, their only 
 misfortunes by the way, one death from the bite of a 
 rattlesnake, and a conspiracy among the soldiers to 
 murder their officers and run away, this last detected 
 in time to crush it. On this new site are erected, 
 with terrific labor, even fatal to some of the colonists, 
 dwellings and a fort, named Fort St. Louis ; and La 
 
116 PI0NEEE8, PEEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 Salle, having thus provided for the security of his 
 colony, prepares to make a journey by land for the 
 hidden fateful river. In October, having been de- 
 layed by his brother's sickness, he sets out, the Belle 
 accompanying him part of the way by sea. On the 
 first night six men, detached to take soundings, keep- 
 mg careless watch, are murdered by the savages. 
 The commander marches on eastward, discovers the 
 Colorado, examines the eastern part of Matagorda 
 Bay, and returns, after an absence of more than four 
 months, with but eight of the twenty men who set 
 out with him. Six are dead ; one, a quarrelsome, 
 vindictive villain, named Duhaut, deserted, and has 
 returned alone some time before ; and the others are 
 searching for the Belle, of which no news has been 
 received. They came in next day ; nothing could be 
 seen of her ; she was doubtless lost, and with her dis- 
 appeared their last means of communicating with 
 civilized men, unless by journeys scarcely less than 
 sure to be fatal. 
 
 But such communication must be had. The neces- 
 sity of it being recognized, the strong and calm com- 
 mander quietly and quickly prej)ares for it, as coolly 
 as if he were only intending to stej) across the fort ; 
 gathering resolution — if, indeed, that indomitable 
 will ever looked for encourao-ement at all — from the 
 evident alternative of swift destruction. His journey 
 shall be to the Illinois, where, in his strong hill fort, 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 117 
 
 the valiant and faithful Tonty is sure to be at his 
 post, waiting orders as directed — unless orders which 
 cannot be disobeyed have summoned him away from 
 all earthly obligations. Once in Illinois, he can ob- 
 tain assistance there, and can send or go to Quebec 
 or to France. Taking twenty men again, he sets out 
 by land, in the end of April, 1686, leaving M. Joutel, 
 as before, in command of the fort. 
 
 He returns in August, having travelled far up into 
 the interior, and having there been delayed for two 
 months and more by a violent fever. Their ammu- 
 nition becoming exhausted, during this time, and 
 being entirely dependent on hunting for provisions, 
 they had no alternative but to turn back. Of this 
 second company of twenty, but eight returned ; four 
 had deserted to the Indians, one was lost, one de- 
 voured by an alligator, and the rest, being unable to 
 endure the fatigue of the journey, had set out to 
 return and were never heard of. 
 
 These failures cast a deep gloom over the little 
 company in the fort, now reduced, by death and 
 desertion, from about two hundred to forty; but. 
 Bays Joutel in his journal, ^' the even temper of our 
 chief made all men easy, and he found, by his great 
 vivacity of spirit, expedients which revived the low- 
 est ebb of hope." He had given up the Belle for 
 lost, and therefore rejoiced exceedingly to find that 
 his kinsman, M. Chefdeville, and some others of her 
 
118 PIONEERS, PEEACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 crew, had escaped, and had saved his own clothes 
 and part of his papers, although the little vessel her- 
 self, as he had concluded, had j)erished. 
 
 La Salle at once set about building a storehouse, 
 to keep his men employed ; and still retaining his in- 
 tention of proceeding to the Illinois, they talked 
 daily about the journey. Being taken ill, however, 
 his stout-hearted lieutenant, Joutel, offered to go 
 instead, if he might take fifteen men and the faithful 
 Indian hunter, who had followed his chief to France 
 and back to Mexico. But the commander recovers 
 his health, and again — as he would have done a 
 hundredth time, had he failed ninety-nine — makes 
 his arrangements and sets out, taking with him a 
 third twenty men, and leaving thirteen men and 
 seven women in the fort, wdth a considerable stock 
 of provisions and arms. 
 
 Thus, on the 12th of January, 1687, departs Eobert 
 de la Salle, for the third time, from his little colony, 
 as resolute and cool as ever ; but the parting was 
 saddened as if by presentiments of evil. " We took 
 our leaves," says the veteran man of war, Joutel, 
 " with so much tenderness and sorrow, as if we had 
 all presaged that we should never see each other 
 more." 
 
 And now the long, brave struggle with fate and 
 with enemies, draws to its melancholy close. The 
 little party, with their JiYe horse-loads of provisions, 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 119 
 
 disappears from the eyes of tlie Sieur Barbier, left 
 commander of the scanty colony in the fort ; and 
 plunging into the woods, marches northeastward, 
 across the pleasant prairies and through the open 
 woods of Texas. They ford rivers and pass through 
 swamps, often easing their progress by following 
 buffalo paths ; negotiate, as they go, with the In- 
 dians, always friendly, but always on their guard; 
 and Nika, the hunter, ever purveys for them abun- 
 dance of game. 
 
 On the 15th of March, La Salle sends Duhaut, 
 the mutinous wretch before mentioned, Hiens, a 
 German buccaneer, Liotot the surgeon, ]S'ika the 
 Indian, and his own footman, Saget, to bring in 
 some provisions which he had concealed a few miles 
 away, on his last journey. These they found spoiled 
 by wet, and as they returned, Nika killed two buf- 
 falo, and they sent the footman on to advise their 
 commander to have the meat dried, and send horses 
 for it. He does so, sending his nephew, Moranget, 
 a violent and reckless young man, with several 
 more of the party. 
 
 Moranget comes, and finds that Duhaut and the 
 rest are smoking the buffalo meat, and that, by the 
 common right of hunters, they have laid by some 
 marrow-bones and choice bits for themselves. In a 
 sudden burst of unreasonable and inexplicable pas- 
 sion, he reproves and threatens them, and seizes not 
 
120 PIONEERS, PEEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 only all the smoked meat, but all the tidbits which 
 the J had saved according to custom. This last 
 offence filled up the cup of their anger, even to run- 
 ning over ; for these three, the surgeon Liotot, Hiens, 
 and Duhaut, fancied they had — and most probably 
 had — other causes of complaint against the unhapj)y 
 young man. With black looks, their hearts all boil- 
 ing with hot wrath, but still withheld for the moment 
 by lack of concert from wreaking the revenge for 
 which they all thirst, they silently draw off, and con- 
 sult apart upon the matter. Seared and hardened by 
 crime, the inhuman wretches easily agree upon their 
 measures. They will murder Moranget in his sleep, 
 and so square their account with him. Eut, one of 
 them suggests, the Indian and the footman are faith- 
 ful — they will avenge the deed, or inform upon us. 
 The answer is easy — they, too, will be asleep ; we 
 have only to kill them too. Accordingly, taking 
 into their plot Teissier and Larcheveque, two more 
 of the party, they wait, revelling in the devilish satis- 
 faction of anticipated revenge, until their unsuspecting 
 victims have eaten, and are peacefully asleep, dream- 
 ing, doubtless, of distant homes and loving hearts 
 in sunny France. Liotot, the surgeon, arises, takes 
 an axe, and strikes Moranget many blows on the 
 head ; then leaving him, dispatches the Indian and 
 the footman, who never stirred. But such was the 
 vitality of the young officer, that, though mangled 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 121 
 
 and speechlesSj lie sat up, alive, a horrible spectacle 
 of misery. The murderers oblige his fellow, De Marie, 
 though not a conspirator, to put him out of his pain. 
 
 Crimes are seldom single. It needs not long reflec- 
 tion to show them that they must do yet another mur- 
 der, or suffer for those already done. They must kill 
 La Salle too. And they will the more readily do 
 this, because they have some harshness of his to 
 punish. They would at once have set out to attack 
 him, had not the river between them risen too high. 
 But he comes to them, as if impelled upon his fate. 
 Uneasy at the delay of his nephew, and, as if under 
 some presage of misfortune, or consciousness of fault 
 in his own or his nephew's conduct, he asks his men 
 if Liotot, Hiens, and Duhaut have not expressed some 
 discontent. 'No one seems to know of it, and, his 
 apprehensions increasing, he sets out on the third 
 day to find his nephew. 
 
 Approaching the tragic scene, he sees some eagles, 
 and thinking carrion near, he fires a shot, as a signal 
 to his friends, in case they have killed game and are 
 within hearing. Silent in death, they are beyond all 
 human summons. The doomed commander's signal 
 serves only to insure and hasten his own fate. The 
 conspirators hear it ; Duhaut and Larcheveque cross 
 the river ; Duhaut hides in the reeds, and Larche- 
 veque shows himself at a little distance. La Salle 
 calls out to him, asking after Moranget. The man 
 
 6 
 
122 PIONEEES, PEEACHEKS AND PEOPLE 
 
 answers, vaguely, rudely, and omitting the usual ges- 
 ture of respect, that lie is along the river. The 
 punctilious and severe chief advances, as if to reprove 
 or chastise the impertinent manner of his follower ; 
 Duhaut takes fatal aim from his lair, and fires. His 
 ball passes through the head of La Salle, and he falls 
 without speaking a word. 
 
 Father Anastasius Douay, who was with his leader, 
 prepares to share his fate, but on their telling him 
 that he is safe, endeavors to do the last priestly offices 
 for him. But the dying man can only feebly press 
 the hand of the good father, in token that he under- 
 stands him, and his spirit quickly passes. The death 
 shot brings up the other conspirators ; and they strip 
 and insult the poor corpse. The surgeon, Liotot, 
 laughs and mocks at it, and, in the excess of his bru- 
 tal glee, cries out over and over again, " There thou 
 liest, grand bashaw — there thou liest!" And they 
 fling the naked body aside among the bushes, a prey 
 to wild beasts ; though they do not prevent the sor- 
 rowing priest from burying it afterward, and erecting 
 a rude cross over it. 
 
 Thus died Kobert Cavelier de la Salle, at a time 
 when a fairer prospect than ever of some permanent 
 success was opening before him. His faithful fol- 
 lower, Joutel, who was one of the party, but not pre- 
 sent at his death, thus delivers his funeral oration, 
 with terse military frankness, mingled of praise and 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 123 
 
 blame : " Ilis constancy and courage, and his extra- 
 ordinary knowledge in arts and sciences, wliich ren- 
 dered liim fit for anything, together with an indefati- 
 gable body, which made him surmount all difB.cul- 
 ties, would have procured a glorious issue to his un- 
 dertaking, had not all those excellent qualities been 
 counterbalanced by too haughty a behavior, which 
 sometimes made him insupportable, and by a seve- 
 rity toward those under his command, wdiich at last 
 drew on him implacable hatred, and was the occasion 
 of his death." 
 
 Few words may close this sad story. A swift re- 
 tribution overtook Liotot and Duhaut, who were a 
 little after slain in a quarrel, by Hiens, who remained 
 among the Indians. Six of the party, all the conspi- 
 rators having left them, reached, in July, a post esta- 
 blished by Tonty at the mouth of the Arkansas, and 
 proceeding onward, reached Fort St. Louis, thence 
 went to Quebec, and thence to France ; hiding, with 
 difficulty and equivocation, their heavy burden of 
 sad news, until they first revealed it to the French 
 king. 
 
 La Salle's little colony vanished away. The In- 
 dians assaulted and took it, slaj'ing all but four 
 youths and a young girl, who were afterward rescued 
 by a Spanish force from Mexico, sent to observe the 
 French establishment. 
 
 Tonty had descended the Mississippi while LaBalJo 
 
124 PIONEERS, PEEACHEKS AND PEOPLE 
 
 was in Texas, but not finding him, left a letter for 
 him with the Indians, who delivered it safe to Iber- 
 ville, fourteen years after, when he entered the river. 
 Then returning, he resumed the duties of his lieuten- 
 ancy in Illinois ; and spent the remainder of his life, 
 as far as is known, in military services in various 
 parts of North America: a stout and faithful soldier 
 to the last. 
 
 ISTot one written word from La Salle's pen has 
 reached us. His papers perished in the lonely fort 
 on Matagorda Bay. 'Nov liave we even reports of his 
 statements as to his views or motives ; for it was not 
 his custom to speak of what he intended, but only to 
 order what he desired, and thus it happens that our 
 estimate of him must be based upon our scanty infor- 
 mation of his actual achievements, preserved either 
 by ill-informed or unappreciative friends, or unscru- 
 pulous and cunning enemies. 
 
 We need not elaborate a description of his charac- 
 ter ; our story has sufficiently exhibited it. The les- 
 sons of his life are easily read. It is true, that that 
 haughty silence, that harsh, peremptory manner, were 
 faults ; but how manifold the excuses — ^liow terribly 
 complete the expiation ! Tenderly we would touch 
 upon those errors, and would rather enlarge upon the 
 unspotted honor, the far-seeing plans, the wise prac- 
 tical sense, the tact and skill in governing and nego- 
 tiating, and organizing, the stainless, impregnable 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 125 
 
 courage, and, aboTc all, that calm, colossal power of 
 will wliicli impelled liim so resistlessly through and 
 over the opposition of so many foes, so many misfor- 
 tunes, with an inscrutable, gigantic momentum, like 
 that by which the vast icebergs of the Arctic ride 
 crashing through the thick fields of ironbound ice, 
 with a force beyond human admeasurement, but 
 calmly and steadily, as if floating in a summer sea. 
 ITo grander model of superiority to the vicissitudes of 
 human life is to be found in history. 
 
 Farewell, strong and brave man ! From thee may 
 we well learn a lesson of courage, of perseverance, 
 of patient endurance and undying hope ; and if the 
 perplexing question should arise within us. How 
 can it be just that such heroic struggles should at last 
 so utterly fail — why could not this noble life at last 
 be crowned with peace and honor and happiness ? let 
 Faith answer, from behind the mysterious veil of 
 death — ^Ye shall know all, when ye come hither ! 
 
Lecture III. 
 
 THE 
 
 FRENCH IN ILLINOIS. 
 
 12J 
 
THE FRENCH IN ILLmOIS. 
 
 THE IDYL OF AMERICA. 
 
 * In the history of the exploration and settlement of 
 the great valley of the Mississippi, as far as we have 
 hitherto examined it, the four predominant influences 
 may be named as Eomance, Religion, Ambition, and 
 Greed, each conjoined with the others in varying pro- 
 portions. 
 
 The early history of 'New England is a manifesta- 
 tion of a stalwart courage that dared to face cold, 
 hunger, peril, nakedness, and barbarism, solely for 
 the maintenance of a faith dearer than life itself. 
 But this unrelaxing sinewy exertion, this undaunted 
 courage, this determined and irreversible resolve to 
 live out the principles of religious belief, in things 
 political and social as well as in things ecclesiastical 
 — all these powerful and noble and lofty characteris- 
 tics are combined with and colored by a certain de- 
 gree of severity. The Puritan social life was rugged 
 to hardness — stern, uninviting. None of its features 
 were refined, delicate, genial. Sentiment was un- 
 known to the majority, and ruled out for all. Tho 
 
 g* 129 
 
130 
 
 temporal exigencies of the place and tlie time were 
 too terrible and too pressing — the requisitions of the 
 current Calvinism were too serious — too gloomy 
 — to encourage or even to permit the expansion and 
 development and cultivation of the more beautiful 
 social faculties. 
 
 Nor did the origin, the process and the progress of 
 the settlement of other parts of the continent, afford 
 more space for the growth or exercise of these facul- 
 ties. Further south, on the Atlantic coast, we see 
 the workings of the European mercantile system, as 
 modified by the colonial monopolies of the respective 
 governments who sent or protected the settlers. ISTew 
 York was a depot and agency for the traffic of the 
 Dutch "West India Company. The spirit of the early 
 lords of Yirginia is well illustrated by the brutal ex- 
 hortation of that nobleman who replied to the colo- 
 nial representations of the wants of their souls, and 
 their need of mental and spiritual improvement, by 
 saying, " Damn your ' souls ;' make tobacco !" Caro- 
 lina was an endeavor to realize the fantastic political 
 dream of the philosopher Locke. In Florida and 
 Louisiana, the predominating influences were the 
 prominent traits of the rulers and people of the parent 
 nations, reproduced with bad fidelity in the Ameri 
 can settlements which sprang up under their colonial 
 monopolies : greed of gold, lust of landed property, 
 pride of conquest, fanatical zeal. The transatlantic 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 131 
 
 plantations were primarily to serve as distant gar- 
 dens to tlie royal palaces of Europe, and secondarily, 
 to spread tlie dominion of the Koman Catholic faitli. 
 
 But we are, at this point, brought to the consider- 
 ation of one beautiful exception to the remainder of 
 all the broad continent, l^ot to a perfect Paradise — 
 not to a true and ideal Eden ; but yet to such a 
 peaceful sunny spot, such a benign and kindly social 
 life, such a scene of universal heartfelt instinctive 
 courtesy, of patriarchal subordination, of mild and 
 blessed neigliborly virtue and forbearance, of harm- 
 less, simple, sufficing pleasure, of perfect health, 
 blooming, happy youth, unambitious, industrious 
 manhood, quiet old age, as is nowhere else to be 
 found throughout all tlie broad page of American 
 history. 
 
 The conduct of the French toward the aborigines 
 of this continent was far more humane and generous, 
 wise and successful, than the policy of any other 
 European nation. The Spaniards treated the Indians 
 like slaves and beasts of burden, and with a cold- 
 blooded, selfish, blind brutality, which, by extermi- 
 nating the unhappy race, exhausted its own materials 
 and disappointed its own objects. The Anglo-Saxon, 
 a man of higher grade, but not less self-contained, 
 self-satisfied, exclusive, and resolute than the Span- 
 iard, did not prove himself brutally bigoted and ava- 
 ricious like him, in his intercourse with the red 
 
132 PIONEEIiS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 men, but only unconciliating, severe, exacting, and 
 strangely inconsiderate of the defects and misfortunes 
 of savage nature and savage education. Planting 
 himself in the Avilderness with all his institutions, his 
 common law and statutory code, wdth the Mosaic in- 
 tensifications which obscurity and distance allowed, 
 he did what was fair, just, lawful and right, by his 
 laws and according to his principles. And if the In- 
 dians transgressed these, instead of inquiring under 
 what code, or upon what violation of savage prin- 
 ciples it was done, he stolidly inflicted a statutory 
 English penalty ; and if this roused retaliation, the 
 united colony, with the same stolid ignorance, re- 
 torted by judicial and military devastations and mur- 
 ders that might, it is true, temporarily quell opposi- 
 tion by the death of their enemies or the intimidation 
 of the survivors, but which always left alive the 
 smoldering embers which kept up the constant and 
 fiendish border warfare, and ever and anon blazed 
 out into one of the frightful and perilous Indian 
 wars. 
 
 The French were no whit less zealous for their re- 
 ligion than the Spaniards ; beyond all comparison 
 more so, as missionaries, than the English, l^or were 
 they less eager than either for gain, for adventure, 
 or for empire. But the genial social qualities, the 
 inborn national adaptability and courtesy, even the 
 less stringent sense of moral obligation, their greater 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 133 
 
 habitude to feudal law, and their patient sub- 
 jection to seignorial rights, which may be called 
 faults or defects, gave them incalculable advantages 
 in founding, maintaining, and cementing the public 
 and individual intercourse which they so long main- 
 tained with the Indians. In truth, had it depended 
 alone on the success of alliances and cooperation with 
 Indian tribes, instead of the fortunes of civilized war 
 and the exigencies of European politics, it is well- 
 nigh certain that the vast French belt of fortresses 
 and settlements which so perilously girded in the 
 Atlantic seaboard, would have fulfilled its purpose ; 
 that the English settlers would have been driven 
 into the sea, exterminated, or reduced under the 
 French power ; and that the lilies of France, instead 
 of the lion of England, would have waved over the 
 whole vast domain of central !N"orth America during 
 the latter half of the eighteenth century. 
 
 There is no more striking exemplification of the 
 advantages in point of personal character thus as- 
 cribed to the French, than the history of those set- 
 tlements founded in Illinois by the successors of 
 La Salle, during the period from about 1680 until the 
 removal of so many of the French at the transfer of 
 authority to British hands in 1Y65. 
 
 The way to the prairie land, it will be remembered, 
 was pioneered by the saintly Marquette. "Next came 
 tlie indefatigable and far-seeing La Salle, and his 
 
13 J: PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 faithful and no less indefatigable lieutenant, Henry 
 de Tonty. These able leaders and skillful negotiators, 
 and many more of like character and less renown, 
 diffused among all the numerous tribes from the St. 
 Lawrence to the upper waters of the distant Missouri, 
 where the stout sieur Juchereau maintained his 
 lonely trading-post, a spirit of friendly regard for the 
 French, and of deep reverence for the great French 
 king. And in the footsteps of trappers and traders 
 there followed Jesuit missionaries of zeal as fervent 
 and character as beautiful as the holy Marquette him- 
 self: Allouez, his predecessor on Lake Superior, his 
 successor on the alluvial lands that border the rivers 
 of Illinois, and good Father Gravier, who founded 
 the oldest permanent settlement in the great Missis- 
 sippi Yalley, the Yillage of the Immaculate Concep- 
 tion of Our Lady, afterward named Kaskaskia. The 
 time of the foundation of this ancient town is not 
 positively ascertained ; but such data as have been 
 determined seem to justify the belief that Philadel- 
 phia, Detroit, Mobile, and Kaskaskia, were all founded 
 in about the same year. Then came Father Pinet 
 and Father Marest, preaching in like manner to the 
 unsophisticated but most discouragingly vicious deni- 
 zens of the woods, the doctrines of Jesus and of the 
 Pesurrection. These holy fathers built them little 
 unpretending chapels of bark, and their humble 
 sanctuaries were crowded with such numbers of 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 135 
 
 natives that many were obliged to stand witliout the 
 threshold. 
 
 Then, enticed by the stories that reached them, un- 
 der the inclement sky and the strict feudal system of 
 Lower Canada, of the good livers of this distant land, 
 the mildness of its climate, the richness of its soil, 
 the fruitfulness of its pastures and its groves, one 
 straggler after another descended from those rigorous 
 regions, navigating the vast circuit of the great lakes, 
 and passing by Lake Michigan, across the portage from 
 the Miamis to the Kankakee, or from the Chicago to 
 the Illinois, and erected a humble home within that 
 great expanse of low-lying, fertile soil now called the 
 American Bottom. This region, beginning on the 
 eastern bank of the Mississippi River, nearly opposite 
 to where its mild and placid stream is joined by the 
 turbid waters of the Missouri, extending from this 
 point sixty miles southward, and in width, from the 
 river's bank to the bluff beyond, frOm five to eight 
 miles — formed a tract of such fertility as is scarcely 
 elsewhere to be found on earth. Here, surrounded 
 by the exuberant products of nature, the French 
 raised their half-wigwams, half-cabins, by driving 
 corner posts into the ground, and then transverse 
 laths — for they scarce deserved the name of beams 
 — ^from one to another of these posts; plastering 
 over these with the hand, a coating of "cat-and- 
 clay," as the American settlers called it : soft clay 
 
136 PIONEERS, PKEACHEKS AND PEOPLE 
 
 worked up with prairie grass and Spanish moss. With 
 this stucco upon the outside and the inside of the 
 latticed walls, and neatly whitewashed, with roofs 
 thatched with long grass carefully woven and matted 
 together, and lasting, it is said, longer than shingles — 
 with spacious piazzas all around the house — there 
 presently arose picturesque villages, bordering a sin- 
 gle street, so narrow that the settler might sit, smok- 
 ing his pipe, beneath the shade of his piazza, and talk 
 to his neighbor across the street in his ordinary tone 
 of voice. 
 
 But let us orderly describe this simple and happy 
 community in its prime — perhaps about the year 
 1750 — their laws, their religion, their social organiza- 
 tion, their manners, their occupations, their charac- 
 ters. For the whole texture and character — ^the gross 
 and the detail — are so utterly and diametrically op- 
 posed to the ideas and conceptions of the descendants 
 of English settlers, that the amplest delineation which 
 the occasion admits may well fail to communicate a 
 full comprehension of them. 
 
 The laws of the French settlements in Illinois were 
 based upon the same great Eoman code which under- 
 lay the jurisprudence of all the south of Europe. But 
 some considerations, either of expediency or libe- 
 rality, caused the substitution of allodial titles to land 
 for the feudal tenures of Canada ; that is, the settlers 
 were permitted to own land very much as a New 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 137 
 
 England farmer owns it, instead of being obliged to 
 hold it at the pleasure of the feudal lord, in whom 
 was vested the real ownership. Thus the villagers of 
 Kaskaskia, and the other neighboring settlements of 
 our " terrestrial paradise," as La Salle aptly termed 
 these regions, possessed, at the time to which we refer, 
 each his parcel of land, granted bj government to all 
 the village in common ; one great tract for tillage, 
 and one for pasture, separated b j a fence, and stretch- 
 ing back from the river bank to the limestone bluff. 
 In this each family had a portion set apart for itself, 
 and sacred from all intrusion. The village authori- 
 ties, the senate of the settlement, enacted regulations 
 requii'ing every family to commence planting, culti- 
 vating and harvesting on certain fixed days. The 
 consent of this same body, as representing the whole 
 settlement, was required for the admission of any new 
 settler to a share in the common field. 
 
 Of statute and common law, courts and attorneys, 
 fees and pleadings, these fortunate people knew no- 
 thing. Quarrels were as rare among them as in an af- 
 fectionate family. N"o courts of law were established 
 there until after the country passedinto the possession 
 of the British ; and after they were established, no ac- 
 tions were brought before them until after the Anglo- 
 Americans possessed the land. The sour, pugnacious 
 litigations, as well as that much vaunted but very 
 doubtful institution, the trial by jury, of the English, 
 
138 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 were an evil and a remedy equally foreign and terri- 
 ble to tlie kindly disposition of the Frencli. K any 
 differences arose wliicli the parties could not settle, 
 they were referred to the arbitration of the priest, or, 
 in the last resort, to that of the commandant at Fort 
 Chartres, a mighty potentate, ruling, in name at least, 
 territories vaster than most kingdoms, representing 
 all the power and wisdom of the French king, and 
 looked up to by the simple settlers as the perfection 
 of all human strength and judgment. 
 
 The religion of this far-off prairie settlement was 
 Catholic. A reverend Jesuit father, head of the col- 
 lege established in Kaskaskia, and superior of all the 
 missions in the valley, and the curate of the village, 
 who received a small salary from the government, 
 eked out by marriage and burial fees, and the gifts 
 of his parishioners, were the highest ecclesiastical 
 dignitaries in Illinois. Pomp and pride they had 
 none ; devoted, poor and humble, it was the purity 
 and goodness of their lives which gave them 
 their powerful influence among their little flock. 
 The people were sincerely religious after their kind ; 
 and with the characteristic laxity of practice so ab- 
 horred by tlie stricter followers of Calvin, after the 
 services of the Sabbath were over, they devoted to 
 quiet amusements and pleasures the remainder of the 
 holy day. 
 
 They were ignorant of letters, and happy in their 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 139 
 
 ignorance. The Jesuits established a few little 
 schools, where were taught the elements of reading 
 and writing ; and this was learning enough for the 
 Frenchman of Illinois. The great world and its 
 weighty affairs troubled him not. He supposed that 
 the Pope managed all spiritual concerns, and Louis 
 of France all temporal concerns. With their wisdom 
 and power at the helm, represented by those two reve- 
 rend and awful dignitaries, the curate and monsieur 
 le commandant^ he, the French settler in Illinois, was 
 perfectly certain that all would go well ; he let the 
 world wag on, and made himself happy with the tri- 
 vial enjoyments brought by each peaceful day. He 
 could read enough, and write enough, to draw, under- 
 stand, and sign the simple instruments, which were 
 all he needed, and to spell out the stories of the 
 saints, or a tale of the crusaders ; and more he needed 
 not. 
 
 Each family held from one to three acres of land 
 in the central part of the village. This was the pro- 
 perty of the first settler of the name. Here the pa- 
 triarch built his lowly cabin ; and as son or daughter 
 married, another mud-walled and grass-roofed cabin 
 arose near his own, and within the same inclosure. 
 With each new marriage appeared a new home. 
 Tliese peaceful, easy lives, the pure, sweet air, the 
 healthful out-door manners, and plain nutritious fo- 
 rest food, prolonged life to a remarkable degree ; and 
 
140 PIONEERS, PEEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 thus around the house of the patriarch there gathered 
 a dozen or a score, nay, forty or fifty dwellings of 
 children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, 
 even to the fourth and fifth generations. 
 
 These communities were, perhaps, chiefly agricul- 
 tural. Each family carefully tilled its separate 
 allowance of the common field, and that wealthy soil 
 repaid their neat though homely husbandry with 
 plenteous and more than sufficient crops. Six hun- 
 dred barrels of flour were shipped to ITew Orleans 
 from the Wabash country alone, in 1Y46, besides 
 hides, furs, tallow, wax, and honey. 
 
 But the first settlers had been the daring coureurs 
 de hois, the runners of the woods, who had found 
 their wild pleasures and their j)erilous profits in van- 
 quishing the hardships and dangers of the pathless 
 forest, the roaring rapid, the toilsome portage ; in the 
 skillful but laborious occupation of the hunt ; and in 
 trading with the fickle, treacherous and savage In- 
 dians of those remote regions, from the Abenakis of 
 !N'ew England and the Outaouacs, or Ottawas, of the 
 St. Lawrence and Lake Huron, to the distant Sioux, 
 or, as they were then termed, !N"adouessions. And 
 however quietly and easily the sons and grandsons of 
 these roving men lived in the shaded cabin or the 
 narrow, sunny street of Kaskaskia, or among the lux- 
 uriant fields without ; however gaily their hours might 
 pass amid the light labors of the day and the jovial 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 141 
 
 dances of tlie evening ; there was scarce a young man 
 in whom the wild longing for the forest and rivers 
 did not at some time wake np. Then, in his frail ca- 
 noe, he passed far np into the region of lakes at the 
 head of the Mississippi, or the rugged, desolate plains 
 upon the upper waters of the Missouri ; traversing 
 the distant Sioux country, or even the rugged ranges 
 of the Rocky Mountains. Hunting and trading, he 
 returned with a canoe-load of furs ; floated afar off 
 down to that great capital, ISTew Orleans, or round by 
 the bayous and creeks of the coast, to the distant city 
 of Mobile ; exchanged his wild commodities for what- 
 ever civilized merchandise seemed good unto him, 
 and returned up the rapid river to his quiet prairie 
 home, perhaps to refit and depart upon another ex- 
 pedition to the Indian country ; perhaps to trado 
 away the goods from below for produce, and return 
 again to barter at the southern cities ; or perhaps to 
 bury a bag of French livres and louis-d'ors, or Span- 
 ish doubloons or dollars, beneath the floor of his 
 home, and resume his labors in the fields. 
 
 Whether the young wanderer returned richer or 
 poorer in purse, he brought home one certain and 
 lasting treasure — a great store of wild tales of inci- 
 dents by flood and field, his own strange and varied 
 experiences, and many more, told him by the trap- 
 pers of the mountains, the canoe-men of the river, 
 and the various men he met in the cities of the south.. 
 
142 PIONEERS, PKEACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 The return of these travellers, after their long voy- 
 age of twelve or twenty months, was — like every fes- 
 tive occasion — celebrated by a ball ; for here, as eve- 
 rywhere, dancing was a peculiar and prominent 
 amusement of the light-hearted, social and active 
 French. "Word passed through all the settlement, of 
 the return of the wanderers, and at once the place of 
 entertainment was fitted up, and the arrangements 
 made. Young and old, grandfather and grandchild, 
 negro slave and fair maiden, all came to join in 
 the festive scene. The entertainment was regu- 
 lated with the same quaint municipal orderliness that 
 controlled the operations of tillage and pasturage. 
 Provosts were appointed, male and female ; usually 
 some well-respected grandsire and grandam had 
 charge of the ceremonial, saw that every lady was 
 danced with and that every gentleman had his part- 
 ner, that the negro slaves enjoyed their rightful equal 
 share of liberty within the room, that even the little 
 children had opportunity to frisk through their share 
 of the dance among the rest ; and thus all passed in- 
 nocently and gaily. At a given hour the company 
 separated, and, joyous and satisfied, all went home. 
 The ball-room was often graced by the reverend pre- 
 sence of the priest of the village — for his simple pa- 
 rishioners had no social amusements which he could 
 not approve and witness — and in these rustic gaieties 
 there was a degree of propriety and dignity — I might 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 143 
 
 almost say of decency — wliicli it would be hard to 
 matcli, I fancy, in the ball-room of our own more in- 
 telligently Christian and more elaborately civilized 
 society. 
 
 Other balls they had, with somewhat more of cere- 
 monious observance. On !N'ew Year's Eve, the young 
 men of the village patrolled the town in the costume 
 of beggars, and entering the cottages in which dwelt 
 the fairest maidens, petitioned for bread. Being well 
 feasted and entertained, they then extended an invi- 
 tation to each hospitable damsel for the dance to-mor- 
 row evening. This was the inauguration of the festi- 
 val of the coming year. About the 8th of that 
 month, great cakes were baked, and in these were 
 carefully deposited four beans. The cakes were cut, 
 and the gentlemen to whose share fell the pieces with 
 beans in them, were called kings. These four bean- 
 kings selected four queens, and the queens then se- 
 lected the kings of the next ball that was to be given. 
 At its close, the lady queens of the occasion selected 
 four other gentlemen, whom they elected to the honor 
 of this shadowy kingship, inaugurating them with all 
 due solemnity, by the granting of a kiss. These gen- 
 tlemen inaugurated other ladies by the same interest- 
 ing process, and they became the regulators and go- 
 vernors of the following ball. And this, the " King- 
 Ball," as it has been called, has been kept up, and 
 still is, through all these years ; and if you ever travel 
 
144: PIONEERS, PREACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 in the State of Indiana, and stop at the ancient town 
 of Yincennes, and there have a friend or acquaint- 
 ance who can introduce you to the French society of 
 the place, you may, on a given evening of almost any 
 week in the calendar year, have an opportunity of 
 attending the king ball ; for it has never been allowed 
 to pass out of fashion from the early settlement of 
 Illinois down to the present writing. 
 
 These people, with their kind and simple habits, 
 easily fraternized with the Indians, and although 
 there was great difference between them and those 
 original owners of the soil, by reason of physical, 
 mental, and moral condition, their differences seemed 
 to relate and ally them more intimately to each other 
 than white and red men were ever allied on this con- 
 tinent before. To the honor of both parties let it be 
 said, there was scarce ever a fraud, a quarrel, or a 
 murder between the French and Indians upon the 
 soil of Illinois ; and it constitutes, in this particular, 
 the one only grand exception, saving the enterprise 
 of Friend William Penn in the establishment of his 
 City of Brotherly Love. And there, even, as soon as 
 the good Penn himself had passed away, and the 
 equally good, if not better, James Logan, who after 
 him came into the dignity of Secretary of the Colony 
 of Pennsylvania — so soon as their official sway and 
 authoritative influence was gone, the Quakers were 
 found to the full as overbearing, unjust, avaricious, 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 145 
 
 careless, and regardless of the good of the natives, 
 as the Puritan Fathers of ISTew England. But these 
 Frenchmen of Illinois, singularly enough it seems to 
 the student of American history, in all their inter- 
 course with the Indians treated them like human 
 beings and equals in every respect, and received the 
 kind and faithful treatment which was the natural 
 result, in turn. The friendly and trustful reciprocity 
 of benefits, the intimate neighborly communion, be- 
 tween these forest Frenchmen and forest Indians, 
 constitutes one of the few beautiful pages in the 
 record of American colonization, usually so dry and 
 barren, or so blood-stained and full of miseries. 
 
 And thus, in that pleasant untroubled far-off land, 
 and except for their happy family relation and the 
 wise separate ownership of their lands, holding their 
 property in common, sheltered almost like children 
 under the mild influence of the good priests to 
 whom, as to a father, they told all their sweet confi- 
 dences of love, or their little sorrows and troubles, 
 resting in sunshine, and far from wars and disturb 
 ance, beneath the broad banner with the lilies that 
 streamed from the battlements of the old fort : thus 
 was enacted this brief poem of the ages, this Idyl of 
 America. This atmosphere of rural freshness, of de- 
 lightful confidence, of unrestrained liberty, free fi-om 
 the sordid, troubled, eager haste of trade, the harden- 
 ing touch of avarice, the gnawing tooth of care — 
 1 
 
146 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 passed so far backward toward tliat lovely dream, 
 tlie Golden Age, that in truth and reality it began to 
 reproduce the lengthening of days, always a feature 
 in the limning of that ancient legend. These people, 
 it seemed, would have come to live forever, if forever 
 were a possible term on earth. 
 
 And why should they grow old ? It is care that 
 wears us all out. We struggle beneath burdens in- 
 expressible. Anxiety, with terrific plough, scars 
 dreadful furrows over brow and cheek ; worn out and 
 weary, the springs of life exhausted, and desire even 
 all but dead, we tremble on the verge of the grave 
 at the age of fifty or sixty. Yet the French in Illi- 
 nois retained good spirits, physical elasticity, and 
 exceeding animation, to the age of ninety, one hun- 
 dred, one hundred and ten, and one hundred and 
 twenty ; and such cases you may find even now in 
 Attakapas, Opelousas, or Bayou Lafourche, the 
 French Creole regions of Louisiana. 
 
 Thus went their lives kindly and cheerily by, 
 though with no impulse, little enterprise, no inspira- 
 tions ; and though it was perhaps but a droning 
 life — no contribution to the accumulated treasures of 
 the ages, no exem^^lification of a stern struggle for 
 principle, nor of a mighty aspiration and efi'ort for 
 the ideals of the race — jet it was such a sunny, peace- 
 ful life, so quietly, brightly joyous with the genial 
 play of benign feelings, of the kindly social faculties 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 147 
 
 of our nature, as gladdens us to look upon. We 
 must long, sometimes, to escape out of the mighty 
 rusliing current of our civilized life, and to rest 
 awhile upon some green island like this, where God's 
 heaven hath not a cloud, where storm and tempest 
 are unknown, where the still waters around us have 
 not a ripple on their surface. 
 
 Thus were they living, missionaries, fur-traders, 
 vojageurs, farmers, simply and innocently, in honest 
 labor and harmless enjoyments, in the year 1719 
 or 1720. A sort of border war was then carried 
 on between the French in Louisiana under their 
 great leader, Bienville, and the Spanish viceroyalty 
 of ]\Iexico. Offended at the rapid daring with which 
 the French were pushing their explorations and 
 planting their outposts west of the Mississippi, and 
 toward the great Santa Fe trail, which had even 
 then been opened by traders, they secretly organ- 
 ized a great expedition at Santa Fe, for the pur- 
 pose of exterminating such of the French settlements 
 on the upper Mississippi as they could reach, and 
 substituting Spanish colonies instead ; to which end 
 were sent priests, artificers and women, property 
 and domestic animals, all the materials for a new 
 establishment. Their plan of operations was to join 
 forces with the Osage Indians, and in concert with 
 them, first to exterminate their enemies the Mis- 
 souries, the allies of the French, and then to quench 
 
14:8 PIONEERS, PEEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 the light of the flourishing settlements in a storm 
 of blood and fire, and plant instead the standard 
 of Spain. 
 
 After a long desert march of nine hundred miles 
 across the plains which have of late years become 
 so familiar to us, they reached that recent battle- 
 ground of politics, the upland prairie country of 
 Kansas, the supposed abode of their expected allies, 
 the Osages. By a strange fortune, they fell in 
 with their intended victims, the Missouries, instead, 
 who spoke the same language with the Osages ; and 
 confident of their men, at once revealed to them 
 the plan for the total destruction of their tribe. 
 The imperturbable savages received the startling 
 news with no sign of surprise, signified their appro- 
 bation of the scheme, requested two days to assemble 
 their warriors, and took their measures in savage 
 secrecy. They drew from the Spaniards full details 
 of the plan, and in character of the Osages received 
 the ample supplies of ammunition and more than a 
 hundred guns, destined for their own slaughter. 
 
 And now the next morning was to witness the 
 setting forth of the joint expedition. But to the 
 treacherous and self-deluded Spaniards that morning 
 never came. In the night the Missouries rose up and 
 smote their invaders and slew them, until but one 
 living soul was left — a Jesuit priest, whom they sent 
 back to Santa Fe with the doleful tidings. 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 149 
 
 Though thus providentially preserved, this nine 
 hundred miles' march awakened the apprehensions of 
 the French for their distant settlements in Illinois 
 and on the upper Mississippi ; and they promptly 
 erected Fort Orleans, on an island in the Missouri 
 ahove the mouth of the Osage Kiver ; and for the 
 immediate defence of the Illinois settlements, that 
 dignified and famous stronghold already mentioned, 
 Fort Chartres. This fortress was completed during 
 the year 1720. It was placed about a mile and a 
 half from the Mississippi River, within the great 
 American Bottom which we have already described, 
 near the five chief villages of the Illinois country — 
 Kaskaskia, Cahokia, Prairie de Kocher, St. Philip, 
 and St. Genevieve, which last alone was west of 
 the Great Eiver. To these was soon added the vil- 
 lage of Fort Chartres, which grew up under the 
 walls of the fort. 
 
 This redoubted fortress, long the strongest garrison 
 on the !N'orth American continent, occupied an irre- 
 gular square of about three hundred and fifty feet to 
 the side. Its walls were of solid masonry, three feet 
 thick and fifteen feet high. Its ramparts were de- 
 fended by twenty great guns; and such was its 
 strength and armament, that it was impregnable to 
 any force then available against it. Here, for forty 
 years, was the centre of the French power in Illinois, 
 the key of all the land, an important link of the great 
 
160 PIONEEES, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 chain of fortresses between Quebec and New Orleans; 
 the residence of the French commandant ; the metro- 
 polis of the gaiety and fashion of all the country 
 round : as an old Illinois chronicler, with pardonable 
 local entlmsiasm, calls it, " the Paris of America.'' 
 But, alas for the brief duration of human prosperity ! 
 In 17G5, the last French commandant of the Illinois, 
 M. St. Ange de Bellerive, formally gave up the fort 
 and his authority into the hands of the British captain, 
 Sterling. And all this time, the capricious, mighty 
 flood of the Mississippi was silently marching across 
 from the westward, arraying against its strong walls 
 powers not to be opposed by great guns nor by regi- 
 ments of armed men. Steadily the eating flood 
 swept nearer and nearer, and presently — in 1772 — 
 two bastions were undermined. The English disman- 
 tled and deserted the old fort. Fifty years ago, part 
 of its site had been swept away by the devouring 
 river, and it was a venerable ruin, solitary and over- 
 grown with w^ild vines and with trees, some a foot in 
 diameter. 
 
 The Spanish invasion had long passed by ; and under 
 the kindly despotic patriarchate of the commandant in 
 Fort Chartres, and of the little village senates of old 
 men, in the beauteous prairie land — where the land 
 lies rolling like the billows of the sea, heaved in gen- 
 tle undulations beneath the summer sun, studded 
 with groves like islands far out on the deep, carpeted 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 151 
 
 with flowers that lend their rich fragrance to the air 
 until for sweetness you seem to be walking in Para- 
 dise, where all that is around gladdens the senses and 
 rejoices the heart — the French colonists lie down and 
 rise up without fear or guile, thinking no evil against 
 any, and themselyes without apprehension of incur- 
 sion of savage, attack from hostile army, or any rob- 
 bery or theft or fraud. Here life is serene as if man 
 were never driven out of Eden, and the flaming che- 
 rubim stationed at the gate with his terrific sword. 
 
 But far away beyond the mountains is gathering 
 the storm of war, which is to transfer all this vast val- 
 ley from French to English hands, and to substitute 
 for the bright, peaceful happiness which I have striven 
 to depict, the rough and passionate cupidity of the 
 Anglo-American backwoodsman — the violent sway of 
 arms. The English settlers, eager after the magnifi- 
 cent lands beyond the Alleghanies, are slowly steal- 
 ing over the ridge ; and military detachments, and 
 families, and single hunters, push westward into the 
 great valley. Tlie French have long been steadfastly 
 advancing the design conceived by La Salle almost a 
 hundred years before ; and from Quebec to JSTew Or- 
 leans the vast gh'dle of fortresses and confederate na- 
 tions, at once held together and made accessible by 
 the wondrous highway of the Great Lakes and the 
 Great Eiver, is almost complete, keyed by the great 
 metropolitan stronghold of Fort Chartres, and lack* 
 
152 PIONEERS, PKEACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 ino; but one or two more fortresses between that and 
 ;New Orleans. 
 
 That mighty and terrible confederation, the Six 
 ITations, has long resisted the furious attacks of 
 Onondio, the great French captain, and governor of 
 Canada ; has kept the yallej of the Ohio unknown 
 and inaccessible to their missionaries, their traders, 
 and their settlers ; and has, for the most part, nega- 
 tively or positively, been ranged on the side of the 
 English. Some of their young men, on distant scout- 
 ing parties, have seen large bodies of French troops 
 moving up the rapids of the St. LawTcnce. They 
 bring the news home ; and in the great confederate 
 senate-house at Onondaga a council of the Six liga- 
 tions is held, to consider the important information. 
 It is resolved to send the tidings to the Governors of 
 Massachusetts, E'ew York, and Yirginia, and it is 
 done. But these great men are little inclined to be- 
 stir themselves ; they are busied in squabbling with 
 the provincial assemblies, or they are at ease, and 
 would fain be left " in their lazy dignities " — all but 
 Governor Dinwiddle, of Yirginia, an able, shrewd, 
 stirring Scotchman, wdio sees at once the importance 
 of the juncture. The troops now pushing up the St. 
 Lawrence, are destined to occupy and hold for the 
 French king the valley of the Ohio — for notwith- 
 standing the Mississippi had been explored a hundred 
 years before, and routes had long been open between 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 153 
 
 Quebec and New Orleans, by way of the Illinois and 
 "Wabash, it was not until about 1740 that the Ohio, 
 above the Wabash, had been even explored by the 
 French. The present scheme is to move by way of 
 I^iagara across to the headwaters of the Alleghany, 
 to occupy thence downward all the valley of the 
 Ohio, and in course of time to secure the whole land 
 close west of the AUeghanies, and confine the grow- 
 ing English settlements to the narrow belt between 
 the AUeghanies and the sea. 
 
 The Six Nations send the French commander a 
 message of entreaty, remonstrance, and threats. But 
 these are treated with contempt, and the standard of 
 France moves forward. Governor Dinwiddle sends 
 a messenger to ask the French what is their design in 
 thus entering the valley of the Ohio — of the Beauti- 
 ful River, as the French boatmen call it. " For," 
 say the English, " all the land is ours, from the stormy 
 Atlantic across to the peaceful sea on the west ; be- 
 cause" — admirable logic ! — "our countrymen first 
 settled the eastern shore. We deny the claim of the 
 French to the Mississippi valley, founded on the de- 
 scent of its chief water-course, the river," by " one 
 -La Salle," as Washington called him. 
 
 Yet the title by which the English held the Atlan- 
 tic slope was no better, if even as good, as that of the 
 French to the great inland valley. The only Eng- 
 lishman who had entered that valley before 1740 was 
 
154 
 
 Captain Barre, the agent of Dr. Daniel Coxe, proprie- 
 tor of New Jersey, wlio entered the Mississippi Eiver 
 from its month in a corvette of twelve gnns. Stem- 
 ming the deep and mnddy current, all at once the 
 English captain is hailed from a small boat that meets 
 him in one of the reaches of the river. A lad of 
 twenty-one, in command of the skiff — it is Bienville, 
 then and long after the Governor of Louisiana for the 
 French king — stands up and addresses Captain Barr^. 
 The truth is, that his army is with him in that little 
 boat, and he has scarce a better weapon than his 
 naked hand, for he is on an exploring expedition, not 
 a conquering one. Yet he hails as sternly as if the 
 commander of regiments and embattled forts. " Turn 
 about," he orders, " and go down the river ! I am 
 loth to harm you, but if you go beyond the next 
 bend, I have guns enough in position there to blow 
 you out of the water, and I will do it !" The daunted 
 Englishman, believing every w^ord, obeys, and es- 
 capes with his sloop-of-war, as fast as he can, from 
 the boy and his boat's crew ; and to this day the point 
 in the river where he retreated is called the English 
 Turn. This was the only entrance of the English 
 into the Mississippi Yalley until Dr. "Walker's first 
 exploring expedition over the Cumberland Mountains, 
 about 1748. 
 
 "What right had either nation to these lands ? Said 
 an old Delaware to an English partisan, " The king 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 155 
 
 of France claims all the lands one side of tlie Oliio, 
 and tlie king of England all on the other side. J^ow, 
 VjlieTe are the Indian'' s lands .^" And the confounded 
 backwoodsman was speechless. The red men owned 
 the lands. ]S'either Onondio nor Corlear — neither 
 Englishman nor Frenchman, had the shadow of any 
 claim to a foot of land in the valley of the Missis- 
 sippi. 
 
 But of all this the shrewd Scotch governor of Yir- 
 ginia neither thinks nor cares. He rests satisfied 
 upon the usual claim by discovery, and is the more 
 certain of the justice of his country's pretensions 
 because his own estates in forest lands depend thereon. 
 So be inquires by the m-outh of his messenger, one 
 Major Washington of the Virginia provincial forces, 
 what does the king of France mean, and what do his 
 servants of Canada mean, by thus presuming to in- 
 trude upon undoubted English territory in the Ohio 
 valley? The young major of course receives a curt 
 though courteous reply, and carries it back to those 
 who sent him. 
 
 Not, however, to let the affair rest ; for their glow- 
 ing zeal for the pretensions of his Britannic majesty 
 is intensified and made practical by their own. For 
 the Ohio Company of Yirginia has received a gift — 
 no matter though the king who gave it did not own 
 it — of six hundred thousand acres of the best land 
 west of the mountains ; and in this company, two 
 
156 PIONEERS, PKEACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 elder brothers of our youthful provincial major, and 
 Governor Dinwiddle, are principal shareholders. If 
 the French hold the Ohio valley, these present broad 
 domains on earth, and still fairer future castles in tlie 
 air, will alike disappear, and great prospective gains 
 will be lost. This, I hasten to add, is said without 
 meaning to impute any sinister motives to George 
 Washington. He sincerely believed in the English 
 claim, and in his own and his friends' property ; and 
 he would have been more than human if these pecu- 
 niary interests had not reinforced the alacrity which 
 he would, no doubt, have shown in the cause if he 
 had never owned a foot of Ohio land, nor expected to. 
 He returns, at any rate, in 1754, now promoted to 
 the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and in command of a 
 small body of troops, to arrest the progress of the 
 French, who have commenced actual hostilities by 
 taking from the English (in April, 1754) a small 
 stockade fort in the forks of the Alleghany and Mo- 
 nongahela Elvers, and by beginning a stronger and 
 more serviceable fortress in its place, which they call 
 Fort Duquesne, in honor of the governor-general of 
 Canada. Washington crosses Laurel E,idge, and 
 gains the Great Meadows, a pleasant open spot some 
 fifty miles southeast of the new French stronghold. 
 Here he learns from an old friend and companion in 
 forest journeys, one Christopher Gist, settled near by, 
 and from the half-king of the Delawares, Tanachari- 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 157 
 
 son, that a party of French are in his neighborhood, 
 with warlike intentions. His Indian allies search 
 them ont, and about sunrise he discovers them en- 
 camped in a retired and secret place among the 
 rocks. Discerning the tall form of the Yirginian 
 advancing from among the trees, and the troops 
 behind him, they spring to arms, and at once 
 commence a vigorous fire upon the English. But 
 being surrounded and outnumbered, ten of them, 
 including their commander, M. de Jumonville, are 
 killed, and the remainder made prisoners. 
 
 That brief command, " Fire !" echoed all over the 
 earth. That scattering blaze of musketry among an 
 obscure pile of wild rocks beneath the western Alle- 
 ghanies, kindled a conflagration that spread through- 
 out the continent of Europe, as fire runs through the 
 dry prairie-grass in autumn time ; and burned even 
 on the far shores of Asia. It was the beginning of 
 the Seven Years' "War, a struggle which called forth 
 the genius of Pitt as a minister and parliamentarian, 
 and of Frederic the Great as a warrior ; which crushed 
 the doctrine of legitimacy in France ; and which, 
 under the over-ruling of Him who sees the end from 
 the beginning, not as man ordereth, but who maketh 
 the wrath of man to praise Him, did more to elevate 
 the masses of the population of Europe, and to pre- 
 pare the way for the freedom and independence of 
 our own country, than all other causes together. 
 
It^S PIONEEKS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 Tlie war thus fairly commenced, Jumonville's 
 brother, De Yilliers, commandant at Fort Chartres, 
 hastens eastward to revenge his brother's death, and 
 finds Lieutenant-Colonel Washington still in the 
 neighborhood, opening a military road for troops ex- 
 pected from Yirginia. The Frenchman came upon 
 him with double his forces, but declining the battle 
 which the bold young commander offered in the open 
 ground before the fort which he had constructed, he 
 laid siege to the small and ill-provisioned stockade, 
 which, with a judgment giving little promise of his 
 after wisdom, Washington had planted in low ground, 
 where it was commanded and almost thoroughly 
 raked from the secure covert of the wooded ridges on 
 either side. An attack was soon commenced, and 
 after nine hours of sharp firing, during which thirty 
 of the garrison were killed and three wounded, the 
 French commander, afraid that his ammunition would 
 fail, allowed "Washington to capitulate and retire east 
 of the mountains with all the honors of war; the 
 articles of capitulation, which were in French, by 
 means of the ignorance or treachery of the inter- 
 preter, admitting the death of Jumonville to be an 
 " assassination," and promising that no further estab- 
 lishments should be attempted west of the mountains 
 for the term of one year. This obligation was not 
 taken to be binding. 
 
 Then comes the expedition of General Edward 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 169 
 
 Braddock, whose hot-headed valor, absurd routinism, 
 and arrogant conceit, we all know ; as well as the in- 
 conceivable obstinate folly with which he persisted 
 in trying to dress ranks, and form by platoons, there 
 among the forests, " as if manoeuvring his troops upon 
 the plains of Flanders ;" and the genuine English 
 pride and stubbornness with which he refused to take 
 advice from the provincials, experienced in bush- 
 ranging and Indian fighting; and how the hard- 
 headed fool thus threw away his own life, and the lives 
 of three hundred better men, great treasures wasted 
 to no purpose, with the certain prospect of taking 
 Fort Duquesne ; for nothing was further from the 
 minds of the French and Indians than a victory, and 
 they were on the point of evacuating the fort. 
 
 And now, in good season, the Great Commoner, 
 William Pitt, takes the helm of English affairs. 
 " "What are we to do ?" cries Chesterfield ; " abroad 
 reverses and disgrace ; at home, poverty and bank- 
 ruptcy — what are we to do ?" In America, the 
 French line of midland forts was steadily and rapidly 
 closing in behind the belt of English settlements 
 along the sea. In India, the other side of the world, 
 Dupleix had laid at Pondicherry the foundations of a 
 power which promised quicky to exterminate the timid 
 traders of the East India Company, and to bring the 
 oriental wealth and the swarming millions of Hindos- 
 tan beneath the power of France. In the Mediterra- 
 
160 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 iiean, Minorca was taken by the French forces under 
 the Duke de Eichelieii. On the continent of Europe, 
 the single ally of England, of any power, Frederic of 
 Prussia, was attacked at once by the three vast em- 
 pires of Austria, France, and Russia, and that in a 
 quarrel where he was flagrantly in the wrong ; and 
 the English king's own hereditary dominions of Ha- 
 nover were overrun by French troops. The tremen- 
 dous energy, the i)ride, the rapid decision and daring 
 of the great minister, inspired fleets, armies, the whole 
 nation. From being sullen, gloomy, discouraged, 
 fearful, they became, in a year or two, daring, high- 
 spirited, fearless, and enterprising, almost beyond the 
 bounds of human belief or human capacity. Under 
 his strong, haughty, and energetic direction, the stout 
 Prussian king is brought safely through his terrific 
 war ; Hanover is cleared of the French ; the coalition 
 between Russia, Austria, and France is shattered ; 
 the victories of Olive and Lawrence eradicate the 
 very foundations of the French empire in Hindostan, 
 and lay the corner stone of the vast dominion of 
 British India. In America, the brave 'New England 
 hosts take the stronghold of Louisbourg, and the gal- 
 lant Wolfe, scaling the heights of Abraham, as it were 
 buys with his heart's blood the victory over Mont- 
 calm and the surrender of the great French citadel of 
 Quebec. An irresistible flood of British conquest 
 sweeps round and round the world ; and the humbled 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 161 
 
 monarcli of France, making peace in the year 1763, 
 yields up to Great Britain all Canada, and all Louis- 
 iana east of the Mississippi, excepting only the dis- 
 trict and city of E"ew Orleans, which, with all the 
 rest of Louisiana, is given to the Spaniards, by a pri- 
 vate treaty made with Spain the year before. 
 
 Thus this great garden land, this granary for the 
 nations, this home for that better time coming, tc 
 which we all look forward with such longings and 
 such love, passes from the grasp of hereditary mon- 
 archy, of the ancient French divine-right rulers, from 
 under the heavy shadow of dead mediseval law and 
 dying feudal tenures, into the hands of England and 
 of Spain. ISTot, however, into their hands as in fee ; 
 not in permanent proprietorship ; but in trust, for the 
 future use and behoof of a people whose career, as 
 we hope, shall fulfill in the near future the dreams of 
 the long past, and realize that golden time of the 
 world's history which the prophets saw in shadow, 
 which the poets have told in broken words and vain 
 aspirations after adequate expression, which all good 
 men pray for and look for ; the period when the trust- 
 worthiness of the people shall be vindicated by their 
 righteousness ; when the true equality of the nation 
 shall be found, not in levelling those above, but in the 
 rising of those below, by a celestial gravitation, to 
 the level of the highest ; when humanity, free, edu- 
 cated, justified, the Bible in its hand and the love of 
 
162 PIONEEES, PREACHEE8 AND PEOPLE. 
 
 God in its heart, and led hj His Holy Spirit, shall 
 stand as upon a lofty mountain summit of attainment, 
 not upon a ghastly peak of cold sterility and eternal 
 ice, but where the smile of God makes summer sun- 
 shine, and God's love makes all the air benign; 
 where all humanity is bound up together in the bun- 
 dle of God, in bonds of brotherly love and kindness. 
 
Lecture IV. 
 
 THE RED M:EIS5^; 
 
 WAK OF PONTIAC. 
 
 163 
 
THE RED MEN, AND WAE OF PONTIAC. 
 
 At the commencement of Europe's acquaintance 
 with the Indians this side the Mississippi, so far as we 
 can calculate, from 180,000 to 300,000 of the red 
 men occupied that tract of country now included 
 within the limits of our republic, and lying between 
 the Atlantic and the Father of Waters. These abo- 
 riginal tribes were divided into three families — the 
 Algonquins, the Iroquois, and the Mobilian races. 
 The Mobilians occupied the region of country lying 
 south of the Ohio Eiver and east of the Mississippi, 
 including the States of Kentucky, Tennessee, western 
 Georgia, western South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, 
 Mississippi, and Louisiana. The L'oquois, or Five 
 iNTations, subsequently increased to six by the addi- 
 tion of the Tuscaroras, who migrated from western 
 Carolina, dwelt in the western part of New York. 
 The remainder of the country was occupied by the 
 tribes of that great family known as the Algonquins. 
 "Whilst there were certain tribal peculiarities, certain 
 distinctive features, marking and separating these 
 tribes, they yet shared traits and features in common, 
 showing them to belong, all of them, to one great 
 
 165 
 
166 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 parent stock. Their manners and customs, their 
 views and opinions, modes of action and forms of 
 speech, afford ns perfectly reliable evidences of this. 
 
 The Indian is the child of the wilderness, born 
 amidst its rugged grandeurs, cradled amidst its 
 storms, surrounded with its vastness, schooled by it 
 from his earliest infancy in the development of his per- 
 ceptive faculties, almost to the exclusion of his rea- 
 soning powers ; employed in those occupations which 
 develop athletic strength of body, the chase, war, pre- 
 datory incursions upon his neighbors ; seeking his 
 food from boundless hunting-grounds. K'urtured in 
 a school like this, the delicacy of his senses has 
 passed into a proverb ; and he acquired such fineness 
 of eye, such exquisiteness of ear, as is scarce paral- 
 leled or approximated in the records of history. 
 
 The relation between the parent and the child 
 among the Indians constitutes, it seems to me, a pe- 
 culiar feature, and one marking them among the na- 
 tions of the earth, distinct from all others. What is 
 called parental authority, was hardly known among 
 them. Tlie child was brought up in the wigwam of 
 its parents ; but they never expected, so it seems, to 
 impose on it their authority, their will, their command. 
 The child grew up his own master, basking and sport- 
 ing around the door of the bark lodge, enjoying the 
 care of the mother, the notice of the father, until, 
 attaining nearly our own age of majority, he was pre 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 167 
 
 pared by vigil, fast, seclusion among rugged rocks in 
 the depths of inaccessible forests — tried by visions and 
 dreams, and communings with what he thought the 
 Great Spirit — ^for his future career of heroism and 
 conquest. American children, carried in their early 
 years, as captives, to the homes of the Indians, nur- 
 tm*ed and trained by their adopted red fathers and 
 mothers, asseverate, and their evidence is conclusive, 
 that they have never seen a hand raised by a parent 
 against a child — and yet, so far as the conditions of 
 their iron nature would permit, such tractableness, 
 such docility, such loyalty, such glad and willing 
 obedience from children to parents, is rarely to be 
 found even in the highest stages of civilized society. 
 That opposite beliefs are current in the popular mind, 
 I well know ; and that there are examples of barba- 
 rous desertion, of inhuman cruelty from children to- 
 ward their aged parents, when the latter have grown 
 to be an incumbrance, this I know ; but these are the 
 exceptions — ^the other is the rule. 
 
 One of the primal elements of the Indian character 
 is hero worship, and if Mr. Carlyle is intent upon con- 
 solidating and organizing his Utopian society upon 
 this basis, I know of no realm or clime to which he 
 may resort with such hopes of success as to the Eocky 
 Mountains of our own continent, where, among the 
 Blackfeet, the Sioux, the Apaches, and all those wan- 
 dering tribes, he will find this element in the full 
 
168 PIONEEES, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 grandeur of its supremacy. The child is taught it 
 from his earliest infancy. When iirst he can inter- 
 pret the words spoken around the watch-fire, in the 
 sombre lodge of his people ; when the grey-haired 
 fathers of the tribe, in the long evenings of the win- 
 ter time, when the chase is no longer open to them, 
 and the war-path ceases to invite them, over the blaze 
 of their household fires, relate the deeds of the fore- 
 fathers of the tribe, and tell the traditions of the olden 
 time — then the children are wont to listen with eager 
 interest to all these recitals, to cherish in their memo- 
 ries and in their hearts the admiration of this older 
 time, and to resolve to emulate their ancestors, and 
 to surpass, if possible, their deeds of prowess and 
 hardihood. 
 
 And these old chief and sachems, wise men, held 
 in universal reverence, to whom is paid a sort of ho- 
 mage, not only of the intellect, but of the heart — 
 these old men, by this kindly and genial influence 
 upon the juvenile character, while that character is 
 yet plastic in their hands, do much to determine its 
 strength and scope. Hence the reverent loyalty to 
 which I have referred, from the younger members of 
 the tribe to the older, first in the relation of child to 
 parent, and then, more generally, in that of junior to 
 senior. And I fancy that in these times of ours, of ex- 
 citement and turmoil, of self-conceit, arrogance and 
 presumption, when the young exaggerate their powers 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 169 
 
 and capabilities, when juvenility is set in, or usurps, 
 every liigli place, when the young man takes grey 
 hairs for the tokens of a dotard, and a wrinkled face 
 for the sign of a driveller — feels that he is the great 
 object on whom the gaze of the world, and in whom 
 the hope of the future, is concentrated — in these wild 
 times of ours, with their rash enterprises, their fury 
 and folly, filibustering, factions and seditions — I 
 fancy that in this age of Young America, many good 
 lessons might be learned from the Indian ancestors 
 of the soil, the red aborigines ; who, whatever of the 
 noblest manhood they lacked, had, at least, respect 
 for the aged, and reverence for those wiser than 
 themselves. 
 
 In that wdld, unfettered, disjointed democracy, 
 where the will of the people — but even that com- 
 pletely subordinate to the will of the minority or the 
 individual, for itself or himself — was the prominent 
 source of power, men were exalted for their wisdom. 
 The aged were the repositories of tradition, the re- 
 pertories of good counsel, the vehicles of instruction ; 
 they could not only tell of times long past, of ances- 
 tors long departed, but they could tell the pathways 
 of the woods, the old feuds of the tribes, the manner 
 of leading the young men to combat and to triumj)h ; 
 and this attribute of abstract and practical wisdom 
 exalted men to chieftainship. Their sachems or 
 wise men were their leaders in all matters of coimsol 
 
 8 
 
170 
 
 ind debate, and the young men deferentially listened, 
 standing around, their swarthy figures leaning against 
 the door-posts of their cabins, or against some no- 
 ble tree. While the father spoke, the sons listened 
 in silence, and the words of the aged fell upon their 
 ears and their hearts like the dew from the brow of 
 the evening. 
 
 There was another kind of chieftainship, however ; 
 another sort of authority besides this of wisdom in 
 matters of counsel and debate. Those who were en- 
 terprising and dauntless, who burned to lead their 
 brethren to war, could nominate themselves to a sort 
 of temporary chieftainship — a war chieftainship. 
 These, if they had any quarrel to settle, any wrong 
 to avenge, any hope of success in some foray, were 
 accustomed, after vigil, fast, incantation — after dwell- 
 ing apart until their features w^ere harsh, their bodies 
 shrunken, and they were reduced halfway to inani- 
 tion, — coming back to the wigwams of the nation, 
 to send invitations through the tribe, to all the young 
 men to meet them at a festival. Here abundant pro- 
 vision was spread before the guests, the chief dainty 
 being commonly dc ;'s meat ; and all must be dis- 
 patched before they were allowed to depart. He who 
 had summoned them, meanwhile, sat in silence, ab- 
 staining from all gratification of appetite, albeit nearly 
 famished. When the festival was ended, his body 
 painted black, he springs into a ring prepared for the 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 171 
 
 purpose, ill the centre of whicli stands a blackened 
 post ; around this he marches, singing a sort of reci- 
 tative, a monotonous cadence, in which he recounts 
 the deeds of his forefathers and his own heroic 
 achievements, every now and then brandishing his 
 tomahawk and furiously striking it into the post in 
 the centre. Thus he inflames the passions and imagi- 
 nation of his audience, till warrior after warrior 
 springs into the ring like himself, and in like manner 
 chants, recites, raves and strikes. Then rises a fierce 
 tumultuous clamor of voices from all, and when they 
 have aroused themselves to the highest pitch of frenzy, 
 the war-path is prepared. Decorated with fanciful 
 paints, and with all the ornaments they can com- 
 mand, and marching, in single file, one, two, or three 
 miles from the village, if there be a convenient camp- 
 ing ground near a brook, here they pause, and dis- 
 charge their guns slowly, one at a time. Here tliey 
 encamp, and now the ornaments and trinkets are ga- 
 thered and sent back to the squaws at the village, to be 
 kept till their return. Then, in silence, in single file, 
 under the lead of this self-nominated chieftain, they 
 proceed upon their errand of destruction and blood. 
 "Whatever the result, when they return great rejoic- 
 ings are had in the village, or in the wigwams of the 
 nation ; and if any have fallen, their manes are ap- 
 peased by the sacrifice of such victims as have been 
 captured, their torture being considered a lawful and 
 
172 PIONEERS J PREACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 even obligatory offering, that sliall satisfy the spirits 
 of the dead. 
 
 But this portraiture of Indian character, intended 
 as a sort of introduction to the theme of the occasion, 
 is drawing ' me on too far. I must hasten to com- 
 plete the rough outline, though with the omission of 
 many interesting j)oints. The leading and most re- 
 markable peculiarities of the Indians are, indomitable 
 resolution and endurance, haughty pride, daring and 
 arrogance toward an enemy, a calm and unmoved 
 exterior, that hides impenetrably all secrets of 
 thought and feeling, as a mantle of ice and snow the 
 blazing fires of the volcano beneath ; and a natural 
 wild independence, nourished and confirmed by their 
 solitary perilous lives ; which, although they may act 
 voluntarily under the guidance of these self-appointed 
 chieftains, preserves them unconstrained by any law, 
 subject to no authority, bound to none by fealty, and 
 subordinating themselves only to the heroic virtues 
 and preeminent abilities of their few great states- 
 men and w^arriors. Such salient peculiarities, exem- 
 plified, too, in such endless displays of savage hero- 
 ism and skill and strength, cannot but open to the 
 student of human nature a chapter of absorbing in- 
 terest. 
 
 All three of the great families, Mobilians, Iroquois, 
 and Algonquins, though the innumerable battles be- 
 tween and among themselves sprinkled the vrhoie 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 173 
 
 continent with blood, were "iinited by one singular 
 and wide-extended bond of friendship, which well 
 deserves a short consideration. This was that sort 
 of free-masonry, or association into fraternities, which 
 may be called the Totemic, as depending upon the 
 signs or emblems of these families, called their 
 Totems. Such emblems were the Hawk, the Eagle, 
 the Tortoise, the Bear, the "Wolf, the Snake. And as 
 these associations were limited neither to one nation 
 nor set of nations, so we find, for instance, a family 
 of the Wind, among both Mobilians and Iroquois ; 
 a family of the Tortoise, both among the Iroquois 
 and the Algonquins. 
 
 The brotherhood of the totem bound its mem- 
 bers, whether in peace or war, to aid and comfort 
 each other in whatever need. The lonely wanderer, 
 weary and starving after a long and unsuccessful 
 chase, could never ask in vain for relief and ad- 
 mitance at the cabin of one of his brethren of the 
 totem, however far removed his language, tribe, or 
 blood. This singular association a little alleviated 
 the many horrors of the constant warfare of the 
 hunters of the woods. Another of its rules was, 
 that members of one family or clan should not in- 
 termarry with each other ; but that the young man 
 of the totem of the Tortoise must choose his wife 
 from the family of the Bear or the Hawk, or of 
 any totem but the Tortoise. This provision, in strict 
 
174 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 conformity witli j)liysiological trutli, was well calcu- 
 lated to perpetuate the physical vigor and hardi- 
 hood, the integrity and individuality of the race. 
 
 Hereditary distinctions, so far as they existed 
 among the Indians, descended not directly, in the 
 male line, but collaterally, through the female. 
 Thus, it was not the son of the chief V\dio inherited 
 his chieftainship after him, but the son of the sis- 
 ter, or some female relative of the cliief. ISTor was 
 even this inheritance sure or necessary. 'No mantle 
 fell by any law of succession upon unworthy 
 shoulders. Tlie candidate for the autnority of his un- 
 cle received and retained his power, if he did receive 
 it, because he also was preeminently wise in council, 
 powerful in debate, sagacious in planning, and heroic 
 in strife. Wanting these merits, he fell unresistingly 
 into a private station, and the poorest and obscurest 
 youth of the tribe, if his abilities entitled him, as- 
 sumed the power of sachem. Insignia the ofiice had 
 none. 
 
 Having thus hastily sketched out some j)rominent 
 traits of Indian character, I now come to the more 
 immediate subject of this lecture : the great conspi- 
 racy organized against the encroaching whites, by 
 one of the greatest, if not the very first of Indian 
 statesmen and warriors ; and to the life and character 
 of its leader — the AVar of Pontiac, tlie Ottawa. 
 
 In 1760, near the close of the old Frencn war. 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 175 
 
 when the three victorious armies of England had met, 
 converging at Montreal; when Canada had been 
 subjugated, and the French empire was about to 
 cease over the new continent, Sir Jeffrey Amherst, 
 commander-in-chief of the English forces in this 
 country, dispatched a E"ew Hampshire ranger. Ma- 
 jor Eobert Eogers, with a party of his men, to take 
 possession of the French forts west of the lakes. This 
 Major Eogers was a companion in arms of old Israel 
 Putnam; an experienced and successful Indian 
 fighter, of desperate courage, yet of the coolest and 
 most sly and cautious prudence. A tall, strong man, 
 of a somewhat evil countenance, he was little trou- 
 bled with conscience, was strongly suspected of 
 treachery during the Eevolutionary war, and, indeed, 
 became a colonel in the British service ; and last— an 
 
 odd feature in the character of a backwoodsman he 
 
 possessed no inconsiderable tincture of good litera- 
 ture, having published a well-written journal of his 
 adventures as a ranger, and even— it is believed— all 
 or part of " The Tragedy of Ponteach," a drama of 
 the fortunes of the very chieftain of whom I am about 
 to speak. 
 
 This hardy adventurer, at the head of tvro hundred 
 men, in a fleet of whaleboats, proceeded as far as to 
 the site of the present city of Cleveland, which he 
 reached in JSTovember, 1760. Here his advance was 
 arrested by a party of Indians, who met hini, sayioo- 
 
176 PIONEEES, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 tliat they were the envoys of one Pontiac, the mo- 
 narch of all that realm, and who bade him halt there 
 ■until a conference should he had with him. 
 
 Thus steps forth, for the first time within the light 
 of history, from the obscurity of his small tribe — the 
 Ottawas, fugitives among the great Algonquin na- 
 tion, the Ojibwas of Lake Superior, from the destroy- 
 ing fury of the terrible Iroquois — the great chief, Pon- 
 tiac, sometimes even called the Emperor of the Ottawa 
 Indians, so extensive was his sway, and so vast his 
 power. 
 
 Before nightfall, the great chief made his appear- 
 ance, and proudly demanded wherefore the English 
 were in his country ? Pogers made answer, tliat the 
 English, having conquered the French, were now 
 taking possession of the forts of the vanquished, and 
 that this was his errand to Detroit. Takins: until the 
 next day to answer, the Indian chieftain concluded 
 with prompt decisive wisdom that the English power 
 was, in truth, becoming uppermost, and that he would 
 worship the rising sun. He returned and made a 
 corresponding reply ; and on the journey, v/hich the 
 English party completed successfully, averted at least 
 one intended attack by the Detroit Indians. 
 
 While with Pogers, Pontiac was very inquisitive 
 to learn how the Eno^lish manufactured sucli 2:uns of 
 the black rock called iron ; how cloth was woven, aud 
 po^^'der made ; how they drilled and disciplined their 
 
OS THE MISSISSIPPI. 177 
 
 troops ; and asked a tliousand otlier questions about 
 European matters. This man was the head chief of 
 all the Ottawas, and high in the esteem of all the 
 neighboring tribes on the peninsula which projects 
 from the main base of the continent, and is surrounded 
 by lakes Michigan, Huron, St. Clair and Erie. The 
 Ojibwas, TVjandots, Pottawatomies, and other neigh- 
 boring tribes entertained for him a sort of reverence, 
 similar in kind, and even greater in degree, than that 
 afterward commanded by Tecum seh, nimself — as were 
 King Philij) and Pontiac — of Algonquin blood. 
 
 A year or two passed away, and British troops and 
 British influences had replaced those of France 
 through all the vast belt of inland possessions which 
 had for nearly a century owned the power of the 
 French king. It is not necessary here to describe 
 the difference, so often enlarged upon, between the 
 light-hearted, social and plastic Frencli, and the 
 haughty, gruff, and arrogant English, in their inter- 
 course with the punctilious and irritable sons of the 
 forest. Instead of the generous and easy hospitality, 
 the careful, courteous, and indulgent observance, with 
 which the French officers and traders had so judi- 
 ciously and successfully treated the Indians, they 
 were suddenly everywhere used with rude overbear- 
 ing insolence, neglected, driven off with curses, and 
 even with blov\'s — the last indignity to which an In^ 
 dian could be subjected. 
 
178 PIONEERS, PEEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 And wliile this imliappj, invariable course on the 
 part of the English, together with the brutal swindling 
 of their traders, the rapid advance of tlieir settle- 
 ments, the ruin of their hunting-grounds, and the 
 swift and steady circumscription of their territories 
 kindled all along the vast extent of the Indian fron- 
 tier the smoldering exasperation and bitter enmity 
 that ever and anon flamed out into murders and de- 
 vastating inroads by individuals and war-parties of the 
 young men of one and another tribe ; the chiefs them- 
 selves, long accustomed to the special distinctions and 
 valuable presents which formed so agreeable a part of 
 the French system of colonial administration, were 
 still more bitterly mortified and enraged at the neg- 
 lects and insults which they received from the coarse 
 and proud men with whom the British forces were 
 almost always ofiicered. 
 
 Pontiac felt all this, and felt it the more pro- 
 foundly, by as much as the depth of his intellect and 
 the strength of his passions and his pride surpassed 
 those of his savage contemporaries. But his wrath, 
 and sorrow, and mortification, were yet a thousand- 
 fold more inflamed by disappointments of a charac- 
 ter which very few of the tribesmen under his com- 
 mand could even comprehend, much less sympathize 
 with. 
 
 The dream and desire of his life was, the progresy 
 and improvement of his people, and their advance ir. 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 179 
 
 power and in hapj^iness. And so just and far-reacli- 
 ing were the views of this wild Ottawa sachem, that 
 he comjDrehended the necessity of the mannfactures 
 of civilized races, and would fain have rendered the 
 tribes independent of both English and French, in 
 this respect, by enabling them to su^Dply all their own 
 wants. He neither loved nor feared the English or 
 the French ; and his alliance with each, and his pre- 
 ference of either, was decided singly by the advan- 
 tage which he hoped thus to secure to his race. So 
 long as the French held much territory and many 
 fortresses in America, he remained in alliance with 
 them. When they were conquered, and the places 
 of their troops filled by the red-coated soldiery of 
 England, he as promptly made friends with the 
 English. 
 
 But the hopes of elevating and bettering his race, 
 which, though delusive, had been long maintained 
 by the fair professions and careful external obser- 
 vances of the Frenchmen, were quickly quenched 
 by the more honest rudeness, neglects and insults, 
 which the British officers inflicted upon the Indians ; 
 and Pontiac soon perceived that the Ottawa nation, 
 and all the Indian tribes, would perish, unless their 
 white invaders should be destroyed, or their progress 
 arrested. This design he at once set about accom- 
 plishing; and forthwith he organized a conspiracy, 
 far the most gigantic ever originated bv an Indian on 
 
180 PIONEEES, PKEACHEE8 AND PEOPLE 
 
 this continent, and which, for extent, secrecy, and 
 ability of conception and execution, will vie with 
 any plot in history. 
 
 His own personal qualifications, and the circum- 
 stances of the time, made the opportunity a perfect 
 one. In the prime of a leader's life — being about 
 fifty years old — despotic ruler of the confederated 
 tribes of the Ottawas, Pottawatomies, and their third 
 ally, the great tribe of the Ojibwas — long possessed 
 of a paramount influence over all the Indians of Illi- 
 nois, and known and honored throughout all the wide 
 territories of the Algonquin race — no other chieftain 
 could have aroused such hosts as he, or could have 
 sustained or controlled their wrath so long ; nor were 
 the Indians at any other time ever so extensively and 
 fiercely hostile to their white aggressors. From the 
 distant trading-stations in the cold regions beyond 
 Lake Superior, to the far southern tribes back of the 
 settlements in Carolina and Georgia, the savages were 
 all yet hot with their anger of the recent strife in 
 which they had fought for the French ; and this 
 wrath was still more vehemently enkindled by the 
 insulting treatment of which I have spoken, by the 
 brutal conduct and enormous impositions of the Eng- 
 lish fur-traders, and still more by the ominous rapid- 
 ity with which the white frontier marched westward, 
 destroying one hunting-ground after another, covering 
 the lands, and annihilating or expelling the tribes. 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 181 
 
 In the latter portion of the year 1762, therefore, 
 there went ont from the Ottawa village, which stood 
 jnst below Lake St. Clair and above Fort Detroit, 
 on the Canada side of the river, many messengers. 
 They sped into the distant forests of the northern 
 Algonqnins beyond the great lakes ; to the banded 
 nations of the L'oqnois ; to the pacific Delawares in 
 Pennsylvania; to the savage Tuscaroras, and the 
 warlike Mobilians, west of Carolina and along the 
 Gulf coast ; to the various tribes all along the Mis- 
 sissippi ; and to the nations of the Illinois country. 
 Everywhere they carried the great red war-belt and 
 the words of the great Pontiac ; and everywhere, in re- 
 sponse to the wild call of the savage envoys, the 
 young men rose up and prepared for war. To all 
 was appointed a certain time in the next May, when 
 every tribe was to exterminate the garrison nearest 
 it, and the whole wild host were then to break in 
 upon the settlements. And all the savage confede- 
 rates, and Pontiac himself— who was in this deluded 
 with all the rest — expected decisive succor from the 
 armies of the French king, which they believed to be 
 on the march to recover their great Canadian posses- 
 sions. This expectation was kept up by the reports 
 of the Canadian French, and even by forged letters, 
 giving advice of the march of French troops up the 
 St. Lawrence. 
 
 Tlie spring arrives ; and in all the long range of 
 
182 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 English/orts, from Micliilimackinac and Sault Ste. Ma- 
 rie, to the northwestward, to Fort Niagara, and all 
 along the line of lake forts, Detroit, Sandusky and 
 Presqu' Isle, and south by Yenango and Fort Pitt to 
 the frontier posts in the west of Virginia, all is safe 
 and secure. Here and there have been heard or seen 
 indistinct signs of irritation or disturbance among the 
 savages ; and in one instance — at Fort Miami — the 
 commander had even heard of the war-belt, held a 
 council with the Indians about it, reproved them, and 
 sent the news, and their cunning disclaimers, to Ma- 
 jor Gladwyn, at Detroit, and he to Sir Jeffrey Am- 
 herst, at New York. But none dreams of anything 
 worse than a temporary state of uneasiness among 
 the tribes ; and the English forces in his majesty's 
 colonies in North America remain dispersed and fee- 
 ble, and all the royal posts careless and almost unre- 
 strainedly open to the Indians. 
 
 Pontiac himself determined to commence the war 
 by attacking Fort Detroit, the strongest of all the 
 English posts in the Indian country, except Fort Pitt. 
 After the Indian fashion, he at first tried stratagem. 
 Having unsuspectedly made a satisfactory reconnois- 
 sance of the interior of the post, he entered it some 
 days afterward, on pretence of a council, with three 
 hundred chosen w^arriors, all armed for war, and witli 
 their guns cut short and hidden under their blankets. 
 But Major Gladwyn, the English commander, a cool 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 183 
 
 and brave man, had been put on his guard only the 
 night before bj his Indian favorite, a beautiful 
 Ojibwa girl named Catharine. Making all the ne- 
 cessary preparations, therefore, he deliberately ad- 
 mitted this savage host. They saw with dismay the 
 military array of the garrison, and only after 
 uneasy delay would they seat themselves and go 
 through the deceitful ceremonies under cover of which 
 they had intended to murder the commandant and his 
 force, and to throw open the gates to the Indian army 
 without. Pontiac made a speech, as usual on such 
 occasions, professing friendship and peaceful inten- 
 tions as if he had as heretofore come only for rum 
 or for presents. He even raised his hand with 
 the peace-belt of wampum, the giving of which 
 was to have signalled the onset of his braves, 
 but paused in s]3eechless amazement when, at that 
 very moment, in obedience to Gladwyn's command, 
 the rattle and clash of weapons and the roll of the 
 drum sounded from without the room. After a short 
 and somewhat stern reply from Gladwyn, the Indi- 
 ans departed in disappointment and anger, but yet 
 quite sure that the English were either utterly ignorant 
 of their scheme, or arrant cowards if not, for letting 
 them escape alive. And accordingly, Pontiac visited 
 Gladwyn with a few companions next day, to endea- 
 vor to confirm him in a belief in their peaceful inten- 
 tions, and one da}^ afterward, tried to obtain admis 
 
184 PIONEERS, PKEACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 sion into the fort witli a large number of his warriors. 
 Being now briefly and sternly refused, the savages, 
 bursting at once into all the fiendish rage of Lidian war- 
 fare, murdered two English families who lived at a 
 short distance, and the next day closely invested the 
 fort ; a mixed and numerous swarm of four nations, Otta- 
 was, Pottawatomies, "Wyandots and Ojibwas, all under 
 the command of the great Ottawa war-chief Pontiac. 
 
 And now all along the far-stretching frontier, the 
 dark forests swarm with war-parties. All the 
 English posts west of the mountains were attacked. 
 Traders, travellers and emigrants, the forlorn hope of 
 the advancing invasion of the wdiite settlements, 
 were killed. Every secluded farm or lonely hamlet, 
 of all those that fringed the interval between 
 hunting-grounds and farms, w^as burned. Hundreds 
 and himdreds of families were exterminated, oi 
 driven back within the area of the denser settle- 
 ments scared and penniless, and too often with the 
 loss of some of the beloved circle. 
 
 Such was the perfection of this gigantic project, 
 and the secrecy of its thousands of confidants for 
 months together, that the savage outbreak was 
 nowhere expected except for those few hours of 
 warning at Detroit — and even there it was many 
 days before Gladwyn would believe it to be more 
 than a temporary outbreak of anger, or that all the 
 posts were assaulted so nearly together that none 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 185 
 
 could assist any other. One after anotlier, in rapid 
 succession, eight of them fell. On the 16th of May, 
 Fort Sandusky was surprised by a body of Indians, 
 who gained admittance as friends, and murdered all 
 but the commander and two or three of the garrison. 
 On the 25th, St. Joseph's, at the south end of Lake 
 Michigan, was seized in a similar manner, eleven 
 men of the little garrison having been killec'., the 
 other four made prisoners, and the fort plundered ; all 
 within less than two minutes after the signal yell 
 was given. Two days afterward. Fort Miami, on the 
 Maumee, was surrendered to the savages. Ensign 
 Holmes, the commander, having been enticed out 
 and shot dead, and the sergeant taken prisoner. On 
 the 1st of June, a similar stratagem made the Indians 
 masters of Fort Ouatanon on the Wabash, the garri- 
 son, however, being all preserved alive, and sent 
 prisoners to the Illinois country. On the 4:th, the 
 Ojibwas, by means of a game of ball called lagga- 
 tiway^ surprised Fort Michilimackinac, massacred 
 nearly all of the garrison, made prisoners of the rest, 
 and seized the large quantities of liquor, stores and 
 merchandise, public and private, accumulated in 
 that important depot of the Indian trade. On the 
 15th, after a siege of twenty-four hours, eighteen of 
 them of incessant furious attacks, with the aid of 
 intrenchments and mines, and of desperate hardihood 
 in defence. Fort Presqu' Isle was surrendered, and 
 
186 PIONEERS, PEEACHEKS AND PEOPLE 
 
 the garrison, despite a capitulation providing that 
 they might retire to the nearest post, were sent 
 prisoners to the camp of Pontiac at Detroit. On the 
 18th, Fort Le Boeuf, a few miles south of Presqu' 
 Isle, on a branch of the Alleghany, was attacked 
 toward nightfall by a large body of Indians, and set 
 on fire by fire-arrows ; but the commander and his 
 little squad of thirteen men, desperate with their 
 horrible peril, cut a way ont through the rear of the 
 blockhouse while the Indians were waiting to see 
 them driven out through the door by the flames, and 
 fled away to Fort Pitt; six of them, utterly exhausted, 
 being left behind in the woods. And lastly, Fort 
 Yenango, still further south, at the junction of the 
 same stream with the Alleghany, was about the same 
 time surprised by a large force of Senecas, wdio, 
 admitted as friends, murdered all the garrison except 
 the commander, tortured him for several nights over 
 a slow flre until he died, burnt down the works, 
 and departed. Fort Pitt, Fort Ligonier, some 
 distance southwest of it, and Fort Augusta, on the 
 Susquehanna, w^ere also attacked, but the Indians 
 were repulsed. 
 
 And now the English held not one fortified post 
 west of Fort Pitt, save Detroit alone, where the 
 undismayed Gladwyn still maintained himself, 
 though closely beleaguered by the great confederate 
 host under Pontiac. The vigor and constancy of 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 187 
 
 this siege are without precedent or parallel in Indian 
 history. From the beginning of May until the end 
 of October did the power and influence of their 
 indomitable leader hold the- savao-e host in watcliful 
 array against the fort; wearying the scanty garrison 
 with a fire of musketry that left them no rest day or 
 night; contriving plan after plan to destroy the two 
 small vessels which remained under the protection 
 of the works, and served to guard the water-front ; to 
 rake the north and south sides of the walls, and 
 to make an occasional attack upon the enemy's 
 camj). 
 
 'No other Indian chieftain — at least none of pure 
 blood, for an exception must be made in favor of 
 General Alexander McGillivray, the chief of the 
 Creeks — ever showed such breadth and quickness of 
 mind in comprehending and practising the arts of 
 civilized life, a characteristic not less indicative of the 
 lofty rank of his intellect, than was that vast mag- 
 netic power which enabled him so long to concen- 
 trate and wield the forces of those flitting and 
 unstable warriors of the woods. Unable to read or 
 write, he employed one secretary to write letters and 
 another to interpret those received, and with diplo- 
 matic shrewdness, kept each ignorant of the business 
 of the other. To satisfy until he could pay them, 
 the French Canadians from whose live stock he was 
 forced to support his army, he issued securities, of 
 
188 PIONEEES, PKEACHEE8 AND PEOPLE 
 
 tlie nature of notes of hand, drawn on bircli bark 
 and signed with his totem, the otter, which were all 
 punctually redeemed. He organized a regular com- 
 missariat department, gathering into one stock the 
 provisions thus collected, and which he levied after a 
 fixed rate from the Canadians in the neighborhood, 
 and distributing them again to his forces ; rigidly 
 protecting the farms from depredation, and even 
 making his followers avoid trampling on growing 
 crops. 
 
 ISTot less remarkable were the bravery and versa- 
 tile skill employed in the operations for attack. All 
 the slender means of Indian warfare were exhausted 
 in assaulting the palisades of the fort. Eepeated 
 attempts w^ere made to burn the two vessels, by 
 fire-rafts sent down the river. A detachment ol 
 nearly a hundred men, sent to relieve the fort, was 
 surprised by a party of Wyandots when within thirty 
 miles of their destination, sixty of them taken or 
 slain, and the rest driven back to the eastward in but 
 two of their eighteen boats ; and the ample stock of 
 provisions and ammunition intended for the besieged, 
 all fell into the hands of the Indians. The schooner 
 Gladwyn, one of the two vessels attached to the fort, 
 was fiercely attacked by the Indians while in the river 
 below, on her way np with a small reinforcement, 
 and was driven back to the lake, though a second 
 attempt carried her up to the fortress in safety, witli 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 189 
 
 her men and supplies. Captain Dalzell, a com- 
 panion in arms of General Pntnam, arrived at the 
 fort toward the end of July, with a second rein- 
 forcement of nearly three hundred men, and obtained 
 with difficulty from the cautious Gladwyn, permis- 
 sion to lead a party to endeavor to surprise Pontiac's 
 camp. But the wary chief, informed by some 
 Canadians of the intended attack, ambuscaded them 
 on their way, and they were only able to return to 
 the fort by the exercise of great skill and coolness in 
 manoeuvring, and with the loss of fifty-nine killed 
 and wounded. One of the English schooners was 
 attacked again, while returning from Magara, and 
 in spite of cannon and small-arms, and a most heroic 
 defence by her little crew of twelve men, would have 
 been taken, had not the Indians been scared at the 
 sudden order of the mate to blow up the schooner, 
 and all jumped overboard to escape. 
 
 But the obstinate resolution of Major Gladwyn; 
 the reinforcements from the ea^^; the weariness of 
 this long siege, now severely felt by the Indian host ; 
 the failure of their ammunition ; the receipt of a letter 
 which the French commander at Fort Chartres had 
 reluctantly dispatched at the demand of Sir Jeflrey 
 Amherst, and which informed Pontiac that the 
 French were at peace with the English, and that he 
 could expect no aid from them ; and the approach of 
 winter, when the Indians must of necessitv pc^itter 
 
190 
 
 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 themselves abroad in the forests to keep themselves 
 alive by hunting — all these causes conspired to dis- 
 appoint this central portion of the great design of 
 Pontiac. The Wyandots and Pottawatomies had 
 made a peace during July, which, however, they 
 afterward broke ; but in October they sought, 
 together with the Ojibwas, to make a regular treaty. 
 Gladwyn consented to a truce, and instantly taking 
 advantage of the opportunity, soon had his garrison 
 provisioned for the whole winter. And Pontiac, 
 cruelly enraged and disappointed, with no forces left 
 but his own Ottawas, and now at last giving up his 
 hopes of French aid, left Detroit, and departing to 
 what is now the northwest part of Ohio, set about 
 stirring up the Indians of that region ; intending to 
 resume the siege of Detroit in the spring. 
 
 The brief sequel of his war and end of his life are 
 soon told. In the spring of 1764, the English govern- 
 ment resolved upon a judicious scheme for the 
 organization of trade and intei'course with the 
 Indians. 
 
 As a necessary preliminary, however, they sent two 
 armies, one under Col. Bradstreet, along the lakes, and 
 another under Col. Bouquet, through Pennsylvania 
 into the heart of tlie Indian country, to bring the 
 tribes to submission. Of this latter commander and 
 this expedition, it is fit that some account should hero 
 be given. 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 191 
 
 Col. Heniy Boiiqnet was a native of the Swiss can- 
 ton of Berne, was a soldier from liis boyhood, and 
 had served nnder Sardinia and Holland, before he 
 became lientenant-colonel of the Eojal Americans, 
 a corps raised in America, chiefly of Germans, and 
 officered by foreigners. It is now the 60th Rifles. 
 In this command. Bouquet had already gained a 
 high reputation in Pennsylvania, as a noble and ac- 
 complished man and soldier. During the previous 
 year, while in charge of a small force and a convoy 
 for the relief of forts Bedford, Ligonier and Pitt, he 
 had commanded at the desperate battle of Bushy 
 Run, one of the hardest fought fields ever contested 
 between whites and Indians. This was on August 
 5th, 1763, when Bouquet's little army, of only about 
 five hundred men, many of them invalids from the 
 unhealthy service in the West Indies, was suddenly 
 attacked while on the march, about twenty-five 
 miles from Fort Pitt, by a force of Indians about 
 as numerous as the English, but having the great 
 advantages of complete knowledge of the forest and 
 its warfare. Bouquet, with ready skill, formed his 
 men into a circle round his horses and baggage, and 
 from one o'clock until eight sustained a furious and in- 
 cessant attack. The yelling savages, with a boldness 
 very rare in their system of fighting, rushed against 
 the slender line of English, with a close and heavy fire ; 
 and then, when the Highlanders, after one sharp vol- 
 
193 PIONEEESj 
 
 lej, cliarged with tlie bayonetj they leaped back out 
 of reach, and a moment afterward dashed at another 
 portion of the ring. At nightfall they drew off, having 
 lost very few, while 60 of the soldiers, besides offi- 
 cers, were killed or disabled. Bouquet made his men 
 encamp in their order of battle, upon their arms, mak- 
 ing every preparation against a night attack ; and thus, 
 in momentary expectation of the foe, weary and thirsty 
 — for the hill on which they were afforded no water, 
 and none dared seek it — and without fire, lest the light 
 should guide the forest marksmen, the beleagured lit- 
 tle army awaited daylight, the wounded being depo- 
 sited within a sort of little breastwork of flour-bags. At 
 early dawn next morning the Indians resumed the 
 battle in the same manner, attacking furiously, firing, 
 and vanishing into the forest whenever the English 
 charged forward from their narrow ring. Thus they 
 fought until about ten o'clock, sufi'ering actual agonies 
 of thirst, their little force gradually thinning under 
 the fire of the Indian rifles ; and now the weary ranks 
 began to lose strength and courage. Perseverance 
 in their cunning tactics must infallibly have given 
 the savages the victory ; but at the moment when 
 this became evident, the cool and shrewd Eouquet 
 snatched it from them by a well-planned stratagem. 
 He caused two companies to withdraw from the line 
 of defence, as if retreating, toward the centre of the 
 circle. The Indians, perceiving this, charged with 
 
OF THE ]SnSSISSIPPI. 193 
 
 redoubled fuiy upon the weakened line, and were on 
 the point of breaking through, when the two compa- 
 nies, who had taken advantage of some low and 
 wooded ground for their manoeuvre, and had passed 
 out of the circle and made a short circuit in the forest, 
 burst upon the flank of the Indians, and delivered a 
 heavy and deadly volley. The savages, though taken 
 entirely by surprise, faced about and intrepidly re- 
 turned the fire ; but fled, when these new opponents 
 charged violently with fixed bayonets. Two other 
 companies, j)laced in ambush for the purpose, as the 
 routed savages fled across their front, rose and gave 
 them another destructive volley, and then all the four 
 charging again together, the savage foe fled, routed 
 and entirely broken and discouraged, leaving about 
 sixty of their number dead on the ground — an enor- 
 mous loss for them. Tlie command, setting out again 
 next day, reached Fort Pitt in safety ; and Col. Bou- 
 quet received for his courage and conduct in this im- 
 portant battle, the thanks of the Pennsylvania Assem- 
 bly, and of the king. 
 
 Col. Bouquet was thus naturally selected to head 
 the southern of the two expeditions of 1764 against 
 the Indians, as he had proved his judgment and skill 
 upon the very ground now to be traversed again ; and 
 accordingly, a force of about eighteen hundred men, 
 regulars, Pennsylvania provincials, and Virginia rifle- 
 men, having been mustered at Carlisle on tlie 5th of 
 
 9 
 
194: PIONEERS, TEEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 August, Bouquet assumed tlie command, after the 
 troops had been addressed by Governor Penn, and in 
 a few days the army marched for Fort Loudon. 
 Their commander, well aware of the danger of the 
 enter^^rise, used every precaution that experience and 
 foresight could suggest. He established the strictest 
 discipline, shooting a couj^le of deserters at Fort Lou- 
 don before he could enforce it to his mind ; allowed 
 not one woman to accomj^any the army except one 
 to each corps, and two nurses ; and arranged a care- 
 ful and well -protected order of marching, in open or- 
 der, in a parallelogram, the baggage and cattle in 
 the centre, and with many outlying parties and scouts 
 in the woods in advance. When he reached Fort 
 Loudon, three hundred of the Ponnsylvanians had 
 deserted, and he remained here some weeks to re- 
 cruit. Bradstreet, commanding the northern expedi- 
 tion, had now reached Presqu' Isle on Lake Erie, 
 where a pretended Lidian embassy met him and 
 fooled him into negotiations, intending on their part 
 merely to prevent his advance, while all the time 
 their warriors were murderiug and burning on the 
 frontier. But Bouquet disregarded the j)eace thus 
 made, and Gage annulled it. 
 
 Setting forward again from Fort Loudon, Bouquet 
 readied Fort Pitt in September, and there delayed 
 again until October 3d, when, leaving the fore, lie 
 pluuged into the untraversed forest, inarching to 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 195 
 
 ward the Indian towns on the pleasant banks of the 
 Muskingum. In the same cai'eful order, ready at 
 any moment to form in a defensive ring around the 
 baggage if attacked, and filling the woods far in ad- 
 vance and on the flanks with the Virginia scouts, he 
 proceeded, unable to advance more than from five to 
 twelve miles a day; until after ten days' difficult pro- 
 gress, he fixed himself in the heart of the Indian 
 country, and within striking distance of all their vil- 
 lages except the Shawanee towns on the Scioto. 
 
 Here the fierce tribes, dismayed at the presence of 
 what was to them a mighty host, and conscious that 
 they could offer no adequate resistance to Bouquet 
 and Bradstreet, met the former; and after some nego- 
 tiations, in the course of which their mortification and 
 sullen pride, mingled with an evident fear almost ab- 
 ject, rendered their speeches, usually so figurative 
 and vivid, even dull, spiritless, and common-place, 
 the Indians complied with Bouquet's demands, deli- 
 vered up more than two hundred prisoners, and faith- 
 fully promised to send in the rest in the sj)ring. Af- 
 ter deposing a contumacious Delaware chief, and 
 causing a successor to be appointed, exacting hostages 
 for good behavior, and prescribing the immediate 
 sending of a deputation to Sir William Johnson to 
 agree upon terms of peace, Bouquet, who had hitherto 
 treated the terrified savages with chilling and over- 
 awing sternness, relaxed his demeanor, and held au- 
 
196 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 otlier council, in wliich he treated tliem in a friendly 
 manner. 
 
 Many accounts have been given of the extraordi- 
 nary scenes at the delivery of the Indian prisoners. 
 E'umbers of the frontiersmen who had accompanied 
 the expedition, had done so in the hope of regaining 
 wives, children, or relatives, in captivity in the wild- 
 erness. The whole annals of human history could 
 scarcely furnish a record of another scene so moving 
 and so wonderful as this for the exhibition of varied 
 and violent human passions. Day by day the lost white 
 people came back in troops, many of them, power- 
 fully held by the strange love of the wilderness, com- 
 ing with reluctance, and even bound as prisoners to 
 prevent them from fleeing back into the forest. Wo- 
 men, even, would fain have remained in the cabins 
 of the dusky husbands of their ca^Dtivity, to train their 
 young half-breeds in forest nurture. In truth, the 
 strangest feature of the scene was the comparative in- 
 difference of the rescued captives, contrasting so 
 strongly with the overwhelming agitation of the friends 
 who sought them. Husbands sought wives, and pa- 
 rents children, trembling and weeping, doubtful of 
 them when found, changed as they were by the 
 growth of years and the exposures of forest life.; and 
 the strange magnetism of human passion, seizing 
 upon all around, even infected the rudest of the sol- 
 diers, who sympathized in the sorrows or the joys of 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 197 
 
 tlie occasion ; many of them not even able to refrain 
 from tears. 
 
 One of the most affecting occurrences of the occa- 
 sion was the recognition by an aged mother of her 
 daughter, who, carried away nine years before, was 
 among the captives. The eyes of the parent, sharp- 
 ened by natural affection, discerned the features of 
 her lost child in those of a swarthv and sunburnt 
 young female ; but her long captivity had deprived 
 the girl of almost every word of the English which 
 she had acquired at the early age when she was 
 stolen, and she quite failed to recognize her old mo- 
 ther, who lamented with rude, affecting sorrow, that 
 the daughter whom she had so often sung to sleep, 
 had so utterly forgotten her. Eouquet, a man of 
 kind feelings as well as ready intellect, seized the 
 hint which the sorrowing mother did not perceive, 
 and told her to try the experiment of singing the 
 song with which she had put her child to sleep. She 
 did so ; and the long-forgotten, simple strain unsealed 
 the daughter's memory and awoke her affections at 
 once ; and weeping and rejoicing, she fell upon her 
 mother's neck. 
 
 But the wondrous magic of the wilderness, the in- 
 nate savagery that is somewhere hidden in almost ev- 
 ery heart, were singularly proved by the actions of 
 some of the captives this day redeemed. Of all the 
 white women who had taken Indian husbands, not one, 
 
198 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 even tlioiigli her children came with her, returned 
 willingly to civilized life ; and several of them after- 
 ward actually escaped back to tlieir red lords, their 
 wigwams, and the forest. 
 
 The business of the expedition thus prosperously 
 accomplished, Bouquet and his little army returned 
 upon their footsteps, and safely regained the settle- 
 ments. The successful leader received a vote of 
 tlianks, most flatteringly worded, from the Pennsyl- 
 vania Assembly, and another from that of Yirginia ; 
 and also a more substantial token of the appreciation 
 of his services, in his appointment by the king to the 
 rank of brigadier-general, with the command of the 
 southern department in ISTorth America. Col. Bou- 
 quet did not, however, long survive to fulfill the 
 hopes inspired by his remarkable excellences and 
 success ; for he was carried off by a fever at Pensa- 
 cola, only three years afterward. 
 
 Colonel Bradstreet, permitting himself to be de- 
 luded by the Indians as I have stated, accomplished 
 but a small part of his intended purposes ; but he 
 effectually relieved Detroit, which had now been be- 
 sieged more or less closely for fifteen months — for 
 Pontiac had recommenced the siege in the S23ring. 
 
 Shut out from hopes of success elsewhere, Pontiac 
 now passed into the Illinois country, whither the Eng- 
 lish forces had not yet penetrated, and with untiring 
 activity began to organize a new league of those 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 199 
 
 tribes tliat inhabited Illinois and dwelt along the 
 banks of the Mississippi River. His design was to 
 keep closed to the English the rich country of the 
 Illinois, by guarding the two approaches to it, by the 
 Mississippi and by the Ohio. But although two 
 attempts to ascend the Mississippi with detachments 
 of British troops were unsuccessful, this last plan of 
 the great Indian leader was frustrated by the negotia- 
 tion of an English envoy, the fur-trader George Crog- 
 han, who moved westward to prepare a path for the 
 troops which Gage, Amherst's successor, proposed to 
 send to take possession of the ancient French strong- 
 hold of Fort Chartres. Finding himself deserted by 
 one discouraged tribe after another, and failing to ob- 
 tain any aid from the French, either in Illinois or at 
 jN'ew Orleans, he at last resolved to seek peace with 
 the English ; and meeting Croghan at Fort Ouatanon 
 on the Wabash, he concluded an alliance with him, 
 which he confirmed at a great council of the northern 
 tribes held a short time afterward at Detroit ; ending 
 his speech as any other Indian would, by begging for 
 rum. 
 
 E'ext spring the great chief proceeded eastward to 
 Oswego, where he again confirmed his alliance with 
 the English, and gave up the vast plans which 
 he had conceived for the preservation of the Indian 
 race. Carrying many valuable gifts, he returned 
 westward to the Maumee. Here we lose sight of him 
 
200 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 for four years, which he doubtless spent in hunting 
 or in feud, like his warrior brethren. 
 
 In April, 1769, he suddenly and for the last time 
 reappears, coming out of his woods into the Illinois 
 country, to the great uneasiness of the English 
 traders in those parts. He crosses the great river 
 and visits his old friend St. Ange de Bellerive, now 
 commanding at St. Louis for the Spaniards. After a 
 time he hears of some meeting of Lidians across 
 the river at Cahokia, assembled there for pleasure ; 
 and in spite of the persuasions of St. Ange, who 
 knew the enmity of the brutal British fur-traders, he 
 persists in going; expressing his contempt for the 
 English. At Cahokia, he receives invitation after 
 invitation from one friend and another, and accepts 
 all. Drinking himself drunk, he goes out of the 
 village into the woods, singing magic songs. An 
 English fur-trader, seeing him, promptly gives a 
 miserable Kaskaskia Indian a barrel of liquor to kill 
 him, and promises him something more. Tlie wretch 
 followed Pontiac, crept up behind him, and clove his 
 head with his hatchet. 
 
 The few followers of the murdered chieftain who 
 would have avenged his death, were driven out of 
 the village. But the news of the death of the great 
 war-chief spread quickly and far ; and his Ottawas 
 and their confederate tribes, gathering together, 
 came down upon the treacherous and cowardly 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 201 
 
 niinois, exterminated all but tliirtj families of them, 
 and a few years afterward cut off all this wretched 
 remnant, utterly extinguishing the tribe by the 
 adoption of the few children who alone were saved 
 alive. 
 
 St. Ange caused the body of the slain warrior to 
 be brought across the Mississippi and buried. 'No 
 man knows the place of his grave ; but it is some- 
 where beneath the multitudinous tread of the busy 
 crowds that throng the city of St. Louis. There he 
 sleeps; and far away to the northward still are 
 vanishing into further wildernesses, into the spirit 
 land, the decreasing bands of the Algonquins, who 
 yet retain the memory of their greatest chieftain. 
 Over them is rushing, as it already rushes over 
 his forgotten bones, the vast irresistible ocean of the 
 power of the white race. And as most of them are 
 already laid, so their scattered remainder soon shall 
 lie, trodden under foot, unknown, unremembered ; 
 existing, even in history, only as a legend and a 
 tradition. Pontiac, sleeping beneath the lofty, 
 crowded houses of St. Louis, lies there, the symbol 
 and the prophecy of his race, and of its doom. 
 
 Besides Pontiac himself, there are perhaps none 
 of the actors in this story whom we need follow 
 further, unless it be the beautiful Ojibwa girl, 
 Catharine, whose warning saved Detroit. She was, 
 
 8* 
 
202 PIONEERS, PEEACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 it is said, severely whipped by Pontiac himself. 
 And there is a further tradition that she grew old, 
 haggish, and drunken, as the Indian women do ; and 
 that in a drunken fit, she fell into a great kettle 
 of boiling maple sap, and died miserably. 
 
Lecture V. 
 
 THE 
 
 OF THE WILDERNESS, 
 
 AT THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION. 
 
CABIN HOMES OF THE WILDERISTESS 
 
 AT THE OPENING OF THE REVOLUTION. 
 
 In the year 1768, there was assembled at Fort 
 Stanwix, in central JSTew York, on the site of the pre- 
 sent city of Eome, a council of the confederated Six 
 l^ations, or Iroquois, under the supervision and influ- 
 ence of Sir William Johnson, the British agent for 
 Indian affairs. It was much desired by sundry par- 
 ties interested, that a title to an immense region of 
 country lying west of the mountains should, in some 
 way or other, be secured from the Indians ; and as 
 these bold adventurers, the Iroquois, the wild rovers, 
 who laid under contribution their red brethren from 
 the seaboard coasts of Maine upon the east, to the 
 fast-rushing flood of the Father of "Waters upon the 
 west, exacting taxes paid equally by the Shawnees 
 and Illinois, and by the Delawares and the Hurons — 
 as these wild rovers claimed large districts of country 
 besides those which they themselves occupied, the 
 agents of the British government thought it well to 
 secure this title from them. They claimed, in virtue 
 of their conquests, the whole region of country lying 
 
206 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 upon the south of the Ohio, running from that river 
 on the north through the whole extent of the country 
 traversed hy the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers. 
 At this council, assembled about the 1st of I^ovem- 
 ber, 1768, Sir William Johnson, who had arranged 
 the details and particulars beforehand, with an un- 
 scrupulous skill worthy of a modern politician, and by 
 means of a series of gifts and presents to these hardy 
 warriors, made the purchase, securing, in the first 
 place, that whole region lying between the mouth of 
 the Cherokee or Tennessee River upon the westward, 
 and the Kanawha at the east, for the crown of Great 
 Britain ; and the lands from the Kanawha on the 
 west to the Monongahela on the east, for such tra- 
 ders as had been defrauded or injured during the war 
 of Pontiac. Let it be remembered that these Indians 
 had, in truth, no more right and title to that land 
 than you ; and yet, by the action of its agents and 
 officers, the British government executed this agree- 
 ment, and by virtue of it, henceforth claimed all that 
 district of country lying west of the Monongahela 
 and south of the Ohio river. 
 
 Under this treaty it was determined to make a 
 grant of 200,000 acres to such officers and soldiers as 
 had been engaged in the old French war, and to lo- 
 cate it just west of the Kanawha River, within the 
 limits of the present State of Kentucky. 
 
 And now — casting a rapid glance to another por- 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 20T 
 
 tion of our present vast territory — about the year 
 1770 we shall find coasting along the borders of Lake 
 Superior upon the northward, ascertaining particu- 
 lars and gaining information regarding the copper 
 mines of that district, passing thence westward across 
 the Mississippi River, and making a long and perilous 
 journey into the country of the Dacotah or Sioux 
 Indians, a bold and hardy captain from Connecticut, 
 one Jonathan Carver. He called the attention of the 
 British government and of the eastern colonists to the 
 boundless mineral and agricultural wealth within the 
 district he had traversed, and bore the first intel- 
 ligence of a credible and authentic character in re- 
 gard to the Oregon or Columbia River, and the 
 country lying west of the Rocky Mountains. 
 
 "We shall find at the same time floating down the 
 Beautiful River of the French — the Ohio — a person 
 to whom we have had occasion before to allude, the 
 young athletic Virginian, George "Washington ; hav- 
 ing, in common with his brethren, that American 
 peculiarity, a powerful instinct for good land, a 
 strong desire after real estate. Pursuing his meander- 
 ing course, in flat-boat or canoe, down the peaceful 
 current of this river, comes this }' oung Virginian, to 
 locate his own right as an officer in the French war, 
 and ako the claims of his brother soldiers and officers. 
 His eye having been early disciplined in his pursuits 
 as a surveyor, and long accustomed to wander as fo- 
 
208 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 rester and woodman, lie became familiar with all 
 forms and phases of nature, a lover of beautiful scen- 
 ery, and at the same time skilled in estimating and 
 selecting good lands. He revels in the panorama of 
 magnificence outspread before him. Here a stately 
 deer is browsing upon the river bluff, and yonder an- 
 other of his brethren steps proudly down to slake his 
 thirst in the peaceful stream. Here herds of buffalo 
 ai'e quietly wandering and grazing at their will. The 
 woods are crowded with flocks of wild turkeys ; and 
 everywhere around him, in the beautiful summer sea- 
 son of the year, everything on earth wears the bright- 
 est smile of benignity and beauty ; and heart and eye 
 of our Virginian gladden and are ravished with de- 
 light. He forms the purpose of becoming a settler of 
 the West, and but for the near outbreak of the Ame- 
 rican Bevolution, no doubt George "Washington would 
 have been a great pioneer of western civilization, 
 leaving his impress upon its grateful and virgin soil, 
 as durably and lastingly as he has now left it upon 
 our whole continent. 
 
 Just before this period, a long series of outrageous 
 and oppressive proceedings by the government offi- 
 cers of iN'orth Carolina, supported and encouraged by 
 the royal governor himself, the rigid, overbearing 
 and haughty Try on, had thoroughly alienated the 
 affections of that colony from the English govern- 
 ment. The sheriffs, as collectors, had levied enor- 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 209 
 
 mous illegal taxes, for their own private gain ; and 
 the courts were courts of anything but justice. In 
 their well-founded indignation, all the inland inhabi- 
 tants formed themselves into bodies of so-called 
 " Eegulators," and while they administered a rude 
 but honest justice among themselves, broke up and 
 prohibited the sitting of the oppressive regular 
 courts. These hardy men violently and successfully 
 opposed the stamp act ; and Governor Tryon, irritated 
 by their continued resistance to the tyranny of him- 
 self and his creatures, issuing from the executive pa- 
 lace, headed a levy of the militia, and on the river 
 Alamance, gave battle to the forces of the Eegula- 
 tors, in the year 1771. The brave countrymen, like 
 their fellows at Bunker Hill, fought until their pow- 
 der was all expended, and then sullenly fled, having 
 lost nine of their own number, and killed just thrice 
 as many of their foes. 
 
 Expecting no justice while under the sway of the 
 British lion, and exasperated beyond all patience at 
 the oppressions, the official injustice and social in- 
 dignities they had vainly opposed, these bold and de- 
 termined men resolved to flee to the wilderness ; from 
 ancient times the refuge of the oppressed and the 
 poor. Deserting their homesteads and the hearth- 
 stones by which their children had been nursed, and 
 where their fondest memories were garnered, with their 
 teams, their flocks, their wives and little ones, they 
 
210 PIONEERS, PEEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 toil up the steep ascents of the Alleghany Mountains, 
 and pass westward till they find the broad alluvial 
 lands of the river Watauga. Here, entering into a 
 leasrue with the chief men of the Cherokee nation, 
 which held possession of this country, they make just 
 and legitimate purchase of a sufiicient extent of terri- 
 tory to answer their purpose of agricultural pursuits. 
 And here, under leadership of Col. James Robert- 
 son, one of the noblest pioneers our history speaks of, 
 they establish the first Eepublic ever founded upon the 
 soil of the American continent — despising and eschew- 
 ing the authority of England, from which tliey had 
 only received wrong, outrage, betrayal, and their 
 compatriots' deaths. Surrounded by the grandeur of 
 the great primitive forms of nature, the towering moun- 
 tain lifting its great peak to the clouds, the plains all 
 beautiful with the white of the abounding strawberry 
 blossom, or the rich red of its fruit ; the rhododen- 
 dron, with its bright and genial hues, and the azalea, 
 making all the forests crimson with a touch of fire — 
 here these hardy men plant themselves, and begin to 
 carry their explorations and surveys far to the west- 
 ward. This is the germ and the birth-place of the 
 present State of Tennessee. 
 
 Still further to the southwest, we find strange events 
 transpiring upon the banks of the Mississippi River, 
 in the neighborhood of the present city of E'atchez, 
 where stood the old French Fort Rosalie, named after 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 211 
 
 the fair dame of the great French noblemai], Count 
 Pontchartrain. During the old French war, in 
 1755-6, General Phineas Ljman, of Durham, in Con- 
 necticut, had buckled on the harness of war, and had 
 approved himself a valiant and noble leader, doing 
 faithful service in behalf of the colonies until the con- 
 clusion of the war. His valor and constancy, his 
 rare power of combination, masterful accuracy in de- 
 tails, and able generalship, had gained him a place so 
 high in the confidence of his countrymen, that the 
 reputation which he won so well in his office of ma- 
 jor-general and commander-in-chief of the Connecti- 
 cut forces, and as commander of the expedition to 
 Havana, in 1TG2, was second to that of no man in 
 America. Meu high in place in England had also 
 repeatedly invited the able, eminent and accom- 
 plished provincial soldier to visit the mother country. 
 Organizing an association under the name of the 
 " Military Adventurers," of the soldiers and officers 
 of the war just ended, he accordingly proceeded to 
 England as its agent, to solicit for it a grant of the 
 desert lands lying on the Yazoo and Mississippi 
 rivers. For these associates had heard marvellous 
 stories of the richness of the land in the Southwest, 
 and desired to settle upon so fair a domain; judging 
 that they had a right to claim the grant in return for 
 their services to the British government. Gen. Lyman 
 arrived in England ; but instead of meeting a kind 
 
212 PIONEERS, PEEACHEE8 AND PEOPLE 
 
 reception and a cordial acknowledgment of his ser- 
 vices, was treated witli coldness and contempt, and 
 with mean and cruel ingratitude. He w^as deluded 
 with promise after promise, and delay after delay, 
 even for years; until the discovery of this long series of 
 cheatings came upon him with such crushing violence 
 that he fell into absolute listless despondency. The 
 noble soldier whose spirit had passed undismayed 
 through perils of sea and land, Indian ambuscade and 
 pitched battle, unable to bear the thought of return- 
 ing, deluded, to his deluded friends, sadly determined 
 to bear his fancied ignominy as best he might, in 
 distant England, and to lay his dishonored bones 
 there. 
 
 Thus the unhappy General Lyman wasted eleven 
 years of the prime of life, absent from that home 
 which he had left in the flush of present success, and 
 with still more radiant hopes beaming from the fu- 
 ture — a home made sacred and beautiful, and happy, 
 by a lovely wife, by beloved, intelligent, refined and 
 highly educated children. And when the faithful 
 and patient wife could endure the long heart-break 
 no more, she sent her eldest-born to England to bring 
 back his father. 
 
 The unhappy father, his paternal affection awak- 
 ened at the sight of his boy, consents to return ; and 
 the more readily, as the British government has, with 
 a liberality too late exercised, at last made the de- 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 213 
 
 eired grant, at the intended spot, within the limits of 
 the present State of Mississippi, and in what was then 
 called western Florida. To General Lyman himself 
 was given a special grant of lands broad enough 
 for future wealtk; and a promise — never fulfilled 
 — of a pension of £200 a year. Bat many of the 
 grantees were now hoary old men, and all were 
 aged beyond the period of life when men remove 
 into wildernesses to undertake the rude, exhausting 
 labors of founding new communities. But Gen. Ly- 
 man came home, with his grant. His oldest son, a 
 youth of brilliant promise, had completed his studies, 
 received and held a commission in the armj^, and 
 given it up for the practice of law ; had felt to the 
 fall the effects of all these high hopes so long de- 
 ferred, which prevented him from earnest devotion 
 to the law. Tlie long weary suspense and doubt 
 hanging over his own prospects, had destroyed health 
 of body and mind together, and when the wretched 
 father met him, he had sunk from brokenheartedness 
 into lanacy. But he carried the hapless youth away, 
 hoping that new atmospheres and new scenes might 
 give him back his health ; and with a few friends 
 proceeded to West Florida, and located his grant. 
 Scarcely had he done so, when his son died. In the 
 next year, 1775, the desolate father followed him 
 to the grave. In 1776, Mrs. Lyman came to this 
 fatal country, with her only brother and all lier child 
 
214 PIONEERS, PKEACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 ren except one son. She died in a few months ; and 
 next summer her brother died. 
 
 This expedition, which sailed from Middletown, May 
 1st, 1776, passed through a battle with misfortune so 
 long, so varied, and so terrible, that it deserves some- 
 thing more than a mere reference. Let us briefly 
 trace the affecting story. Reaching JS'ew Orleans, 
 August 1st, 1776, they begin to ascend the Missis- 
 sippi in open boats. Day after day passes ; and they 
 are yet dragging their heavily-laden craft against the 
 furious current, tlirough sickly airs, and under the ex- 
 hausting southern sun. The malaria of the swamps 
 begins its fearful work, and one and another of the 
 hardy emigrants sicken and die ; while the fated sur- 
 vivors, with diminished strength, more slowly drag 
 the heavy boats up stream. Boat after boat is left — the 
 crew too feeble to draw it — fastened to the willows or 
 anchored in the current ; among them that of Captain 
 Matthew Phelps. Eeaching Katchez, tlie minister 
 of the party, Mr. Smith, who, in genuine Puritan 
 style, had accompanied them from Connecticut, falls 
 a victim to the fever. The remainder of the party at 
 last reaches the site of the intended settlement, where 
 General Lyman had, before his death, made some 
 small improvements ; and here it is that Madam Ly- 
 man follows her hapless husband to another world. 
 
 Captain Phelps, who was left below on the river 
 still remained there, his family so reduced bv fevcj 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 215 
 
 and-ague that they could only, at intervals, wait on 
 each other at all. His daughter Abigail soon died, 
 and the mourning father buried her on the bank, dig- 
 ging her grave with his own hands. This was in the 
 early part of Sept., 1776. On the 16th, an infant 
 son, born at sea on the voyage out, died, and the fa- 
 ther again dug a grave and buried his boy by the 
 side of his daughter. A companion in misery, named 
 Flowers, who had lost all his family, now overtook 
 Plielps, and joining forces, they put the ]3roperty of 
 both in a larger boat, and worn down almost to skele- 
 tons, began again the ascent of tlie river. They were 
 still toiling upward on the 12th of October, when, a 
 little above Katchez, Mrs. Phelps died, at the house 
 of a hospitable planter named Alston, who gave her 
 a decent burial. Moving onward again, Capt. Phelps 
 reached the mouth of the Big Black, on which river 
 h^'s lands lay, on the S-lth of i^ov.; having been almost 
 a hundred days in making the trip from 'New Orleans, 
 which now occupies a few hours. Weakened by dis- 
 ease beyond the power of labor, Phelps here hired a 
 man and boy to help him up the river, and himself, 
 with the boy, labored at the tow-line, leaving the man 
 on board to steer. The boat glides into an eddy, or 
 ' suck," and her stern catching under a willow, the 
 steers«nan is thrown out, but being a sturdy swim- 
 mer, escapes to the shore. Phelps's two remaining 
 children, a boy of five and a girl of ten years oi age^ 
 
216 PIONEERS, PEEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 worn down by their long and clinging sickness, are 
 sitting listlessly upon the bed where they have suf- 
 fered so much. The father, from whose arms one 
 after another of his beloved has been wrested so ter- 
 ribly, in a transport of agony, seeing the boat cir- 
 cling in the whirlpool, hastily ties the line to a tree, 
 and not being able to swim, creeps out on the willow 
 that holds down the boat, hoping to rescue the child- 
 ren and carry them ashore. He reaches tlie boat, 
 and liis added weight bears down the treacherous 
 willow, and the stern under it. But begging the sis- 
 ter to sit still while he saves her brother, the fright- 
 ened man calls his boy ; the little fellow is wading 
 through the water in the boat toward his father, when 
 a high wave strikes the bow, it is carried instantly 
 under, and the two children are swept almost out of 
 his very arms into the devouring whirl of the river. 
 Standing helplessly upon the dangerous tree, the mis- 
 erable man sees them rise once, clasped in each 
 other's arms, and then they disappear forever beneath 
 the boiling muddy water ; and bereft before of wife, 
 daughter, infant, and now of all his little ones — every 
 tie to earth thus rudely severed, and, though it is 
 scarcely worth the naming in addition, his little 
 proj)erty swept into the gulf, too — the lonely, desolate 
 man sadly escapes to the shore and ascends slowly to 
 the place of his proposed settlement. A brutal squat- 
 ter has usurped his claim, and under the protection 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 217 
 
 of the custom of the land, defies him. Thus left ab- 
 solutely alone and penniless, he turns his face again 
 to his distant native State ; and there, it is pleasant to 
 know, after so many bitter sorrows, he passed the re- 
 mainder of his days in peace and comfort ; and saw 
 another wife, and other little children, within a happy 
 home. He often told the story of his sufferings to 
 friend or neighbor, narrating one disaster after an- 
 other with the steady resignation of a Christian — all 
 but one terrible sight. He could not speak of the 
 moment when the flood swallowed down his two 
 youngest close before his eyes. 
 
 The survivors of this sturdy band of Connecticut 
 farmers, after struggling through so many obstacles, 
 became thrifty and successful planters in the country 
 round ]N"atchez, with handsome dwellings, large 
 estates, and scores of slaves. 
 
 But time passed on, and the American Revolution 
 broke out. All these Connecticut people were ardent 
 loyalists. The contagion of independence had not 
 been carried so far as their distant dwellings. An 
 agent of the American Congress, Oliver Pollock, ]iad 
 descended from Pittsburg to 'New Orleans, then in 
 the possession of the Spaniards, and made arrange- 
 ments with the Spanish authorities to supply the set- 
 tlements upon the Kentucky, the Cumberland, Ten- 
 nessee, and other whig American settlements, with 
 ammunition to carry on the war. And a little after, 
 
 10 
 
218 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 in 1779, there descends the river one John Willing, 
 a citizen of Philadelphia, with an American commis- 
 sion as colonel. He is plansible of speech and of 
 winning address ; he visits these loyal settlers in the 
 neighborhood of I^atchez and in other parts of Mis- 
 sissippi, gathers them together, makes them many ora- 
 tions, wins their confidence, and binds them by oath 
 to strict neutrality. They are unwilling wholly to 
 renounce allegiance to the British crown, but promise 
 not to interfere in the struggle then going on. Wil- 
 ling then, ascending the river with a small force, 
 seizes, by stratagem, a British war vessel lying there, 
 carries her to J^ew Orleans, sells her to the Spanish 
 authorities, and with the proceeds spends his time, 
 with his companions, in riotous living and debauch- 
 ery, instead of apjDlying the money to the pur]30se for 
 which it was intended — the purchase of arms. Hav- 
 ing wasted the whole, he reascends the river, ravages 
 and pillages the estates in the neighborhood of Baton 
 Rouge, then in the possession of the English, and 
 commences the reascent of the Mississippi to do the 
 same at the settlements of ISTatchez. Our Connecti- 
 cut settlers in that region, and their neighbors, valor- 
 ous men, hearing of the conduct of the desperado, 
 and all faith in him — and, unfortunately, in the Ame- 
 rican cause — ^thus destroyed, collect themselves to- 
 gether, armed and equipped, to punisli him, or at 
 least to prevent his piratical designs. He readies 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 219 
 
 the neigliborhood of tlie spot where they are fortified, 
 crosses to the other side of the river, and then, by 
 means of his artillery, treacherously opens fire on 
 them under cover of a flag of truce. This they re- 
 turn with such hearty good will that some of his men 
 are killed and some taken prisoners. He and the re- 
 mainder of them return to "New Orleans, and from 
 there he escapes into the country on the banks of the 
 Alabama River. The conduct of this desperado 
 shook all confidence and faith, on the part of the set- 
 tlers, in the integrity and character of the American 
 struggle for independence ; and very justly consider- 
 ing themselves absolved from their oath of neutrality, 
 they resolved to remain loyal to the crown of England. 
 About this period France gave evidence of its lean- 
 ing to the American cause of independence ; where- 
 upon the English government, in anger, declared war 
 against France. Spain, also, which had been the 
 firm ally of France, gave favorable consideration to 
 the designs of the revolutionists ; and England, includ- 
 ing her within the ban, declared war against Spain. 
 The Spanish government decided to attack the British 
 in Louisiana ; and Don Galvez, governor of 'New 
 Orleans, ascended the river, took all the British posts 
 as far as IS^atchez, and then returned to capture Mo- 
 bile and Pensacola. The loyalists, including Col. 
 Philip Austin, John Austin, Col. Hutchins, Mr. Ly- 
 man, Dr. Dwight, and various other of the Conuecti- 
 
220 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 cut emigrants before named, now large holders of 
 real estate, were unwilling to submit to the autho- 
 rity of Spain. Arming themselves, thej attacked the 
 weak garrison left in Fort Panmure, formerly Fort 
 Kosalie, at l^atchez, and succeeded, by stratagem and 
 other means, in dispossessing the Spanish. They 
 heard, furthermore, that a large British fleet was 
 coming to chastise the Spanish upon the Gulf; but, 
 sorrowful to tell, just after their success in ejecting 
 the Spanish from the fort, they learned that these ac- 
 coimts of coming fleets were all deceptive and untrue. 
 And now Don Galvez, having taken Mobile and Pen- 
 sacola, invested with great honors and powers, is 
 about to come and punish these disobedient British 
 subjects of Spain. But they, well knowing the 
 treacherous and cruel nature of the Spaniards, re- 
 solve, rather than to await their coming and to abide 
 their revenge, to abandon their homes and undertake 
 the long and adventurous journey to the settlements 
 in Georgia. Before them is a trackless wilderness, then 
 lyin^ between the Mississippi River on the west and 
 the Ogeechee upon the east — a tract of country inha- 
 bited only by wild beasts and wilder savages. With 
 the bloodhounds of Spain upon their track, more 
 than one hundred of these people set out, mounted 
 upon horses with their wives and little ones, some of 
 the children in arms, with their servants and move- 
 ables upon pack-horses, and proceed norteastwardly, 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. ^21 
 
 in hopes to reacli the prairie region of Mississippi. 
 This is the month of May, 1781. It is an unusually 
 diy spring. They gain the prairie country, and no 
 water is to be found. Far in the distance before 
 them, as the mariner at sea beholds what he supposes 
 islands near the blue horizon, so rise upon the level 
 prairie clumps of trees, and here they hope for water. 
 Toward that they press, only to be disappointed. Thir- 
 ty-six hours have passed, yet no drop of cooling liquid 
 has touched their lips or tongues. At length a camp 
 is formed. Tlie women and children are deposited 
 here, and the men start out in parties to search for 
 the precious liquid. Tlie whole day is passed ; they 
 return, faint, weary, and despairing, their tongues 
 hanging out of their mouths, and fall upon the ground 
 utterly dejected and brokenhearted. In this emer- 
 gency, when man's hardihood and courage has failed, 
 female instinct and energy step forward. Mrs. 
 Dwight, wife of Dr. Dwight, sallies from the camp, 
 attended by several women and one or two men. 
 They reach a tract of ground at the foot of a couj)le 
 of hills, where, in a spongy spot, she bids the men to 
 dig. The spades are stoutly handled ; they come to 
 moist earth, to trickling drops, and after a little they 
 stay their hands ; for a pure and beautiful fountain 
 of water gushes up. Thank God ! is the universal 
 exclamation. The news is borne backward to the 
 camp, and now all the party, men, women, and child- 
 
222 PIONEEKS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 ren, and their patient, suffering beasts, rusli wildly to 
 the fountain — a fountain of life in a parched and 
 thirsty land. Dr. Dwiglit stations guards about the 
 spring, to prevent an intemperate use of the pure ele- 
 ment; and all through the livelong night, men and 
 women, and jaded horses, allowed to slake their 
 thirst quietly and by slow degrees, drink and drink, 
 with a thirst almost unquenchable. And now tliey 
 turn to the northwestward to avoid the Indians, the 
 Chickasaws on the one side and tlie Choctaws on 
 the other, who, it is feared, are in league with tlie 
 Spanish. 
 
 Their compass is lost, and they have no guide 
 except the sun in heaven, which is often concealed 
 by clouds, for now the weather becomes rainy and 
 inclement. Ever and anon a prowling party of 
 Indians, under the shadow of the night, creep into 
 camp and run off horses or plunder baggage. And 
 worse than all, a loathsome disease infects tiie 
 worn-out company. Having wandered northward, 
 nearly to the Tennessee River, they turn about and 
 march nearly straight south again to near the present 
 city of Aberdeen, Mississippi, wliere tliey cross the 
 Tombigbee on rafts of logs. Thence they struggle 
 through the wilderness to the Black Warrior River, 
 which they cross at Tuscaloosa Falls ; and thence, 
 afraid to follow any trail for fear of enemies, they 
 go wandering up and down in their helpless misery, 
 
OP THE MISSISSIPPI. 223 
 
 until they find themselves in the mountainous 
 regions of the upper part of Alabama. Then they 
 direct their steps toward the Georgian settlements, 
 hoping to reach them by way of the Cherokee 
 nation. One day, to their terror — for a human form 
 inspires them with nameless fears of Indian ambus- 
 cades and savage tortures — they see three men 
 advancing on the rude path which they are pursuing, 
 to meet them. The strangers advance, and are 
 found to be an old trader among the Indians, and 
 two Chickasaws with him. The rugged frontiersman, 
 shocked at the wretched appearance of the forlorn 
 and famine-stricken troop, served out to them all 
 his provisions, and his last gallon of tafia or trading- 
 rum. He added to his kind gifts, kind advice, 
 admonishing them to avoid the Tennessee mountains, 
 and the Cherokees, who were mostly whiggish in 
 alliance and feeling, and rather to turn southward 
 and venture themselves among the Creeks, trusting 
 to their loyalist attitude, and to the influence and 
 well-known humanity of their chief, the celebrated 
 Colonel Alexander McGillivray. 
 
 This advice they implicitly followed ; turned south- 
 ward once more ; once more crossed the intervening 
 ranges of mountains, for two hundred miles, often 
 walking with feet bare, torn and bleeding ; obliged 
 to lead their laden horses along the perilous and 
 pathless rocks. And now they reach the Coosa 
 
224 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 Kiver, in Antauga County, in central Alabama. 
 Exliansted and feeble, the deep, strong and rapid 
 current and the dangerous obstructing rocks of the 
 noble river are obstacles which they have not 
 strength remaining to overcome, and they lie down 
 upon the banks in listless desj)air, unable even to 
 build a raft. They might all have perished in their 
 stupid discouragement, had it not been for the 
 courage and resolution of the same Mrs. Dwight 
 who discovered the fountain that saved their lives 
 before. She declared that if there "was even one 
 man bold enough to go with her, she Avould at least 
 try to cross the river, and find a canoe or some better 
 ford. Her husband and one other man, ins]3ired by 
 her brave spirit, swore she should not risk her life 
 alone, and all three swam their horses across the 
 stream ; carried down by the current, and at least 
 once plunged completely under water, by leaping 
 from a ledge. On the other side they found, a mile 
 above, a large canoe, stove on the rocks. They 
 repaired it as well as tliey could, and leaving 
 Mrs. Dwight with the horses, the two men took it 
 down to their friends ; and by the end of the next 
 day they were all safely across. 
 
 Resuming their march, after proceeding about 
 twenty miles they approach a Creek town, known as 
 the Hickory Ground, at the present town of We- 
 tumpka. Colonel McGillivray, the celebrated Creek 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 225 
 
 ruler, has a residence there, but is absent. Afraid 
 to enter the village, the trembling loyalists send in 
 three deputies to explain their condition and ask 
 relief. The ambassadors ride into the Indian town, 
 along the path, amongst squaws hoeing corn, and 
 between pleasant cabins, and lazy warriors, basking 
 in the sun. But at the sight of strangers the fierce 
 savages quickly gather about them in a dissatisfied 
 and increasingly angry crowd, for they see that the 
 saddles are not Spanish, like those of their allies, but 
 English, like those of their unscrupulous and bitter 
 foes, the Georgians. The wretched deputies in vain 
 set forth the truth, tliat they are royalists, friends of 
 King George and of the Creek nation ; in vain 
 explain whence and why they have come, and urge 
 their helpless state, the misery of their company, and 
 their frank and confiding application. The savages 
 converse and argue together ; their tones grow fero- 
 cious, their eyes begin to gleam with fury, and they 
 handle their weapons. The unhappy men see death 
 close before them ; they and their hapless friends will 
 end their long desperate journey under the toma- 
 hawks and knives of these fierce Indians. 
 
 A negro rides up, and with some seeming authority 
 demands the cause of the excitement. It is Paro, 
 body-servant to Col. McGillivray, this moment re- 
 turned from a journey. The Indians answer that 
 these are some Georgians whom they propose to 
 
 10* 
 
226 PIONEERS, PKEACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 kill. But the deputies quickly tell liim tlieir sad and 
 truthful stoiy, and he believes it, and tries to con- 
 vince the warriors. But though he adds violent 
 rej)roaches to persuasions and arguments, they simply 
 answer that all the company must die. An ignorant 
 but fair-minded warrior, now bethinking himself of 
 the strange custom — which he takes it for granted is 
 universal among all the whites — of putting talk on 
 paper, all at once calls out — for he would be just, 
 and appeals to the records — " If you tell the truth, 
 make the paper talk !" The quick-witted negro 
 takes a hint from their demand and asks them for a 
 journal of their trip. They kej^t none. Then have 
 they any paper with writing on it ? They search in 
 terror. At last, one of them finds an old letter in his 
 pocket. Paro tells him what to do, and how ; and 
 accordingly he reads as if from the letter, in a slow 
 and solemn manner — it may be believed he would 
 not lack earnestness — a full and detailed account of 
 their journey, and of its causes, Paro interpreting 
 with much sj)irit and many gestures. As the reader 
 proceeds, the wild faces of his audience soften and 
 light up, and putting aside their weapons, they all 
 come up to the deputies, at the end of the account, 
 shake hands all round, welcome them to the town, 
 and presently bringing in the whole company, furnish 
 them good lodging and bounteous entertainment. 
 After abundant rest and refreshment, the ]>arty 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 227 
 
 proceeded eastward, separating into two divisions. 
 One reached Savannah, and the other was taken bj 
 the whigs, though soon released. During the whole 
 of this terrible journey of one hundred and forty -nine 
 days from Is^atchez, not one of the party lost his 
 life. 
 
 The fatigues and dangers of the way, however, had 
 undermined the health of some of the travellers ; and 
 two daughters of Gen. Lyman died after reaching 
 Savannah. Three of their brothers were also mem- 
 bers of the expedition; of whom, when the British 
 left Georgia, one went to JSTova Scotia, one to 'New 
 York, and one to ISTew Providence in the island of 
 ISTassau. It is said that all these sons died of broken 
 hearts ; and as Dr. Dwight observes, in his account 
 of General Lyman's misfortunes, this may well be 
 termed " the Unhappy Family ;" so long and uninter- 
 rupted was the series of crushing misfortunes which 
 bore them, one after another, down into obscure 
 graves. 
 
 Li western Pennsylvania had settled, in the early 
 part of the century, a stout Englishman and his wife, 
 whose lands had increased, and his children had mul- 
 tiplied around his board. To him Avas born, in 1735, 
 his son Daniel Boone. The boy, a hunter by birth 
 and nature, early became a daring and skillful woods- 
 man, strong, fleet and active, and unrivalled in the 
 use of the rifle. He was but eigliteen when his father 
 
228 
 
 removed to the upper country on the Yadkin, among 
 the mountains in the west of IN'orth Carolina ; rejoicing 
 in the wild and noble scenery, the primeval forest, 
 the richness of the virgin soil and the abounding game. 
 Here Boone married, while yet young, and lived for 
 some time, hunting and farming ; loving and beloved 
 by wife and children ; but yet essentially a wild and 
 solitary man, spending his happiest hours alone in the 
 woods, hunting sometimes, and often enjoying with a 
 strange delight, for a man so rude and unlettered, the 
 numberless beauties of the mountain and river land- 
 scapes. 
 
 In the spring of 1769 he had already become un- 
 easy at the approach of other men ; for other settlers 
 Avere planting themselves along the strean:is, other 
 hunters w^ere wandering in the woods ; so he medi- 
 tates an expedition into the unknown forest world 
 beyond the mountains. The handles of the plough 
 are dropped in the furrow, he hastens to his house, 
 gathers his rifle and accoutrements, and starts in com- 
 pany with an old Indian trader and hunter named 
 Finlay, and four other men. They commence their 
 journey on the 1st of May, 1760. A long, toilsome 
 way they follow for six weeks. Crossing the Alle- 
 ghany, the iron mountain, to the Cumberland Pass, 
 they come out upon the headwaters of the Kanawha, 
 and now have reached the goodly land. And truly, is 
 it not an Eden ? During a sojourn of six and a half 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 229 
 
 months, feasting his eyes with the glories which he 
 can enjoy there without end — herds of buffalo which 
 no man can number, beautiful springs gushing from 
 every hill-side, wide, wealthy savannas, broad tree- 
 fringed rivers, noble forests, and all the unimaginable, 
 solitary splendors of a rich land, witJiout human inha- 
 bitant. At the expiration of this time, Boone and 
 William Stewart are taken captive by the Indians. 
 The remainder of the company are frightened, and 
 hurry homeward. Boone and his companion remain 
 in the hands of their captors, pretending quiet satis- 
 faction, for a week ; then easily escape. I^ot a great 
 while thereafter, William Stewart is shot by the In- 
 dians ; and now Daniel Boone remains alone. The 
 spring of the year comes to this lonely hunter, wan- 
 dering here through all these wide and pleasant lands 
 of forest and prairie and canebrake, which the Indians 
 call "Tlie Dark and Bloody Ground." Now he is 
 joined by his brother. Squire Boone, a man who 
 shares many peculiarities with himself. For a year and 
 a half longer do these intrepid men remain in Ken- 
 tucky, when Squire Boone returns to the settlements 
 for a fresh supply of powder and lead, while Daniel 
 remains alone in the wilderness, surrounded by savage 
 foes seeking his trail ; yet unfearing and defiant. They 
 go in groups ; he without an associate, without even 
 a dog to bear him company. This strange safety was 
 assured by a weed — a thistle — which grew in abund- 
 
230 PIONEERS, PKEACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 ance tlirougliout Kentucky, as if Providence had 
 spread a carpet of safety over the land for this solitary 
 Wcinderer. On this humble herb the foot of the tra- 
 veller leaves a peculiar impress, which remains long 
 and distinctly ; and the Indians, the lords of the soil, 
 numerous and bold, tread carelessly as they rove 
 across their hereditary forests and prairies, and leave 
 patent to the trained unerring eye of the solitary 
 white man the record of their number and their jour- 
 ney ; while he, avoiding the tell-tale herb, moves un- 
 known and safe from one hunting-ground to another. 
 Thus, to his eyes, the ground is covered as if with a 
 sheet of snow, bearing the impression of his enemies' 
 trails ; while, for their eyes, no snow is on the ground, 
 and his step has left no trace. Thus wanders this one 
 solitary Anglo-Saxon, glad at heart in the revelation 
 of a new apocalypse of earthly beauty ; a man untaught 
 in books and erudition, but whose eyes often overflow 
 w4th happy, grateful tears as he looks abroad upon 
 the loveliness of nature, tasting the sweetest and pro- 
 foundest things of God ; reading, with clear, keen 
 eye, the open secret which nature reveals to all 
 her children, and pursuing his way of peril to find it 
 a way of delight and joy. Having fully explored the 
 country in company with his brother, he returns to 
 the settlements. The tidings he brings are hailed 
 with rapture by the people ; but two years are allowed 
 to pass before active measures are taken to assume 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 231 
 
 the occupancy of the new soil. At length Boone de- 
 parts with his family, having first shaken hands with 
 all his neighbors twice round ; for, notwithstanding 
 his silent ways, he is much beloved, because he never 
 omitted an o]3portunity to do a kindly office to his 
 brother man, at whatever inconvenience to himself. 
 
 With five more families he sets out, with wife and 
 children; is joined, in Powell's Yalley, by forty well- 
 armed men ; and advances prosperously, until just as 
 the last mountain pass is before them. Even as they 
 are ascending the rugged way, the rear of the party 
 is attacked by the Indians, and at the first fire, Boone's 
 oldest son, a promising youth of about twenty, falls — 
 the second victim. William Stewart was the first ; and 
 they two are the precious first-fruits of that fearful 
 hecatomb offered so cheerfully by those dauntless 
 and uncompromising men, the heroic forefathers of 
 the Mississippi Yalley. 
 
 After the Indians are vanquished and driven from 
 their coverts, a halt is called ; and though the parley 
 which ensues is attended only by the men, the women 
 and children are represented. The company deter- 
 mine to fall back upon Powell's Yalley. Here they 
 take up a position, put themselves in a defensive atti- 
 tude, and month after month is passed av\^ay in hunt- 
 ing or dreaming. Boone si Is one day in the porch of 
 his humble cabin, when down the valley comes, all 
 foaming with his haste, an express messenger from 
 
232 PIONEERS, PfiEACHEKS AND PEOPLE 
 
 Lord Dunmore, the Governor of Yirginia, looking for 
 Daniel Boone. This is in 1774. He is wanted by 
 Lord Dunmore to go westward four hundred miles, 
 to the falls on the Ohio River, at what is now Louis- 
 ville, to bear tidings to a party of surveyors and land 
 jobbers there, that the Indians are about to break in- 
 to hostility ; and then safely to convoy these men home 
 again. One furtive glance at Mrs. Boone, who nods 
 assent, and his rifle is grasj^ed, and Daniel, with a 
 quiet and easy heart, starts alone upon his wild and 
 terrible journey. He reaches the Falls, surprises the 
 surveyors and speculators, and brings them back in 
 safety, performing the journey of 800 miles in six 
 weeks ; and receives not only the thanks of the men 
 thus rescued from the clutches of tlie savages, but 
 also of the lordly Governor of Yirginia. 
 
 And now it is not needful for me to stop to detail 
 the peculiar transactions of Logan's War, or that 
 other war of Lord Dunmore, whose scene was the 
 western border in 1774. The Indians, wronged and 
 outraged by the conduct of the squatter settlers, who 
 had grasped their land without remunerating them, 
 had again risen ; but after a brief cam2)aign, were 
 overcome, and forced to yield their lands to the 
 whites ; and Lord Dunmore hastened back to uphold 
 and maintain the tottering authority of the British 
 Crown within the territories of Yiro^inia. 
 
 And now, in 1774, there has penetrated the interior 
 
OF THE mssissippi. 233 
 
 of Kentucky another lone hunter, James Harrod. 
 James Logan also has come. Daniel Boone is en- 
 gaged as superintendent by one Col. Henderson, 
 who purposes to be a great land-jobber in the west ; 
 a man who taught himself to read and write after at- 
 taining adult years, and who began life in the province 
 of Carolina. He was a man of strong sense, and of 
 much practical skill and enterprise. He ran for and 
 obtained the lofty office of constable, next became a 
 magistrate, and afterward lived to reach the bench 
 of the Supreme Court of K"orth Carolina. He was 
 not a cross-grained ascetic, not a studious scholar, but 
 a free, bold, dashing, spirited fellow, who had made 
 his money easily, and spent it yet more easily — gene- 
 rous and jovial to all, and exj)ending in good living 
 and speculation all that he earned. At this time he 
 was bankrupt ; and casting his eye about the world 
 to see from what quarter he could gather new sup- 
 plies, he thought of western lands. He would found 
 an empire in the "West. He makes a treaty with the 
 Cherokees for some land which did not belong to 
 them ; but that is a small matter ; his title is as good 
 as that of the British government to American lands. 
 He buys the vast region of country lying between the 
 Kanawha and Cherokee rivers. Here he proposes to 
 establish the Republic of Transylvania ; and Boone is 
 sent out as a pioneer, to found the first settlement. 
 And now, in conjunction with the settlements of 
 
234 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 Harrod and Logan, Boonesborougli is established, and 
 into this new home comes Mrs. Boone, with three 
 other women. These were the pioneer women of the 
 "West ; the women who, with their children, braved 
 the perils of the way, the dangers of the forest, and 
 the more fearful wiles of the bloodthirsty, insidious 
 foes who lurk in every thicket, and ambuscade every 
 ravine. 
 
 As the war of the Eevolution broke out in the 
 eastern colonies, the aristocratic ministry of England 
 contrived a grand coujp Wetat^ to arm the Indian sa- 
 vages against the western settlements ; that, having 
 destroyed these, they might sweep eastward over the 
 mountains. The colonists, thus attacked at once in 
 front and rear, it was imagined must quickly suc- 
 cumb ; and in truth, had it not been for these infant 
 settlements in the land of the canebrake — these three 
 little forts of Boonesborough, Harrodsburg and Lo- 
 gansport — manned altogether by not more than one 
 hundred fighting-men, which stood, a slender but im- 
 pregnable breakwater, against the wild, tempestuous 
 rush of the forest tribes of the !N'orthwest — there is 
 reason for believing that the onset of those fierce war- 
 riors might have turned the wavering balance of the 
 war, and given the victory, in the bitter struggle of 
 the Bevolution, to the British. 
 
 But there is another life, less known than Daniel 
 Boone's, but, if possible, still more hardily adventurous, 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 235 
 
 and certainly more closely characteristic of the men 
 and times of which I am speaking. Let us follow it, 
 and see w^hat were the deeds and the dangers of one 
 whom we may well call tlie ideal man — the represen- 
 tative man of ante-Revolutionary Kentucky. I mean 
 the life of General Simon Kenton, the refugee, hunter, 
 spy, horse-stealer, Indian-fighter, soldier and ofiicer ; 
 and withal the perfect hero, true friend and brave 
 protector of the scattered, imperilled outposts of civili- 
 zation that scantily dotted the blood-stained forests 
 of Kentucky. 
 
 Simon Kenton was born in Fauquier County, Yir- 
 ginia, in 1755. He was of the wild and insubordinate, 
 but cool, adventurous and daring Scotch-Irish blood— 
 his mother Scotch and his father Irish. The parents 
 were so poor that the boy's education, to his lasting 
 disadvantage in life, was quite neglected. In those 
 wild days, and in the hardy, healthy life of the moun- 
 tains, marriages were early made. Kenton was only 
 about sixteen when he was in love ; and lost his sweet- 
 heart, too, by the success of a preferred rival, his own 
 most intimate friend, one Yeach, who was, for all 
 that appears, as young as he. Desperate with disap- 
 pointment, he recklessly, as the old song says, '' came 
 to the wedding without any bidding," and finding the 
 happy couple among their friends, seated on a bed, 
 he seems to have quite lost his wits, and crazily and 
 rudely thrust himself between them. Upon this, 
 
236 PIOJJEERS, PBEACHEES AND PEOPLE. 
 
 Yeacli and his brothers pounced upon him, gave him 
 a sound thrashing and turned him out of the house. 
 But meeting Yeach alone in the woods, soon after- 
 ward, Kenton intimating that he was still dissatisfied, 
 they had a long and severe pitched battle, which 
 ended in Kenton's thoroughly squaring accounts by 
 beating his adversary to helplessness, and leaving 
 him on the ground for dead. Frightened at his work, 
 fearing the revenge of friends and the rude penalties 
 of border law, his friend and his love both lost, a sud- 
 den mighty sense of loneliness and hate for civilized 
 life came upon him, and he fled to the mountains and 
 the woods. Journeying by night, and hiding by day, 
 he pushes westward, and in April, 1771, reaches Cheat 
 Eiver ; works for hire until he earns a good rifle ; 
 goes on to Fort Pitt ; engages himself to hunt for the 
 garrison ; and forms a strong friendship with that Simon 
 Girty who stands amidst the blood and flre of the 
 fearful Indian wars of those times, a figure infernal 
 with murder and treason, a renegade among the 
 savages, and yet — as if to prove that the worst 
 men are not all bad — more than once proving him- 
 self an eminently faithful and unflinching protector 
 of the very few to whom he felt gratitude or aftection. 
 In the autumn of 1771, with two hunters named 
 Yeager and Strader, the first of whom had excited 
 his fancy with wonderful stories of the cane-lands of 
 Kentucky, he went down the Ohio to find them. Not 
 
OF THE LHSSISSIPPI. 237 
 
 succeeding, they returned to tlie woods of the great 
 Kanawha, and hunted for a year and a half. In the 
 spring of 1T73 the Indians, then becoming excited 
 against the settlements, suddenly fired upon the 
 three hunters while asleep in their camp, and killed 
 Yeager ; Strader and Kenton fled into the woods naked, 
 as they lay in their shirts only, without arms or food, 
 and after wandering six days, torn, bleeding, and 
 famished, so footsore that their last day's journey 
 was but six miles, and so exhausted that on that 
 same day they repeatedly lay down to die, they 
 met som.e hunters, obtained food and clothes, and 
 returned to a settlement. Kenton now went to work 
 again, until he had obtained another rifle and 
 hunter's outfit; accompanied a party searching for 
 Capt. Bullitt, who had gone down the Ohio on a sur- 
 veying expedition ; guided it, when unsuccessful, back 
 to Yirginia; volunteered into Dunmore's army in 
 1774, doing good service as a sj)y ; and being dis- 
 charged in the fall, hunted on the Big Sandy that 
 winter ; and the next summer made a second trip 
 with a hunter named Williams, in search of the 
 cane-lands of Kentucky, the glowing descriptions 
 of his dead friend Yeager still dwelling in his 
 mind. He discovered the long-wished-for cane by 
 accident, not far from Maysville, in Mason County ; 
 cleared some land and planted an acre of corn upon 
 one of the richest and loveliest spots in Kentucky, 
 
238 PIONEEES, PREACHERS AXD PEOPLE 
 
 and that season ate the first corn raised by a white 
 man in the " Dark and Bloody Ground." 
 
 Kenton now passed two or three years in a series 
 of Jiunting and fighting adventures, ahnost mono- 
 tonous for daring, and the extremest and most in- 
 cessant peril from the savages, who haunted every 
 covert of the beloved land into which the whites 
 were crowding with increased rapidity. In the 
 spring of 1777, while he was residing at Ilarrods- 
 burg, ho was sent out with a small party, and 
 driven back by the Indians. Sending his men into 
 the station, he went off alone to warn the garrison of 
 Boonesborough ; delayed entering until dark, to avoid 
 the ambushes which the Indians frequently laid to 
 shoot any persons coming or going ; and on his en- 
 trance found the garrison bringing home the corpses 
 of two men who had ignorantly or carelessly violated 
 this prudent rule, and would have entered in day- 
 light on the path he had followed. 
 
 The Indians were now becoming more and more 
 enraged at the occuj^ation of the beautiful land of 
 Kentucky, and made incessant and furious incursions 
 ito the settlements, closely besieging every station. 
 Boonesborough was thus assaulted three times. 
 
 Gen. George Kogers Clark, then a major, was in 
 chief command of the settlements ; and with his con- 
 currence six spies were appointed as a scouting force 
 to watch the Indian frontier, two for each of the 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 239 
 
 three cliief stations, Boonesborougli, llaiTodsburg, 
 and Logansport. Of tliese Kenton was chosen from 
 B on esbo rough, by Boone himself. These fearless and 
 wily woodsmen for a whole year gave timely notice 
 of every attack, going out by twos, each party in 
 its week ; except once. Kenton and two more were 
 about going out of Boonesborougli to hunt, when two 
 men at work outside the fort were fired at by 
 Indians, and fled unhurt toward the fort. One 
 escaped, but a bold warrior tomahawked the other 
 within seventy yards of the fort, and was scalping 
 him when Kenton shot him, and with his two com- 
 panions sallied out upon the others of the savage 
 party. Boone himself also quickly came out with 
 ten men to support the attack. Kenton, turning 
 round, saw an Indian aiming at Boone's men, and 
 taking a quick aim, shot him. Boone now discovered 
 that his company was cut off from the fort by a 
 large force of Indians who had thrown themselves 
 between. There was but one resource, a prompt 
 attack. " Right about !" he cried, " fire ! charge !" 
 and the little band sprang desperately at their red 
 foes, whose first volley wounded seven of the four- 
 teen, and breaking Boone's leg, brought him down. 
 An Indian leaped on him, hatchet in hand, but the 
 keen-eyed Kenton, cool as ice but quick as light- 
 ning, shot him through the heart, lifted the old 
 leader in his arms, and carried him into the fort. 
 
24:0 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 The rest all got in too, and after the gate was shut, 
 Boone, a silent man, and much more chary of words 
 and praises than a conqueror of crowns, sent for 
 Kenton to give him his meed of praise for having 
 saved his own life and killed three Indians without 
 getting hurt himself; though the urgency of the 
 case had prevented him from taking the scalp of any 
 of them. This was the eulogy of the veteran Indian- 
 fighter : 
 
 " Well, Sam, you have behaved yourself like a 
 man, to-day ; indeed you are a fine fellow !" 
 
 Kenton continued in this little force of spies until 
 June of the next year, when he accompanied Gen. 
 Clarke's remarkable expedition against Kaskaskia 
 and Yincennes ; and at his return, joined Boone, who 
 was about marching against an Indian town on Point 
 Creek, with nineteen men. He was in advance of 
 the party when he heard loud laughter in the woods, 
 and had barely time to " tree," when a pony 
 approached, carrying two Indians, one facing the tail 
 and the other the head, and in high spirits. Instantly 
 firing, Kenton's bullet killed one and dangerously 
 wound the other. Springing fortli to scalp them, 
 about forty savages attacked him, and he commenced 
 dodging about among the trees, feeling exceedingly 
 hurried and very unsafe imtil Boone's force came up, 
 charged furiously, and drove the enemy. But having 
 learned that a large war-party had gone out against 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPL 241 
 
 Kis own station, Boone now turned short round, and 
 hastened homeward. Kenton, and a fellow-woods- 
 man named Montgomery, however, remained, lay 
 within rifle shot of the Indian town two days, stole 
 each a good horse, and rode into Boonesborough the 
 day after the Indians, who had been besieging it, had 
 disappeared. 
 
 A few weeks afterward they set off to steal more 
 horses, taking one Clarke with them. They secured 
 seven near Chillicothe, and got away ; the Indians, 
 however, being close behind. Eeaching the Ohio, 
 the three men tried in vain to drive their prizes across 
 the river, roughened under a high wind. After 
 delaying, with the most astounding recklessness, for 
 a'lmost a day, waiting for a calm, they decided once 
 to leave four of their beasts and ride home on the 
 other three. While trying to catch them again (hav- 
 ing changed their minds), the Indians came up, shot 
 Montgomery and took Kenton prisoner — even then 
 only in consequence of the very extremest folly on his 
 part, in turning back to get a shot at them* Clarke 
 alone, who fled as fast as possible, escaped. 
 
 The Indians, themselves most thorv-^nghgoing of- 
 fenders in the same line,- professed the most violent 
 indignation at Kenton's offence, and reproached him 
 for a " boss steal," beat him until they could not beat 
 him longer, and then secured him for the night, flat 
 on the ground, his legs stretched out and tied tight 
 
 11 
 
242 PIONEERS, PEEACHEKS AND PEOPLE 
 
 to two saplings, liis arms lashed at length to a strong- 
 pole tied across his breast, and a stout thong, so tight 
 as barely to permit him to breathe, strained back to 
 a stake. He remained a captive eight months, ran 
 the gauntlet eight times, was once nearly killed by a 
 blow from an axe, and was three times tied to a stake 
 to be burnt, being twice saved by the renegade Si- 
 mon Girty, his early friend — who, in this, showed 
 himself caj^able of the strongest attachment and the 
 most energetic and disinterested efforts for another — 
 and once by Logan, the Mingo chief, who induced a 
 Canadian trader to buy him. His owner finally took 
 him to Detroit, where he remained, laboring for 
 small wages, until the summer of 1779. 
 
 Being in the flower of his youth — he was now 
 twenty-four — an exceedingly handsome man, tall, 
 straight and graceful, dignified and manly in deport- 
 ment and speech, already famous for his bravery and 
 skill in Indian warfare, with a soft and pleasant voice, 
 and alwajs a favorite with females, he was so fortu- 
 nate as to excite a deep interest in the bosom of a 
 Mrs. Harvey, wife of an English trader. Conceiving 
 hopes of escape by her means, he intrusted her, after 
 long doubt, and with great circumspection, with his 
 scheme. After a little hesitation she consented to 
 aid him, and procured and concealed for him and the 
 two fellow-prisoners with whom he proposed to es- 
 cape, provisions and ammunition. During a grand 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 243 
 
 drunken frolic of tlie Indians, she also stole for tliem 
 three good rifles, and on the 3d June, 1779, they set 
 out, and reached Louisville after thirty-three days of 
 great hardship. 
 
 After resting a little while, he went alone through 
 the forest to visit Gen. Clark, at Yincennes; then 
 returned to Harrodsburg; and the next spring accom- 
 panied Clark on his expedition against the Indian 
 towns, commanding a company ; and, being now the 
 best woodsman and forest spy in the western country, 
 he was the principal guide to the expedition. During 
 two years after the return of these troops, Kenton 
 was occupied, as usual, in spying, hunting, or sur- 
 veying; and in the autumn of 1782, after eleven years 
 of exile and remorse for supposed murder, he learned 
 at the same time that his father was yet alive, and 
 that Yeach was not dead, but living and well. Hith- 
 erto, since his flight, he had always been known as 
 Simon Butler ; but now he gladly resumed his own 
 name, and with the weight of shame, banishment and 
 guilt removed from his mind, "felt like a new man." 
 
 In this same autumn, Kenton again commanded a 
 company and acted as guide for the army on Clark's 
 second expedition against the Indian towns. After 
 his return, he made a clearing on one of the many 
 tracts of valuable land of which he had become the 
 owner, and a year afterward, having raised a good 
 crop of corn, returned home, visiting his friends, m'Iio 
 
244 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 had supposed him dead, and Mr. and Mrs. Yeach, 
 who received him without any remains of rancor for 
 his ancient misdoings. He took his father with liim 
 on his return, but the old man died and was buried 
 on the way. 
 
 During the subsequent years, Kenton, now at the 
 head of a thriving frontier settlement and a large land- 
 owner, led a company in two more expeditions into 
 the Indian country, and in 1793, with a party, ambus- 
 caded a troop of savages at their crossing-place on 
 the Ohio, and, as they came up on their return, killed 
 six and drove the rest away. This was the last in- 
 cursion they ever made into Kentucky. The whites 
 were now too strong for them, and, discouraged and 
 beaten, they confined themselves within the territories 
 north of the Ohio. All this time — that is, from about 
 1Y84: until the end of the century — Kenton was the 
 foremost man on the Kentucky frontier. His landed 
 property was large — ^he even gave away at one time 
 one thousand acres of land, upon which was founded 
 the town of Washington — and his noble and kindly 
 character, as well as his preeminent skill and valor 
 as a woodsman and forest soldier, rendered him be- 
 loved and esteemed by all. 
 
 After the expedition of Wayne had given a final 
 blow to the power of the Indians, and the infant com- 
 monwealth of Kentucky was beginning to stride for- 
 ward toward wealth and power with tlie long, rapid 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 245 
 
 steps of the young giant States of the West, a sad 
 series of reverses, disgraceful to tlie State for which 
 he had fought so bravely, overtook Kenton. True as 
 steel, and confiding and unsuspicious to a degree al- 
 most incredible and quite unknown except as the 
 companion quality of such crystal honesty and child- 
 like sincerity as his, and a rude and imlettered man 
 withal, what should the heroic wanderer of the woods 
 know of the details of legal formularies ? How could 
 he, spending thirty years in incessant, exhausting 
 perils and combats, exposed to a thousand deaths and 
 to tortures unutterable, worse than death, in the long 
 defence of tbe infant settlements of Kentucky — how 
 could he dream that any one would rob him of the 
 land he had bought with his blood — that the com- 
 monwealth he had done so much to establish would 
 suffer him to be beggared within her own limits by 
 speculating knaves, engineering him out of his right- 
 ful property by the shrewd villainies of laws mis- 
 applied, and principles of justice perverted into in- 
 struments of oppression ? But those who rushed so 
 rapidly into Kentucky, after her borders were freed 
 from the Indians, gave small heed to the men who 
 had secured them peace. Kenton, like Boone and 
 so many more of the pioneers of the forest, had igno- 
 rantly omitted one and another form, or entry, or 
 item of description, in the proceedings taken to 
 secure the lands selected in so much peril, and de- 
 
24:6 
 
 served by sucli inexpressible hardships and toils. One 
 knave after another brought suit, founded on subse- 
 quent and more formal proceedings, for clearing 
 woodland or prairie. Kenton's estate was wrenched 
 piece-meal from him ; liis body was taken for debt, 
 on covenants in the deeds to those very lands which 
 lie had substantially given away ; and he was im- 
 prisoned for a year on the very spot where he had 
 planted the first corn raised by a white man in the 
 north of Kentucky, and had afterward built his fron- 
 tier station. 
 
 Keduced almost to beggary, he moved out of his 
 ungrateful adopted State in 1802, and settled at Ilr- 
 bana, now no longer young, and with the cheerless 
 prospect of an old age of penury among strangers. 
 In 1805, he was cliosen brigadier-general in the Ohio 
 militia. Five years afterward, being at a camp- 
 meeting, under the influence of the rude but effective 
 preaching of a strong, simple-hearted man of God, 
 he became convicted of sin, and would fain rancre 
 himself within the church of God. With a natural 
 reluctance to expose his spiritual moods and exercises 
 to the observation of others, he requested a minister 
 present to accompany him into the woods and pray 
 with him, saying at the same time, " But don't make 
 a noise about it!" The plain and sincere clergyman 
 knelt down with the old frontiersman and wrestled 
 with God in prayer for him ; restraining his fervor 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 24:7 
 
 however, as required. And now the powerful ap- 
 peals and sympathies of the wise, though homely, 
 preacher, and the influences of Him that answereth 
 prayer, worked mightily within the honest, simple 
 soul of the old man ; and in a great whirlwind of 
 fears and terrors, and mingled joy and pain, in the 
 new feelings and perceptions that break in upon his 
 soul, he rises almost distracted and hastens back 
 toward the crowded meeting, crying aloud in his 
 trouble, and borne far beyond any regard to human 
 criticism or human presence ; while the quaint old 
 preacher, with that wonderful mingling of profound 
 admonition ^nd comicality, so strangely characteristic 
 of his class, and so eminently effective upon their 
 peculiar people, halloed after him, retorting his late 
 request, — " Look here ; don't make a noise about it!" 
 But Kenton found peace in believing, and became a 
 sincere member of the Methodist church. 
 
 In 1813, when Shelby and the Kentucky volun- 
 teers so bravely marched to the aid of Harrison, 
 against the banded tribes of the ITorthwest, Kenton 
 accompanied the army, and was present as a privi- 
 leged member of Gov. Shelby's family, at the battle 
 of the Thames, his last fight. Eeturning home, he 
 lived on in obscure poverty, in his hut in the woods, 
 until 1820, when he removed to near the head of 
 Mad Kiver, in Logan County; within sight of 
 Wapatomika, where, forty-two years before, the In- 
 
248 PIONEERS, PEEACHER3 AND PEOPLE 
 
 dians had tied liim to the stake to burn liim to 
 death. 
 
 In this distant spot he was still plagued with law- 
 suits and executions in Kentucky ; and in 1824, 
 being seventy years old, in rags, and on a wretched 
 horse, he journeyed to Frankfort, to petition the 
 State of Kentucky to release from forfeiture for taxes 
 some poor tracts of mountain land still left to him. 
 Rambling up and down the city, which had grown 
 up where he had wandered in primeval woods, a 
 spectacle to boys and a stranger to men, he was 
 recognized by an old friend or acquaintance, well 
 clothed and hospitably entertained. And soon, when 
 the news went out that General Simon Kenton was 
 in the town, the fame that such noble and ancient 
 men get in their old age, as if they were dead, 
 gathered many to see the renowned hunter and 
 warrior of two generations back. They carried the 
 old man to the capitol, placed him in the sj)eaker's 
 chair, and introduced him to a great multitude of 
 men, after our wonderful American fashion which 
 thus gratifies the curiosity of a multitude under the 
 shallow pretence of doing homage to one. And the 
 simple-hearted old man, believing in every word and 
 every smile — and indeed, doubtless no small share of 
 that inexpensive admiration was sincere enough as 
 far as it went — was wondrously lifted up, and was 
 afterward wont to say, that that was the proudest 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 249 
 
 day of his life. His petition was granted, however, 
 at once. Judge Burnet and Governor Yance, of 
 Ohio, then in Congress, a little afterward also ob- 
 tained for him a pension of twenty dollars a month, 
 which preserved him for the rest of his life from 
 extreme want. Living twelve years longer, loved 
 and respected by all who knew him, quiet and ob- 
 scure, Simon Kenton died in April, 1836 — in fullness 
 of years, for he was eighty-one. 
 
 I have ventured upon all this detail, and have 
 followed the life of this famous old pioneer so far be- 
 yond the period described by the title of this lecture, 
 because that life is such a full and vivid picture — 
 such a complete epitome and type — of a life which 
 was led by so many of those who dwelt in the cabin 
 homes of the wilderness in that wild and perilous 
 period. 'Nor do my contracted limits suffice for 
 more than a swift and shadowy outline of the story. 
 The multiplied details of Kenton's life of hardships, 
 enterprise, battle, peril and escape, would fill vol- 
 umes. And the full history of all the startling 
 dangers, the bold and wild exploits, the desperate 
 escapes, the fearful miseries of those times, would 
 make a library of strangest adventure. 
 
 11* 
 
Lecture VI. 
 
 THE 
 
 C^Bi:iSr HOMES 
 
 OF THE "^YILDERNESS 
 
 DUEING THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 
 
 351 
 
CABIN" HOMES OF THE WILDERNESS, 
 
 DURING THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 
 
 The wilderness hath a schooling all its own, and 
 its tuition is not one destitute of profit or compensa- 
 tion. I would not undervalue the worth of litera- 
 ture, the acquisition of science, or the training im- 
 parted in colleges. Perhaps few men have paid a 
 higher price for these. And yet there is a majesty, a 
 splendor, in a lonely forest, a boundless prairie, in 
 the great primeval forms of nature while they are 
 yet untainted and undesecrated by the play of human 
 passions and human appetites, fresh as a virgin 
 world from the hand of the Creator, which imparts 
 to the human soul a grandeur and nobility of charac- 
 ter rarely acquired in the pursuits of trade or com- 
 merce, or in the common, fixed and plodding occupa- 
 tions of every-day life. A peculiar muscularity is 
 given to the form, a vigor to the step, a freshness to 
 the thought ; the will is untrammelled, scarcely even 
 limited by the thought of any impossibility ; self- 
 reliance is developed to the very highest point ; an 
 independence of action and of being that leans only 
 on the Everlasting arms that are around and under- 
 
 253 
 
254: PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 iieath us all. Here, in the spring or early summer, 
 when the grove perfumes the atmosphere, and loads 
 it as with fragrance from on high — when the prairie 
 stretches its illimitable ocean-like surface before the 
 eje — when the tall and rustling grass is interspersed 
 and interwoven with flowers of a thousand hues and 
 a thousand aromas — here, where the buffalo roams at 
 his own wild will, and the deer stalks proudly on, 
 clad in his red summer garment — where the stately 
 elk, with his spreading antlers, seems the monarch of 
 the forest, and where the low growl of the bear is 
 heard ever and anon, and at nightfall comes upon the 
 breeze the howl of a pack of wolves from the far dis- 
 tance — here, where man is surrounded by nature in 
 her simplest, and sternest, and most inviting forms, 
 does he cultivate to the very utmost all the vast self- 
 supporting powers of humanity; his gun, his own 
 sagacity, an unerring and unblenching eye, an un- 
 quivering muscle, his only suj^ports this side of 
 Providence. If he is wanting to himself in the wil- 
 derness, he is lost indeed. 
 
 Such a wilderness as this was the boundless West 
 at the commencement of our Revolution. Here was 
 the great normal school for western character, and 
 admirably were the pupils that came to receive the 
 instruction of this university qualified to enter it. 
 Men for the most part destitute of the culture of the 
 schools, unblessed with the tuition of art, or science. 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 255 
 
 or literature, accustomed to battle with the storm in 
 the wild mountains and wilder woods of the western 
 skirts of the colonies, trained in the fierce sports of 
 the border, now rush like a tide down the western 
 slopes of the Alleghany Mountains, to take possession 
 of these illimitable and magnificent regions ; to trans- 
 fer them from the sway of barbarism and solitude, 
 and transform them into busy and peopled haunts of 
 living and working men. These new^-comers were 
 men strong of frame, compact and muscular, Hercu- 
 lean of stature, of dauntless courage, of determina- 
 tion incapable of discouragement or fear, carrying 
 their lives in their hands, ready, if necessary, to crim- 
 son the soil of that new world with their heart's 
 blood. Tliere is hardly a more striking commentary 
 upon, or interpretation of, the pristine radical ele- 
 ments of Anglo-Saxon character in the whole range 
 of the records of our race, than is to be found in the 
 history of its occupancy of Kentucky and the Nortli- 
 western Territory. 
 
 These men thus came to take possession just at the 
 period when tlie Revolutionary struggle was begin- 
 ning ; when the whole firmament of the political sky 
 of America was overcast and darkened by lowering 
 and thunderous clouds ; when the might of the mo- 
 ther country was lifting itself in all its majesty to 
 chastise the rebellious colonies ; when w^hite men in 
 red coats, with epaulettes upon their shoulders and 
 
256 PIONEERS, PKEACHEBS AND PEOPLE 
 
 commissions from the third George in their j)oekets 
 — men who claimed and acknowledged the ties of 
 human kindred with the colonists upon this side the 
 water — were absolutely suborning the red savages of 
 the West to deeds of unparalleled cruelty and blood- 
 thirstiness ; when these servants of the third George 
 actually set a price upon the scalps of their bre- 
 thren, and not only this, but upon the scalps of 
 women and children of Anglo-Saxon blood. Col. 
 Hamilton, commandant at Detroit, acting, as he af- 
 firmed, under the authoritj^, the advice and consent, 
 of the government of England, absolutely offered a 
 price for the scalps of women and children, torn from 
 their bleeding skulls by the ruthless savages of the 
 border. Thenceforth and forever, as long as that 
 man's name finds a place in history, let him be called 
 by the homely but terrible name given him by the 
 heroic General Clark, who took him prisoner at Yin- 
 cennes, " Hamilton the hair-buyer." 
 
 And now, when to the dangers of the wild, dark 
 woods, the perils of those lurking savages, to whom 
 the perpetration of the most treacherous murders, 
 and of the most horrible cruelties, is as the breath of 
 their nostrils, are added the intensifications and re- 
 inforcements of that gloomy time; when the wild 
 invading fury of the red men, already savage and 
 devastating enough, was stimulated by these inhuman 
 promises of gain, and by the prospect of immediate 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 257 
 
 and powerful foreign aid ; when tlie forces of Eng- 
 land were mustering all along the borders of the 
 lakes ; when the British commanders and agents were 
 subsidizing, and enrolling and equipping, the half- 
 savage Canadians of Montreal and Detroit, and the 
 savages of so many boundless forests from Niagara 
 to distant Chicago, from the headwaters of the Sus- 
 quehanna and the great Council House of Onondaga 
 to the distant shores of Huron and Superior ; when 
 this furious and redoubled tide of desolation and 
 slaughter was gathering, to be poured out upon these 
 infant and seemingly helpless settlements of the West, 
 were not these pioneers, who, daring to take tlieir 
 lives in their hands — jeR, and the lives of their wives 
 and young children — and trusting in nothing besides 
 their God, except their woodcraft and their rifles, 
 plunged far beyond the mountain boundaries of 
 civilization into that blood-stained borderland ; and 
 who maintained and protected the infant settlements 
 so long, so well, against such overwhelming and des- 
 perate odds — were not these of heroic mold, of even 
 gigantic resolution and valor, and most justly entitled 
 to our admiration and our love ? 
 
 Such were Boone, Kenton, Logan, Harrod, Callo- 
 way, McGary, Todd, and many more than I can even 
 name here ; all the leading settlers of Kentucky. In 
 the preceding lecture were presented sketches of one 
 or two lives among them, in the account of which I 
 
258 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 somewhat transgressed the limits of the period strictly 
 under consideration, but no further than was neces- 
 sary to complete the picture of the men, which is that 
 of the times. The present lecture is in its nature 
 necessarily a continuation of that ; and in it I shall 
 aim to aiford such glimpses of some of the more im- 
 portant of the varied movements and adventures 
 which took place in the great valley during the Revo- 
 lution, as may enable the student to gain a broad and 
 connected view of the complexion and progress of 
 this stirring chapter in our history. 
 
 Perhaps almost enough has already been said for 
 my purpose, so far as regards the territory of Ken- 
 tucky. But it will not be inapj)ropriate to afford the 
 means of a still fuller apprehension of the perils 
 and the bravery of the times, by a brief account of 
 some of its innumerable adventures. 
 
 In the year 1Y76 there were but about one hun 
 dred fighting men in Kentucky. Of these from thirty 
 to fifty were usually in garrison at Boonesborough, or 
 absent on expeditions thence. 
 
 Let me delay a moment to describe this famous old 
 fort, whose site is now occupied by an obscure and 
 decaying village of the same name. Boonesborough 
 was the first fort built in Kentucky, and was estab- 
 lished by Daniel Boone in 1775. It stood in a small 
 cleared space on the bank of the Kentucky River ; 
 and occupied a parallelogram about two hundred 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 259 
 
 and sixty by one hundred and fifty feet, one 
 angle resting on the river bank. Its rude but 
 sufficient fortifications consisted of two cabins on a 
 side, with a gate between, one at each end, and at 
 the corners block-houses, which were merely houses 
 built with larger logs than a common cabin, and 
 more carefully and closely constructed for defence. 
 These cabins and block-houses were connected by 
 high strong fences of large pickets or timbers driven 
 close together into the ground. All the outer walls 
 were loopholed for musketry ; and this wooden fort, 
 that could not have resisted a six-pound field bat- 
 tery, was to the children of the forest an impregnable 
 stronghold, proved by many a desperate assault 
 urged on by the bitter sorrow and anger they felt at 
 each successive extension of the wliite man's hold on 
 their favorite forests and savannas. 
 
 One of the men employed on the work was killed 
 a few days after the foundations were laid. The fort 
 was incessantly beleaguered for years, and sustained 
 three furious sieges by large bodies of Indians ; the 
 last time in September, 177S, under the command 
 of British officers. The settlement had grown so 
 dense and spread so far by this time, that the sava- 
 ges could no longer penetrate to the walls of the 
 fort without leaving too many enemies in their 
 rear. 
 
 The following incident well illustrates the clangers 
 
260 
 
 to wliicli the inhabitants of these little fortresses were 
 daily exposed. 
 
 Ojie fine summer afternoon, while the garrison was 
 not dreaming of danger, some of the men lounging 
 idly around the gate, or under the shadow of the 
 stockade, were looking upon three girls, two of them 
 daughters of Col. Kichard Calloway, the other of 
 Daniel Boone ; the oldest fourteen years of age, the 
 youngest nine or ten. The three girls were playing 
 in a liglit canoe upon the placid bosom of the stream, 
 dancing, and seemingly in danger of upsetting the 
 light bark, but yet with practised skill preserving its 
 balance ; their sweet and merry peals of laughter 
 ringing far, far away, through the silent air. By the 
 movements of the girls the canoe is driven further 
 and further from the southern bank, imtil they are 
 two-tliirds of the way across the stream ; when sud- 
 denly, by an unseen yet irresistible impulse, it be- 
 gins to move directly toward the northern shore, 
 while the girls, surprised and wondering, look all 
 around to see what may be the cause of the motion. 
 Just as they are gaining the edge of the northern 
 shore, the hand of a savage, and then his eye, fierce 
 and glaring as that of a panther about to leap upon 
 its prey, is seen within the shade of the bushes that 
 fringe the stream, and as the boat is pulled within 
 the same dark covert, they see other fierce eyeballs 
 gleaming there, and strong arms inclose them. One 
 
OF THE MISSIS6IPPI. 261 
 
 shriek from the poor affrighted girls, and their mouths 
 are closed, and they are hurried off in the grasp of 
 their Indian captors. That scream had been heard 
 at the fort — the men had seen the motion of the boat, 
 and quickly understood what had happened. 'No 
 other canoes were in the neighborhood, and there 
 was every reason to aj^prehend that other savages 
 were still lurking in the bushes to pick off" any men 
 who might seek to pursue. How they finally suc- 
 ceeded in getting across, whether by swimming or 
 tlie rescue of their canoe, is not known. Those in the 
 fort waited the return of Boone, who was away on 
 business. After several hours he returned ; but as it 
 was near nightfall, he waited until morning, and by 
 daylight set out in pursuit, with seven men. They 
 had made a march of but a few miles when they 
 reached a cane-brake where the savages had entered, 
 and had taken such special pains to obliterate their 
 traces that to follow the trail through the brake 
 would consume time most critically precious, and 
 might probably allow the Indians to escape. 
 
 In this emergency, Boone strikes on a happy device, 
 to " circumvent " the savages, to use a favorite word 
 in western parlance — by making a detour around 
 the entire brake, so as to strike the trail of the 
 savages on the other side, wherever it might be. 
 The plan is fortunately successful, and after travelling 
 thirty miles with incredible speed, they find a bnf- 
 
262 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 falo path where the trail is quite fresh. Hastening 
 ten miles further, they come suddenly upon the 
 savages lying down or preparing a meal, and little 
 thinking of danger, supposing that they had dis- 
 tanced pursuit; but having the girls in close and 
 careful custody. 
 
 The two parties saw each other at the same time ; 
 but the whites, firing a volley, charged so furiously 
 upon the Indians, that they fled, leaving packs, am- 
 munition, and weapons, except one empty shot-gun. 
 The girls were uninjured, except by excessive fright 
 and fatigue ; and their rescuers were so rejoiced at 
 their recovery that, without pursuing the Indians 
 further, they returned at once to the fort. 
 
 In this same summer, one or two other feats were 
 performed which merit our notice. Harrod's, Logan's 
 and Boone's stations were this year attacked by 
 Indians at the same time ; large numbers of them 
 besieging each fort, and innumerable parties prowl- 
 ing through the wilderness for the purpose of cutting 
 off isolated settlers. Harrod's fort w^as attacked by 
 a large body of Indians, who were determined to 
 starve the garrison out. Their cornfields were des- 
 troyed. The body of savages attacking them was 
 some five or six hundred in numbe.r, while there 
 were only about forty men inside the stockade. The 
 woods for many miles were infested by the Indians, 
 so that the crack of a white man's gun, if heard 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 263 
 
 "within them, would have secured his instant death. 
 ^Nevertheless, a lad sixteen or seventeen years of age, 
 named James Ray — several older hunters having 
 tried in vain to supply the fort with provisions — 
 volunteered his services. He was a married man, 
 for they married early then; a son-in-law of Coh 
 McGary. Taking the only horse of his father-in-law, 
 all the others, of forty, having been stolen or des- 
 troyed by the Indians — an old, worn-down beast — 
 and leaving the stockade between midnight and day- 
 light, taking his pathway in running brooks of water 
 so as to leave no trace — thus the shrewd bold boy 
 pursued his way for many miles, till far beyond the 
 savages ; hunted the remainder of the day, slept a 
 portion of the evening, and then came back as he 
 had gone, his horse loaded with provisions. Thus for 
 months, did this gallant young Yirginian maintain 
 the fort by his single rifle. 
 
 One other instance. All the stations, as I have 
 said, were attacked ; and Logan's, containing fifteen 
 men, shared the fate of the others. Early in the 
 morning, a small guard of men are outside the gates, 
 guarding a party of women milking the cows. This 
 party is saluted by a sudden hail of bullets. Three of 
 the men are killed ; the women all succeed in mak- 
 ing their escape. The entire party rush into the 
 gate of the fort, and enter in safety ; but the bodies 
 of the three slain men and one poor wounded fellow 
 
264 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 are still outside tlie gate. The wounded man, Harri- 
 son by name, runs a few steps and falls, in sight of 
 both attackers and defenders. Here he lies, and un- 
 less rescued must quickly be scalped. The Indians re- 
 frain from firing upon him further, hoping to lure 
 other of his friends to his help. The cries of the 
 wounded man for aid, the frantic grief of his wife, 
 seem to fall upon deaf ears. The men say : " Tliere 
 are only twelve of us, and not one can be spared for 
 less than a hundred red-skins, at least. 'No man's life 
 can be given, and it will cost any man's life to at- 
 tempt the rescue. But his wife, with terrible urgency, 
 with cries and implorations of heartbreaking inten- 
 sity, solicits all in turn. Col. Logan, the command- 
 ant of the station, cannot withstand such entreaty 
 and helplessness. He says, "Boys, are there none of 
 you will go with me ?" John Martin rallies his cour- 
 age, and says, " I am as ready to die now as I ever 
 shall be ; I will go with you." The gates are oj)ened, 
 and out they rush. A storm of leaden hail greets 
 them. Martin finds he is not as ready to die as he 
 thought, and runs back again. But out among the 
 rifle balls rushes Logan ; bends over the wounded 
 man ; raises him in his arms as if he were an infant ; 
 and while the bullets are flying all around him, and 
 more than one lock of his hair is cut off as by scissors, 
 succeeds in entering the gates again, and delivers the 
 wounded Harrison into the arms of liis rejoicing wife. 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 265 
 
 Still the Indians maintain the siege. There are 
 only twelve men left ; their powder and ball are rnn- 
 ning low; a fresh supply must be had, or all the hor- 
 rors of Indian captivity must be the consequence. 
 'None can be had nearer than at the settlements on 
 the Holston Kiver, two hundred miles distant. Tliere 
 was scarcely a chance that any messenger could pass 
 the Indians, or that if he could, the fort could hold 
 out until his return. Rash and desperate as the bold 
 woodsmen were, they all hesitated to make this fear- 
 ful experiment. Col. Logan himself, with that reflec- 
 tive, resolute, deliberate bravery which carries the 
 nobler sort of men, in time of need, so much further 
 than the animal impulses of common hardihood, then 
 volunteers, and selecting two companions, creeps out 
 at night, and the three bold men noiselessly pass the 
 Indian lines. Avoiding the usual road, he strikes off 
 into the forest, pushes at almost superhuman speed 
 over trackless mountain and valley, reaches Holston, 
 secures the ammunition, puts it into the hands of 
 his two companions, and himself preceding them, 
 that his little garrison may the sooner receive the 
 good news and strengthen their hearts, returns again, 
 arriving in ten dsijs after his departure ; thus making 
 this trip of four hundred miles through a rugged 
 wilderness at the rate of forty miles a day, on foot, 
 and with scarce aught to live upon. The powder and 
 
 12 
 
266 PIONEEKS, PKEACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 ball is successfully brought in, and tlie Indians are 
 driven away. 
 
 About this same time, or just before it, there 
 comes to Kentucky a young man. Born in 1752, 
 when he enters Kentucky in 1775 he is twenty-three- 
 years of age — a fine soldier-like fellow, who has been 
 in Lord Dunmore's war, who commenced life as did 
 most of the young men in Yirginia and thereabouts, 
 as a surveyor, this being the surest highway to for- 
 tune and distinction. He had been in Losran's war 
 as a volunteer in the personal stafi' of Lord Dunmore, 
 and now comes to Kentucky to see what manner of 
 persons are there, and if the country be fit to settle 
 in. Of stalwart bearing, noble in person, winning in 
 manners, yet commanding, this man's courage and 
 conduct through all the subsequent struggles of the 
 pioneers of the West well entitle him to the lofty ap- 
 pellation of the Washington of the "West. His name 
 is George Rogers Clark, a man, singularly enough, 
 as yet without a biography ; and yet, excepting 
 Washington, Franklin, and a few others, there is 
 not a man in all the annals of our country who so 
 well deserves the tribute of the biographer, the pane- 
 gyric of the historian, and the applause of his coun- 
 trymen. He came to Kentucky, examined the con- 
 dition of the province, returned to Yirginia in the 
 fall, and came back to Kentucky in early spring for 
 the purpose of making it his home, and taking part 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 267 
 
 with his brothers of the frontier in their arduous de- 
 fence of their lands and lives. He spent much of his 
 time, alone, hunting or wandering through the woods ; 
 visiting all the stations ; and easily making himself 
 acquainted with the pioneers, from the smallest child- 
 ren upward. And now, having acquainted himself 
 with all the features of their life and needs, he recom- 
 mends their calling a convention for the purpose of 
 acquiring for themselves some political rights and 
 position. He is appointed by this convention, with 
 one Gabriel Jones, a representative or delegate to the 
 legislature of Yirginia; and proceeding to Williams- 
 burg, then the capital of Yirginia, finds the legisla- 
 ture adjourned. He submits his credentials and 
 claims to Governor Patrick Henry, who is lying ill ; 
 urges upon the governor the pressing needs of Ken- 
 tucky ; and claims the protection of Virginia's strong 
 arm. Yirginia has nearly as much as she can do to 
 care for herself; but the heart of Henry is touched by 
 the representations of the chivalric young man, and 
 he gives him a letter to the Representative Council 
 of the State. These gentlemen say they can do no- 
 thing for him, because the Iventuckians are not yet 
 recognized by the legislature as citizens. They, how- 
 ever say, " You shall have five hundred pounds of 
 gunpowder for the Kentuckians, as a loan from 
 friends, provided you will enter into personal recog- 
 nizances for the value of the same." " Ko," he re- 
 
268 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 plies, "I cannot accept it. It is unjust to demand 
 individual security from me, when I ask the powder 
 for the service of the country." " But," they say, 
 " it cannot be had otherwise." " Yery well," he 
 says, " a country that is not worth defending is not 
 worth claiming. Kentucky will take care of itself." 
 Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Wye, and other members of the 
 Council, much impressed by the lofty, decided tone 
 of the young man, at last procure him an order foi 
 the powder, to be delivered to him at Pittsburg. 
 Heceiving it there, he embarks it in a keel-boat, and, 
 with the little guard of seven men, they hasten down 
 the river, hotly pursued by the Indians ; until, gain- 
 ing the mouth of Limestone Creek, the site of Mays- 
 ville, they ascend it a little way, scatter the precious 
 cargo in various places of concealment in the woods, 
 set their boat adrift, hasten to Harrod's station, and 
 returning with a sufficient escort, bring the ammuni- 
 tion in safety home, and supply the scattered forts 
 with the means of defence against the now increasing- 
 waves of Indian incursion from north of the Ohio. 
 ]^or is the powder the only good gift he brings. 
 Against the strenuous opposition of Col. Campbell 
 and the great land speculator Col. Henderson, he and 
 his colleague succeeded in inducing the Virginia 
 legislature to erect Kentucky into a county ; and thus 
 he brought back to his adopted home its first politi- 
 cal organization, entitling it to representation in tlio 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 260 
 
 Yirginia Assembly, and to the benefits of a regular 
 judicial and military establisliment. 
 
 And now is in full activity that fearful torrent of 
 savage invasion which surged so furiously in npon 
 the scattered stations and settlements of Kentucky 
 during the revolutionary years. British soldiers, 
 French Canadians, Indian warriors, either in separate 
 or allied hosts, beleaguer the rude log forts, haunt 
 the settlements, waylay hunter and woodsman, peace- 
 ful laborer, and innocent child. One after another, 
 the best and bravest of the Kentuckians are picked off 
 by the lurking foe ; blood flows like water ; and this 
 infernal league of pretended Christians with savages 
 little less than fiends in ferocity and cruelty, seems 
 likely to waste away the sparse and feeble white set- 
 tlements, by a slow and bloody but sure process of 
 exhaustion. For a year and more, George Kogers 
 Clark ranges the woods, commonly alone in the 
 midst of all the war and all the danger, keenly 
 enjoying a long series of desperate adventures, and 
 participating in many hardy frontier fights, of which 
 no detailed record remains. But his profound and 
 penetrating genius soon awoke to the important 
 truth — which the Yirginian authorities had not ap- 
 prehended — that the true field for opposing this 
 bitter, cruel contest, was not so much within the 
 devastated fields and haunted forests of bleeding 
 Kentucky, as afar within the distant forests of the 
 
270 PIONEEES, PEEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 [N'orth ; at the great Indian towns where the warriors 
 recruited their forces, where their squaws labored 
 and their children played ; and still more, at the 
 British posts of Detroit, Yincenncs and Ivaskaskia, 
 the unfailing fountain of succor to the tribes ; where 
 arms and clothing and gay ornaments were sold by 
 British officers with w^hite skins, but hearts black 
 and vile with inhuman, supcrsavage ferocity, to the 
 red warriors for scal23s ; or given freely away to them, 
 if only they would earn them by a foray in the 
 American settlements. 
 
 Clark resolves to attack these posts, profoundly 
 convinced that thus he will strike a fatal stroke at 
 the heart of the war; aud in 1TT7, he already sends 
 two spies to examine the gronnd, whose report of the 
 activity and efficiency of the English garrisons in 
 maintaining the savage war stimulate his resolve 
 still more. In December of the same year, he lays 
 before Governor Henry the plan of a bold, sudden 
 and secret blow at the enemy, which that officer and 
 his council quickly approve. With two sets of in- 
 structions, a public one authorizing him to go and 
 defend Kentucky, and a secret one directing him to 
 organize a force and take Kaskaskia, he returns, 
 raises four companies instead of the authorized num- 
 ber of seven — for the women will not let so many 
 men leave their homes nndefended — then sifts these, 
 after the fashion of Gideon, until he has a hundred 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 271 
 
 and fiftj-tliree men ; and with a military chest con- 
 taining twelve hundred pounds in depreciated paper 
 money, and reinforcing this small amount by a 
 bonntj' of three hundred acres of land for each sol- 
 dier, he sets out. They descend the Ohio until 
 within forty miles of its mouth, disembark, sink their 
 boats to hide them, and then, each man carrying his:^ 
 baggage and stores, liimself foremost in the march 
 and partaking of every exposure, they plunge into 
 the howling wilderness of marshes and forests — a 
 tangled, hopeless labyrinth in which their veteran 
 guides even lose their way. After a most toilsome 
 march of one hundred and twenty miles, they reach 
 the neighborhood of the fort unperceived, on the 
 evening of July 4th, 1778. Waiting until midnight, 
 Clark makes a brief, stirring address to his men, 
 then sends Capt. Helm with a detachment across the 
 Kaskaskia River to secure and guard the town, and 
 himself advances against the fort. A lonely light 
 burns in a small house outside the stockade. A cor- 
 poral's guard silently secures the party within ; and a 
 Pennsylvanian among them, not much a lover of 
 England, willingly volunteers to guide the assault, 
 and shows them an entrance through a postern gate. 
 Colonel Clark, with his main body, takes possession 
 of the various defences of the fort ; and the fearless 
 Simon Kenton, with a file of men, stepping softly 
 into the bedroom of the commander. Lieutenant 
 
272 PIONEEKS, PEEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 Koclieblaiic, governor of the Ulinois country, quietly 
 asleep by the side of his wife, touches him. He 
 wakes, is informed that he is a prisoner, and is forced 
 to make unconditional surrender of the fort and gar- 
 rison. But Mrs. Rocheblanc, a bold and shrewish 
 dame, springs out of bed in her night-gear, seizes her 
 husband's papers and disposes them about her person, 
 railing in good set terms at the ungallant intrusion 
 into a lady's bed-chamber. And so delicately over- 
 polite are the rough sons of the woods that they will 
 not lay hands on a woman ; and thus the scold gains 
 time to secrete or destroy all the documents. Clark 
 now proceed to strike a wholesome fear of the 
 "Bostonais," — as the French called all the American 
 colonists — into the bosoms of the simple Frenchmen ; 
 and the measures he takes for a day or two are well 
 calculated to maintain the horrible apprehensions 
 which the British have diligently instilled into them 
 of the ferocious and bloodthirsty brutality of the 
 "Long-Knives." Surrounding the town, he orders 
 the troops to whooj) and yell all night, as the In- 
 dians do ; sends runners throughout the toAvn to pro- 
 claim in French that any enemy found in the streets 
 will be instantly shot down ; that all the inhabit- 
 ants must observe profound silence ; and that no 
 intercourse will be permitted between houses. Then 
 he sends a sergeant's guard, who completely disarm 
 the town in a couple of hours. When daylight 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 273 
 
 returns, having gained abundant intelligence respect- 
 ing tlie posts and defences in the vicinity, and having 
 secured his prisoners and sundry suspicious persons, 
 and even ironed certain militia officers in the British 
 service, he draws off his troops behind a hill, pro- 
 hibits all intercourse between them and any doubtful 
 characters, and places the town under martial law. 
 In all things he acts with an air of stern promptness 
 and cold severity, using but few words, and those 
 of a menacing character. 
 
 This threatening demeanor soon becomes intolera- 
 bly fearful to the simple-minded French. Tliey 
 deputed six principal citizens, with the priest, Father 
 Gibault, at their head, to beg this terrible com- 
 mander to mitigate a little the mysterious vengeance 
 thus delaying to fall. The priest and his fellows are 
 admitted to the quarters of the American general, 
 and find him seated wdth his officers. The almost 
 gigantic forms of the dreaded Bostonais, their sordid 
 apparel, all torn and begrimed from thicket and 
 swamp, their rough, grim features and wild fierce 
 looks, appall the very souls of the unwarlike French, 
 and for a short season they stand speechless in their 
 terror. At length the priest finds voice to prefer, 
 he says, one small request. Evidently the townsmen 
 were expecting a repetition of the inhuman Acadian 
 tragedy. He says, that as his jDCople expect to be 
 torn from each other probably forever, they beg 
 
 12* 
 
274 PIONEERS, PKEACHEKS AND PEOPLE 
 
 leave to assembly once more in tlieir little cliurch, to 
 take leave of each other. Colonel Clark briefly and 
 austerely grants the request, but warns them against 
 attempting to leave the town. Something more t]ie 
 deputies would have said, but Clark, with a stern 
 gesture, intimates that he has no time for further 
 conversation, and they retire. Tlie sad congregation 
 assembles at church, and indulges in the melancholy 
 pleasure of a last farewell ; and again the little em- 
 bassy waits on the conqueror. They humbly thank 
 him for the favor received ; and add, that although 
 they know they must submit to the fate of war, and 
 can endure the loss of their pro23erty, they w^ould 
 pray not to be separated from their wives and chil- 
 dren, and to be allowed some small means of 
 support ; and they say something further of the 
 submissive ignorance in which they have obeyed 
 their commandants ; of their total unacquaintance 
 with the causes of the w^ar; and hint at good i.~2clina- 
 tion toward the United States. 
 
 Clark turns sternly to the priestly spokesman — 
 "Do you take us for savages and cannibals?" he 
 asks. " We disdain to war upon the innocent and 
 the helpless. We are defending ourselves against 
 the Indians — not attacking you. The French king is 
 leagued with us ; the victory will soon be ours ; w^e 
 only desire to transfer your allegiance from Great 
 Britain to the United States ; and, to prove m,v 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 275 
 
 vrords, take home the news that your friends shall be 
 released. Yonr townsmen may go where they please, 
 safe m persons and property." 
 
 The astounded deputies would now have apolo- 
 gized for their mistaken estimate of American cha- 
 racter, but are prevented, and desired to communi- 
 cate their information to the inhabitants. The most 
 unbounded joy instantly takes the place of the terri- 
 fied gloom that had darked the town ; the bells ring 
 out; and crowding into their well-beloved church 
 again, the devout little flock offer heartfelt thanks to 
 God for this unexpected release. 
 
 Clark now sent a detachment which secured 
 Cahokia ; and the inhabitants of Yincennes, a little 
 afterward, themselves expelled the British garrison, 
 and declared themselves citizens of the United States 
 and of the State of Yirginia. After considerable 
 negotiation, in which he exhibited great judgment 
 and still more remarkable knowledge of the Indian 
 character, he succeeded, before the end of September 
 of the same year, in impressing all the tribes of tlie 
 Illinois and upper Mississippi with a great respect 
 for the American character and name, and in con- 
 cluding treaties with all of them. 
 
 Before the end of the year, however, Hamilton 
 " the hair-buyer," governor at Detroit, both alarmed 
 and ashamed at the brilliant success of Clark, learn- 
 ing that many of the Yirginian? hud returned liome, 
 
276 PIONEERS, PllEACHEKS AND PEOPLE 
 
 mustered a force of eiglity soldiers, together with 
 some Canadian militia, and, making a rapid march 
 down the Wabash, reached Yincennes, now garri- 
 soned by Capt. Helm with one soldier and a little 
 sqnad of volunteer militia. Hamilton, informed that 
 the garrison was feeble, w^as already advancing to 
 the attack at the head of his forces, when Helm, 
 springing upon a bastion, near a six-pounder trained 
 upon the British column, and waving his lighted 
 match in the air, hailed them with the stern com- 
 mand, " Halt ! or I will blow you to atoms !" A 
 little doubtful whether this bold defender would 
 not fulfill his threat, Hamilton actually obeyed the 
 order, beat a parley, and made a formal demand for 
 the surrender of the fort ; to which Helm replied that 
 he would capitulate if allowed all the honors of war, 
 but otherwise he would hold out the fort as Ions: as a 
 man was left alive to shoulder a rifle. Hamilton 
 consented to the terms, and was violently disgusted 
 when, the gates being thrown open, the bold Ken- 
 tuckian marched out with all possible formalities, 
 and laid down his arms, together with a force of five 
 men, all told ! The lateness of the season preventing 
 him from further movements, Hamilton occupied the 
 fort at Yincennes, and while he prepared to comj)lete 
 his re-conquest of Illinois in the spring, launched 
 war-party after war-party upon the frontiers of Yir- 
 ginia and Pennsylvania, thus keeping his Indian 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 277 
 
 allies em23loyed uKtil Lis projected combination of 
 movements in the spring. 
 
 Col. Clark was informed, in the end of January, 
 1779, that Hamilton had now but eighty soldiers at 
 Yincennes ; and preferring to take him rather than be 
 taken by him, prepared for a winter march against Yin- 
 cennes. He set out on the 7th of February, with one 
 hundred and thirty men ; having S'snt a detachment 
 in an armed keel-boat, to await orders in the Wabash 
 below the mouth of White Eiver, and to permit no 
 passage upon that stream. For one Imndred and fifty 
 miles the little army pursued an Indian trail, through 
 dense forests and low prairies, soaked and flooded 
 with the long rains of an uncommonly wet season ; 
 across creeks commonly fordable with care, but now 
 presenting lagoons miles broad, knee-deep, waist- 
 deep, even arm-pit deej), so that ^hey must carry 
 provisions, arms, and ammunition on their heads, to 
 keep them dry. Thus they labor on, through forest 
 and low land, through mud and mire, through flood 
 stream and falling rain, and in six days have ad- 
 vanced a hundred miles, to the crossing of the Little 
 Wabash. Wading two feet deep, and often over 
 four, they proceed through a similar dreadful coun- 
 try seventeen days more, and on the ISth encamp at 
 evening on Embarrass Kiver, within nine miles of 
 the fort, and within hearing of the morning and 
 evening gun. After waiting two days, they succeed 
 
278 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 in capturing a boat and getting across tlie river. 
 Tliere however still remains a broad and deep sheet 
 of water, upon reaching which the detachment — 
 which indeed could not possibly have sustained the 
 hardships of this extraordinary march so long, liad 
 not the weather been remarkably mild — showed evi- 
 dent signs of alarm and despair. Col. Clark, ob- 
 serving this, quietly put some powder in his hand, 
 wet it with water, blacked his face, raised an Indian 
 war-whoop, and marched into the Avater. Electrified 
 and amused, the weary troops forgot their discour- 
 agement, plunged in after their stout-hearted leader, 
 and, singing in chorus, waded, most of the time up 
 to their arm-pits, for miles and miles, until at last 
 they reached the oj^posite highlands, so utterly worn 
 out that many of the men fell as they touched the 
 shore, letting their bodies lie half in the water, rather 
 than take the two or three additional steps to higher 
 ground. 
 
 Having sent a message to the inhabitants of the 
 town, who thought the expedition was from Ken- 
 tucky and never dreamed of it coming from Illinois, 
 Clark, after resting a day or two, set out for Yin- 
 cennes; marched up and down among some hills, 
 showing different colors, that his force might look 
 three or four times as large as it was ; drew up his 
 men back of the village, and sent fourteen riflemen 
 to pepper the fort. So complete was the surprise. 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 279 
 
 that the crack of the rifle was Hair-buyer Hamilton's 
 first intimation of the siege. He was at the moment 
 — it was evening — amnsing himself sociably with his 
 prisoner Capt. Helm, over a game at cards and a 
 glass of apple-toddy. As the report struck his ear, 
 Helm sprang up, as if inspired, and cried out, in his 
 
 rough delight, " It's Clark, by , and we shall all 
 
 be his prisoners !" Tlie town at once surrendered. 
 The riflemen gathered about the fort, and shot down 
 every man who showed himself over the wall. After 
 the moon went down, Clark had a deep ditch dug 
 within ninety feet of the fort ; and early next day 
 the marksmen, posting themselves in it and thus 
 sheltered from the guns of the fort, blazed away by 
 dozens at every port-hole, silencing two pieces of 
 cannon in fifteen minutes, by shooting every man 
 who touched them, until the terrified gunners re- 
 fused to man the batteries, and the fort lay silent and 
 unresisting beneath the unerring aim of the hunters. 
 After eighteen hours' firing Clark summoned the 
 fort, which Hamilton, after considerable negotiation, 
 surrendered. Clark lost only one man before the 
 walls ; and during the siege, he also surprised and 
 routed a party of Indians, just returned from an 
 attack on Kentucky, and took a convoy of goods and 
 military supplies sent from Detroit, w^orth about fifty 
 thousand dollars. He sent Hamilton and some of his 
 officers to Virginia, w^here, along with Rochebhmc 
 
280 PIONEERS, PIIEACHEK8 AND TKOPLE 
 
 from Kaskaskia, tliey were, with extreme propriety, 
 put in close prison in irons, in retaliation for tlie 
 horrid cruelties perpetrated under their command on 
 the frontier, and for their barbarous treatment of the 
 American prisoners. 
 
 In 1780 Col. Clark called on Kentucky for volun- 
 teers for an inroad into the Indian country, to reta- 
 liate for Byrd's expedition. So ready was the 
 response that in a short time he found himself at the 
 head of a noble force of a thousand riflemen, with 
 whom, using the speed and secrecy so characteristic 
 of his military movements, he surprised an Indian 
 town in Ohio, slew seventeen of the savages, burned 
 their dwellings, and destroyed their crops. The 
 Indians were thus obliged to hunt for a living all 
 summer, and could not send their accustomed war- 
 parties against the settlements. 
 
 With his usual penetrating breadth of view, Clark 
 had long considered a scheme for taking the British 
 post at Detroit ; and in December, 1780, he induced 
 the government of Virginia to cooperate witli him in 
 his design. But the invasion of Arnold interrupting 
 the plan, he served under Steuben against him ; and 
 then resuming it, succeeded so far that two thousand 
 troops were to rendezvous at Louisville for the expe- 
 dition, in March, 1T81, and he himself was commis- 
 sioned brigadier-general. 
 
 But many unforeseen difficulties prevented the 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 281 
 
 army from marching ; and the bold and active Clark, 
 who had dreamed so long of extirpating the British 
 power in the E'orthwest hj thus striking at its centre, 
 was obliged to remain almost in idleness, defending 
 the frontier against a few scattered bands of Indian 
 marauders. Thus chafing in unwelcome restraint, 
 he grew discontented ; and then, resorting to a 
 greater evil to cure the less, fell into habits of drink- 
 ing ; and as thus his high spirit preyed uj)on itself, 
 and his unhappy vice sapped strength of mind and 
 body together, his great powers showed signs of 
 failure. The shrewd, observant backwoodsman, who 
 then, as now, judged men as men, and thought them 
 neither less nor more for titles, prerogatives, or 
 pretensions, saw his lack of that passive endurance 
 which marks the loftiest grade of heroism ; saw that 
 he was less a soldier and less a man ; and as mind 
 and body failed, his influence went down too. 
 
 Yet, in that period of stupid, terrified dejection, 
 which followed the great calamity of the defeat at 
 Blue Licks in 1782, where the furious, reckless rash- 
 ness of one man — Hugh McGary — cost Kentucky a 
 confounding defeat, and the lives of sixty of her best 
 and bravest men. Gen. Clark showed himself still a 
 ready and active soldier. He proclaimed that he 
 would lead his regiment upon a retaliatory expedi- 
 tion into Ohio, and called again for volunteers, 'o 
 gathered to his standard with the old-time prompti' 
 
282 PIONEEES, PEEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 tude. Again a thousand riflemen assembled on the 
 Ohio, and marched npon the Indian towns. The 
 savages fled so fast before this powerful and vengeful 
 force, that not only did they nowhere ofl'er to resist, 
 but only twelve in all were either killed or taken. 
 Five of their towns were burned, and a vast quantity 
 of their provisions, being all their crops, were de- 
 stroyed; and so severe w^as this lesson to the Indians, 
 that from that time they dared no longer invade 
 Kentucky, except in sly, small war-parties. 
 
 Once more, in 1786, General Clark headed an 
 army destined against the Lidian towns on the 
 Wabash River ; but the expedition was unsuccessful, 
 and returned without reaching its destination. After 
 this, Clark's name appears no more in public transac- 
 tions, except as temporary holder of a major-general's 
 commission from France in that force wdiicli the 
 frantic visionary and revolutionary democrat, Genet, 
 would fain have raised in Kentucky to bring Spanish 
 Louisiana under the dominion of the French repub- 
 lic. After long suffering from infirmities, his power- 
 ful frame succumbed to a paralysis growing out of 
 rheumatic disorders. He died at Locust Grove, 
 near Louisville, in February, 1818, and was buried 
 there. 
 
 This brief and unsatisfactory sketch is all that my 
 space allows me to devote to the great qualities and 
 bold deeds of "the Washington of the West" — 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 283 
 
 unquestionably the greatest military genius ever 
 produced by Virginia, notwitlistanding that the only 
 area for his operations "was tlic pathless "wilderness 
 beyond the mountain; and unequalled among all the 
 western pioneers, not only for military ability and 
 daring, speed and secrecy, but for practical states- 
 manship, political foresight, judgment in combining 
 plans, and energy in executing them ; and a quality 
 still higher, which points him out yet more clearly as 
 a born ruler and a statesman, namely, the power of 
 controlling men. His genius was sufficiently shown 
 in the success with which he led his hardy little 
 band, through unparalleled sufferings, against Yin cen- 
 nes, and in the complete obedience and subordination 
 which he so easily obtained from the rude, reckless, 
 and utterly independent hunters and fighters of the 
 forest ; but it appears still more in the influence and 
 admiration which he gained among the wild savage 
 tribes of the !N'orthwest, who feared and wondered at 
 him almost as at a superhuman being. 
 
 To give one more touch to the sketch I have 
 attempted to draw, of life in the cabin homes of the 
 wilderness during the JRevolution — for no single lec- 
 ture gives space for more than a sketch — let me 
 briefly narrate a single achievement, which story has 
 been often told before, but which has not yet lost its 
 romantic freshness ; a story which nobly illustrates 
 the generous daring and military abilities of the sons 
 
284 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 of the western woods — the story of the battle of 
 King's Mountain. 
 
 I will first briefly sketch the deeds of the mountain 
 men before their gallant attack on Ferguson. Col. 
 John Sevier, chief militia officer of the eastern part 
 of the State of Tennessee — then Washington County in 
 North Carolina — received in March, 1T80, a requisi- 
 tion from General Rutherford, of North Carolina, for 
 one hundred men to be sent to the aid of South 
 Carolina. Colonel Isaac Shelby, of Sullivan County, 
 also then in North Carolina, received a similar requi- 
 sition. They each raised two hundred mounted rifle- 
 men ; but were fortunately too late to reach Huther- 
 ford, and sufler in the fatal battle of Camden. They, 
 however, reached the camp of Colonel McDowell, 
 Rutherford's second in command, in July, and were 
 presently sent to attack Colonel Moore, who had 
 been raising the tories in the western Caroliuas for 
 the king, and now occupied a strong fort on the 
 Pacolet River. With six hundred men more under 
 Colonel Clark of Georgia, the riflemen, a thousand 
 in all, set off at sunset, marched twenty miles that 
 night, and at dawn had surrounded the fort, which, 
 after some parley, surrendered. 
 
 Cornwallis, irritated at this bold stroke, detached 
 Col. Patrick Ferguson with one hundred picked men, 
 to gather and train the tories of the western counties 
 of South Carolina, and to take and hold the strongest 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 285 
 
 positions there. Ferguson was a bold, experienced 
 and successful soldier, himself a trained and skillful 
 rifle shot, and a ready and ingenious man. He had 
 already invented, to oppose the fatal skill of the 
 mountain rifles so much feared by regulars and low- 
 land tories, a breech-loading rifle, capable of being 
 discharged seven times in a minute. He soon raised 
 so many loyalists as put him at the head of two 
 thousand men, and a small body of horse. Col. 
 McDowell detached Shelby and Col. Clark with six 
 hundred men to watch his movements and cut oflT his 
 foragers. These Ferguson repeatedly but vainly 
 endeavored to surprise. It would have been strange 
 indeed if the regulars could have surprised those sly 
 Indian-fighters ! He did once, it is true, come up 
 with them ; but when he did come up, the Ameri- 
 cans, who were sharply engaged with his advanced 
 guard, rode ofl^ with twenty prisoners, two of them 
 officers, whom they had just taken ; so that Col. Fer- 
 guson only lost by his haste. 
 
 Col. McDowell soon sent Shelby and Clark, to- 
 gether with Col. Williams of South Carolina and six 
 hundred men, to surprise a party of some five hun- 
 dred tories at Musgrove's Mill on the Ennoree, about 
 forty miles distant, and in a line directly beyond Fer- 
 guson's camp. Again the hardy riders, setting out 
 at dusk, riding hard all night long, and skirting round 
 Ferguson's camp four or five miles oft", met at dawn 
 
286 PIONEEKS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 a strong patrol, about half a mile from the tory 
 camp. These they drove in, and at the same time 
 learned that instead of five hundred, the enemy in 
 front numbered more than twice as many, having just 
 received a reinforcement of six hundred regulars. 
 Evidently they could neither attack double their 
 number, wearied as they were by their long night 
 ride ; nor could they for the same reason safely re- 
 treat. They therefore determined to hold their 
 ground and receive the enemy's attack. Sending 
 forward an advanced party to skirmish, fire and 
 retire at discretion, they speedily threw up a slight 
 breastwork of logs and brushwood, and lay down 
 behind it. The tory drums and bugles soon an- 
 nounced their advance with horse and foot; they 
 drove in the scattered advanced guard, and thinking 
 that all the Americans w^ere retreating, advanced 
 hastily and in disorderly array, until they w^ere 
 greeted, at seventy yards from the breastwork, with 
 a destructive fire. Undismayed, they attacked with 
 spirit, but for a whole hour could make no impres- 
 sion upon the feeble but stoutly defended line of the 
 riflemen. Just as part of the Americans were be- 
 ginning to give way, Col. Innes, the British com- 
 mander, was wounded. Every one of his subalterns 
 but one was already killed or wounded ; Captain 
 Hawsey, a notorious tory leader, in command of the 
 loyalists, was shot ; the whole British line wavered, 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 287 
 
 and a furious charge from the riflemen drove them 
 in disorder over the Ennoree. The tories fled lirst, 
 and of the regulars, who fought like brave men, more 
 than two hundred were made prisoners. 
 
 The indefatigable mountain men, withont waiting 
 to rest, remounted their horses, which had been re- 
 posing during the battle, and prepared to swoop 
 down upon the British fort at ]S['inetv-Six, thirty 
 miles further. As thej were in the act of starting, 
 an express came np with a letter which lie gave to 
 Col. Shelby. It was forwarded by McDowell ; was 
 from Governor Caswell of Xorth Carolina, dated on 
 the battle-field of Camden, bringing the news of that 
 fatal field ; and advised McDowell to "get out of the 
 way," for that the enemy would now endeavor to cut 
 off in detail all detached parties of Americans. So 
 much false and erroneous intelligence w^as abroad in 
 those days of treachery and peril that none would 
 have known whether to believe this sad letter, had 
 not Col. Shelby been familiar with Gov. Caswell's 
 hand-writing. Instant decision was necessary, and 
 was made. It was probable that Ferguson was now 
 informed of the defeat on the Ennoree, and would 
 instantly push to cnt them ofi" from McDowell. 'Nor 
 wonld their weary horses and wearier selves admit 
 of the further advance on Ninety-Six, through 
 regions swarming with tories now encouraged by 
 the British successes over Gates and Sumptei It 
 
288 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 was not safe to delay even an hour, lest the energetic 
 Ferguson should be upon them. The prisoners were 
 instantly distributed, one to each three horsemen, to 
 take turns in riding behind them; and the whole 
 force, facing westward, rode straight for the moun- 
 tains. "Weary as they were, they pushed on all that 
 day, all the night, and all the next day until late in 
 the evening, without a single halt. This prompt 
 retreat and desperate speed saved them ; for it after- 
 ward appeared that Ferguson's second in command. 
 Captain Dupoister, had ridden hard after them with 
 a strong force of horse, until at the end of the second 
 day his men broke down under the fatigue and heat. 
 Shelby passed the mountain ; Clark and Williams 
 carried the prisoners northward. McDowell's army 
 disbanded, and he and many of his men also crossed 
 the mountain to the hospitable settlements of "Wata- 
 uga and Nollichucky, w^hence had come many of the 
 bold riflemen who fought so well against Moore and 
 Innes. 
 
 Thus disappeared the last remnant of an American 
 army south of the Potomac, except the dispirited and 
 broken band that remained with Gates at Hills- 
 boro'. Congress was penniless and bankrupt ; the 
 States were little better ; the army unfed, unpaid, 
 and miserable ; the whole country distressed and dis- 
 couraged ; the British triumphant, their forces rava- 
 ging and rioting at will up and down the land, and 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 289 
 
 tlieir torj allies waging an inliumaii and monstrous 
 warfare upon tlieir whig neiglibors and countrymen. 
 Large nmnbers of the Carolina wliigs sent their families 
 across the momitains for safety, themselves remain- 
 ing in the extremest peril to protect their property. 
 Earl Cornwallis, having occupied his time until the 
 arrival of provisions from Charleston, in putting into 
 operation a rigorous system of military tyranny — not 
 hesitating to murder and banish the whigs and rob 
 them of their j)roperty, to uphold his authority in 
 South Carolina — advanced from Camden toward 
 Yirginia, on the 18th of September, 1780. 
 
 Col. Ferguson, at the head of his force of regulars 
 and loyalists, had been diligently at work among the 
 tories in the western counties. He had followed close 
 after Dupoister in tlie fruitless chase of Shelby and 
 his mountain men ; but failing in this, had now 
 posted himself at Gilbert Town, near Rutherfordton, 
 in E'orth Carolina, not far from the foot of the moun- 
 tains. Here he delivered to one Phillips, a prisoner 
 on parole, a haughty message to the people Vv'est of 
 the mountains : that if they did not cease opposing 
 the British arms, he would come across, lay the 
 country waste, and hang their chiefs. 
 
 This message Phillips brought to Shelby in the end 
 of August. That leader, mounting in haste, rode 
 fifty miles and more to his brother colonel, Sevier, 
 and on consulting, they determined to raise as large 
 
 13 
 
290 PIONEERS, PKEACHEKS AND PEOPLE 
 
 a force of riflemen as possible, make a forced march 
 througli the mountain, and surprise Ferguson, or, at 
 least, weaken him and render him unable to fulfill 
 his threat. 
 
 The rendezvous was fixed for the twenty-fifth of 
 September, at Sycamore Shoals, in Watauga. Here, 
 on the appointed day, gathered more than a thousand 
 men, many of them armed and equipped with money 
 obtained on the personal security of Shelby and 
 Sevier; all well mounted ; almost every man carrying 
 a Deckhard rifle — a choice weapon for true aim and 
 long range, named from its maker, a famous gun- 
 smith of Lancaster, in Pennsylvania. I^early all 
 wore the hunting-shirt of the backwoods, leggins and 
 moccasins ; a few appearing in their usual citizens' 
 dress. Yolunteers for the defence of their hearth- 
 stones, they needed neither uniform nor esjprit de 
 corps^ except what common danger and common 
 patriotism inspired. 
 
 Early next morning, after prayer by a clergyman 
 present, the riflemen mounted and took up the line 
 of march, following trading and pioneer paths. Un- 
 encumbered with the staft' and baggage of a regular 
 army, they moved so rapidly that on the second day 
 they abandoned some cattle which they had under- 
 taken to drive along for provisions. Light-armed, 
 with rifle, shot-pouch, knife, tomahawk, knapsack 
 and blanket, they hunted as they went, for food, and 
 
OF THE :Rnssissippi. 291 
 
 drank the water of tlie mountain streams, until after 
 passing the mountains, when thej quartered them- 
 selves on the tories. 
 
 On the day after starting, two men were missing. 
 Thej had deserted to the enemy. To render their 
 information useless, the army descended the eastern 
 slope of the Alleghany by remote and unfrequented 
 paths ; and on reaching the foot, fell in with a party 
 of several himdred whigs, waiting there in the woods 
 for an opportunity to act against the British. These 
 gladly joined them. And from all the settlements 
 small daily additions were made to the force of brave 
 men eager to reach the foe. 
 
 October 3d a council was held, within eighteen 
 miles of Ferguson's post at Gilbert Town. After 
 some discussion, a messenger was sent to Gates for a 
 general officer to command the force, and Colonel 
 Campbell, who had led four hundred men to the 
 rendezvous at TVatauga, was chosen commander in 
 the interim. Next day the mountain army advanced 
 to Gilbert Town ; but Ferguson was gone. He had 
 heard of the vengeful storm gathering along the 
 western mountains, and after exhausting the lan- 
 guage of entreaty and reproach upon the intimidated 
 loyalists — who feared it too — in endeavors to assemble 
 them about his standard, he unwillingly retreated 
 toward Cornwallis, sending him an urgent request 
 for a reinforcement, and marcliing hi several dii'cc- 
 
292 PIONEEES, PEEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 tions among loyalist neigliborlioods, to keep out of 
 the way of the riflemen. 
 
 But Col. Campbell and his hardy riders understand 
 Ferguson's movements. A council is held, and a 
 still more rapid pursuit resolved on. All that night 
 the commanders pick the best men, horses and rifles, 
 and at dawn set out again with nine hundred and 
 ten of the flower of the army, leaving the rest to fol- 
 low more leisurely. They hear, as they hasten along, 
 of one and another large gathering of tories, but on 
 they go; they are striking for Ferguson, and will 
 turn aside for no meaner game. Four hundred and 
 sixty more men, under Col. Hambright and Col. 
 Williams, join them at the Cow Pens, where they 
 halt and alight for an hour to refresh. Except this 
 delay, the indefatigable riflemen never once stopped 
 during the last thirty-six hours of the pursuit. 
 
 It is the morning of the Yth of October, 1780. The 
 determined mountain men are still sternly hastening 
 upon the hourly freshening traces of the fleeing Fer- 
 guson. They ride on through a rain so heavy that 
 they are fain to keep the locks of their rifles dr^^ by 
 wrapping them with blankets and hunting shirts, 
 even at the expense of exposing themselves to the 
 storm. The advanced guard comes up w^ith some 
 unarmed men, who report themselves just from Fer- 
 guson's camp. A brief halt is made, and a close ex- 
 amination discovers the facts, that Ferguson is in 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 293 
 
 camp three miles in front; that next day he proposes 
 to march to Cornwallis's headquarters ; and that cer- 
 tain roads will lead directly to his camp, which is 
 pitched on ground which Col. "Williams declares, on 
 description, that he and some of his men know well. 
 Brief consultation suffices. Ferguson must never 
 reach the camp of the haughty British earl. The 
 storm has cleared away. They resolve to march at 
 once, to complete their work first, and rest and re- 
 fresh afterward. The command is at once given to 
 put the rifles in fighting condition and prime anew ; 
 the order of battle is the well-known hereditary ma- 
 noeuvre of the Indians and of these veteran Indian 
 fighters : to surround the enemy and attack him at 
 once from all sides ; and remounting, the little army 
 is again in motion. Within one mile of the enemy 
 an express to Cornwallis is taken ; on his 2:)erson is 
 found an urgent letter to the earl, stating Ferguson's 
 force — the numher of which, eleven hundred and 
 twenty-five men, is prudently concealed from the 
 Americans by their officers — demanding instant re- 
 inforcements, and informing his commander-in-chief 
 that he is securely encamped on the top of a hill 
 which he had named King's Mountain, in honor of 
 his majesty; and that "if all the rebels out of hell 
 should attack him, they could not drive him from it." 
 All these items, except his force, are communicated 
 to the Americans; and spurring on, they advance at 
 
294 
 
 a gallop to a point within sight of Ferguson's strong- 
 hold. Arriving within view of the field of battle, it 
 is at once evident that the right phan has been 
 adopted. Ferguson and his regulars and tories hold 
 the crest of the mountain, in a line about a quarter 
 of a mile long — an isolated height rising from the 
 general level of the country, and covered and crowned 
 w^ith open woods. The final orders for tlie battle are 
 given, while yet out of rifle-shot : Campbell, Shelby, 
 Sevier, McDowell and Winston, with their men, are 
 to file to the right, round the miountain ; Hambright 
 and Chronicle are to pass round the other wa}^ and 
 meet them ; and Cleveland and Williams to fill tlie 
 remainder of the line in front. When in position, 
 each division is to front face, raise the war-whoop 
 and charge. They advance again, dismount about a 
 third of a mile from the hilltop, tie their horses, and 
 the detachments separate for their places. Before 
 they are quite ready, the enemy, hitherto silent and 
 v/atchful, open fire and wound some of Shelby's men. 
 Shelby and McDowell, on this, face at once toward 
 the foe, and return their fire with eftect ; while Cani})- 
 bell's column, coming np, charges fiercely up the 
 mountain and commences a fatal fire on the tories 
 who hold that end of the line. Ferguson, hearing 
 the firing, sends a force of regulars from the other 
 end of his line, and with levelled bayonets tliey 
 charge upon ^he advancing columns of McDowell, 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 295 
 
 Shelby and Sevier. So furious is their assault, that 
 those three columns are driven headlong down the 
 hill. But at this very moment, the four columns on 
 the left, having, pushed np the hill and driven in the 
 pickets, begin a close and heavy fire upon the regu- 
 lars, v^ho have liere a slight breastwork of wagons, 
 and are under the command of Ferguson himself. 
 Capt. Dupoister, who had headed the charge on 
 Shelby, is at once recalled, receiving as he comes a 
 severe fire from Col. Williams' column, and is or- 
 dered to charge again with all the regulars upon 
 their new adversaries. Again the bayonets are 
 levelled, and a desperate attack drives the riflemen 
 to the foot of the hill. Major Chronicle being killed 
 in the struggle. 
 
 It is of course, impossible for riflemen to withstand 
 the shock of a bayonet charge. But the resolute 
 mountain men, though they retreat, do it only to re- 
 new the flght ; for the enemy dared not advance 
 many rods from his vantage-ground above. As 
 Dupoister returns from his charge on Shelby, to 
 charge again on Cleveland and Chronicle, the columns 
 of Shelby, Campbell and McDowell follow him up, 
 rallying readily to the shout that the British are re- 
 treating ; and j)ushing up almost to the British camp, 
 they exchange a deadly fire with the tory riflemen at 
 that end of the height. Again the bayonet is tried ; 
 but already the fatal rifle-bullet has thinned tlio 
 
296 PIONEEES, PKEACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 ranks of Ferguson's scanty band of regulars until the 
 British colonel is forced to have his tories' butcher- 
 knives stuck into the muzzles of their rifles, for 
 bayonets, before he can muster a line strong enough 
 for the charge. Down they come, however, and 
 again the riflemen retreat before them ; but this time 
 not so far, and after a comparatively feeble attack, 
 Dupoister retired within his lines. 
 
 And now the American columns have surrounded 
 the mountain, and closing in, a fatal ring of fire 
 draws slowly and sternly up around the stubborn 
 British colonel and his bold troops. While a fierce 
 discharge is kept up at each end of the British posi- 
 tion, Sevier's column now makes a powerful attack 
 upon their centre. The British forces are partly 
 concentrated to repel these obstinate assaults ; and 
 while a stubborn contest is maintained here, Shelby 
 and Campbell, with one bold charge, reach the crest 
 of the mountain at the end held by the tories, efl'ect 
 a lodgment, and slowly but surely drive their traitor- 
 ous foes in toward the other extremity of the line. 
 
 Hotter and closer grows the ring of the fire ; and 
 still the levelled bayonets gleam on this side and 
 on that, and the light-footed mountain men, vanish- 
 ing before them, swarm back upon their footsteps 
 the moment they halt, while the Americans on the 
 opposite side seize the opportunity to advance again 
 in their turn. But the charo-es of the wearied and 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 297 
 
 fearfully diminislied band of regulars grow less 
 furious and shorter. And all the time Shelby and 
 Campbell are creeping along the crest of the hill, 
 driving the tories before them, crowding them in 
 upon the regulars, the deadly mountain rifles pick- 
 ing them off with fearful rapidity. Ferguson, cool 
 and daring as ever, still rides up and down his line, 
 encouraging his men, supporting the weakest places, 
 exposing himself to every danger, and carrying in 
 one hand, which has been wounded, a silver whistle, 
 whose loud and piercing sound, heard over the whole 
 battle-field, enables him to signal instantaneously to 
 all his men. He sends Dupoister with the regulars 
 to reinforce a weak position. It is but one hundred 
 yards away; but before he reaches it, the fatal 
 Deckhard rifles have left him so few men that their 
 aid is not worth counting. 
 
 Ferguson now orders his cavalry to mount; in- 
 tending to head them, and sweep down in a resistless 
 attack upon the Americans. But they cannot mount, 
 or if they do, they fall out of their saddles as fast as 
 they reach them ; for lifted on the horses, they pre- 
 sent a fairer mark for the rifles. 
 
 And still the ring of fire contracts ; and now, 
 driven in disorder, far in from the British left, the 
 tories, who always blenched first when they fought 
 beside the regulars, dismayed and hopeless, raise the 
 white flag of surrender. But Ferguson gallops up 
 13* 
 
298 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 and tears it down. Then tlie regulars at tlie otliei 
 end of the line raise another, and the heroic con> 
 mander, seeminglj the onlj man left in the host^ 
 rides back again through the iire and cuts it down 
 with his sabre. This second time his brave subor- 
 dinate Dupoister, who had admonished him before 
 that further resistance was hopeless, and that he ought 
 to surrender, admonishes him again. But he de- 
 clares in the bitterness of his soul that he "will 
 never surrender to such a damned set of banditti." 
 And still riding desperately to and fro, he encourages 
 and strengthens the wavering ranks, and alone 
 restores the battle ; for w^henever his voice or his 
 whistle is heard, the enemy rallies again, and figlits 
 bravely. But the riflemen, seeing that his resistance 
 wdll end only with his life, after having seemingly 
 spared him for his bravery for a long time, now 
 forced to make an end of the contest, aim their fatal 
 weapons at him. He falls, and dies at once. 
 
 Dupoister, now left in command, seeing that his 
 men, few in number, crowded in disorder together, 
 and falling rapidly under the dreadful concentrated 
 fire of the Americans, could no longer hope for suc- 
 cess or safety, almost immediately raised the white 
 flag again, and called out for quarter. The fire of the 
 Americans ceased, except from a few young men, 
 who either did not know what the flag meant, or sup- 
 posed it would come down again as before. Shelby 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 299 
 
 called out to the British to throw down their arms, 
 which they did ; when all firing ceased, and the Ame- 
 ricans, after one hour's hard fighting, were com- 
 pletely victorious. 
 
 Ferguson's force was annihilated ; for two hundred 
 and twenty-five were killed, nearly two hundred more 
 disabled, and all the rest, more than seven hundred, 
 prisoners, l^ot one man escaped. Tlie Americans 
 had lost about thirty killed, and sixty wounded. En- 
 camping on the battle-field that night, they rose 
 early, and at dawn — a peaceful Sabbath dawn — went 
 forth and buried their dead. Then they burned the 
 wagons of the enemy, and prepared to return to the 
 mountains, with their seven hundred prisoners, fifteen 
 hundred stands of arms, many horses, and a great 
 mass of supplies and booty. In the midst of a tory 
 neighborhood, near Cornwallis, and with more pri- 
 soners than they could saiely spare guards to watch, 
 the mountaineers were seriously embarrassed with 
 their success. Taking the flints out of the captured 
 arms, however, they made the strongest of the pri- 
 soners carry them ; marched all day at a " present," 
 keeping close watch on the prisoners, and at sundown 
 met the remainder of their own force, with whom 
 they kept on westward until the fourteenth. Then, 
 halting near the foot of the mountains, they held a 
 court-martial upon sundry of the tory prisoners, atro- 
 cious violators of the laws of their country and of hu- 
 
300 PIONEEESj PEEACIIEKS AND TEOPLE 
 
 inanity ; condemned thirty of them to the death 
 which they had a thousand times richly deserved ; 
 but liung only nine of the worst, respiting the re- 
 mainder. Justice thus executed, Sevier and his force 
 crossed the mountains, and put themselve in readi- 
 ness to defend their homes, if necessary ; while Camp- 
 bell, Shelby and Cleveland guarded their prisoners 
 northward to secure captivity. 
 
 This bold and splendid achievement was the turn of 
 the tide in the affairs of the war. Without it, it is 
 difficult to see what limits could have been set to 
 Cornwallis's victorious progress northward, imop- 
 posed as he was by any embodied force, and daily 
 reinforced in camp by tory levies, while other gangs 
 of those ignoble banditti, starting up everywhere, 
 were daily riveting the chains of the hateful Britisli 
 authority over all the South behind them. 
 
 But the destruction of Ferguson and his host ex- 
 ploded in the midst of Earl Cornwallis's plans like a 
 thunderbolt in a powder magazine. It scattered 
 them to the four winds of heaven ; the few fragments 
 left for reconstruction formed only a frustrated and 
 strengthless plan ; and the pause of astonished terror 
 that followed afforded time for the dispirited Ameri- 
 cans to rally again, and enter upon that series of ope- 
 rations so gloriously consummated at Yorktown. 
 
 When Cornwallis heard the news, magnified by its 
 journey into the startling story that the victorious 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 301 
 
 host of riflemen, three thousand strong, were in full 
 march toward his camp, he instantly gave up, for 
 the time, his northward march, struck his tents, 
 marched back toward the south ail night in the 
 greatest confusion, crossed the Catawba, and never 
 stopped until he reached Winnsboro', a hundred 
 miles away, where he remained, quiet and frightened, 
 for three months. During this respite, the ISTorth 
 Carolina whigs rallied and gathered in considerable 
 force. General Smallwood, with his veteran and 
 celebrated Maryland corps, and Morgan's riflemen, 
 strengthened them. Gates soon joined them, with 
 the sad remains of the Southern army. From Hills- 
 boro', a thousand Yirginians came down. General 
 !N"athaniel Greene assumed the command of this new 
 force in December, and America was again in a con- 
 dition at least to face the foe, and maintain, with re- 
 newed courage, the contest which seemed to have 
 been decided upon the terrible field of Camden. To 
 those hardy sons of the wilderness, the mountain men 
 of eastern Tennessee and western Yirginia, in all 
 probability, is due the glory and the praise of having 
 decided the question of the acquirement of our na- 
 tional independence. 
 
Lecture VII. 
 
 SKETCHES OF 
 
 CHARACTER AND ADVENTURE 
 
 m THE WEST, 
 TO THE FAILURE OF BURR'S EXPEDITION, 1806. 
 
SKETCHES OF 
 
 CHAHACTER AND ADVENTURE 
 IX THE WEST, 
 
 TO THE FAILURE OF BURR'S EXPEDITION, 1806. 
 
 The close of the Revolutionary struggle left our 
 ancestors weak and well-nigli disabled by tlieir long, 
 unequal contest, and torn by internal dissensions and 
 broils. Threatened by external force, the govern- 
 ment impoverished to the last degree and as credit- 
 less as a notorious spendthrift, the currency depre- 
 ciated as far as depreciation was possible, all things 
 seemed to portend dismemberment and anarchy ; a 
 state far worse than that in which the commence- 
 ment of the struggle found them. But the bound- 
 less recuperative energies peculiar to our people, 
 came to their rescue, and out of the wild chaos of 
 inharmonious elements, there arose in course of time 
 the magnificent fabric of civic order, symmetry, and 
 splendor, beneath whose protection we and our 
 children sit. 
 
 I have spoken of the depreciation of the cur- 
 rency. In Yirginia, at the close of the Revolu- 
 
 305 
 
306 PIONEERS, TEEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 tion, a bowl of rum punch cost five hundred dol- 
 lars, in the ordinary currency of the time ; in 'New 
 England, a mug of cider was once bought for one 
 hundred dollars. " Part of an old shirt " was valued, 
 in an inventory of an estate, at three pounds. Gen. 
 Green Clay, an eminent surveyor and citizen of the 
 State — or rather, at that time, the District — of Ken- 
 tucky, riding a spirited horse from the west side of 
 the mountains to the east, disposed of him to one of 
 the French officers attached to the army which aided 
 Washington in the taking of Cornwallis, for the 
 moderate sum of twenty-seven thousand dollars, 
 which he invested in wild western lands ; and these, 
 forty years ago, were worth half a million of dollars. 
 
 The bond which held the colonies together was of the 
 slightest imaginable description. The old Congress 
 had limited powers, and was afraid to use what it 
 had ; rarely daring to assume any responsibility. 
 
 What was to be done ? How should the treasury be 
 replenished ? How should the credit of the country 
 be established ? Virginia, always the readiest of the 
 sisters of the confederacy to do what in her lay to 
 speed any good work, assigned to the general govern- 
 ment that mao^nificent domain which belonored to her 
 in virtue of conquest ; which the perseverance and 
 heroism of her sons, inspired and guided by the indo- 
 mitable energy of George Kogers Clark, had wrested 
 from the power of Britain and made her own property. 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. SOT 
 
 All that vast and splendid country, afterward 
 Jvnowu as the E'orthwestern Territory, was thus given 
 fieely to the general government, in order that bj 
 the sale of its lands to emigrants and settlers at such 
 a moderate price as their resources would justity, the 
 coffers of the Republic might be filled. Massachusetts 
 had a partial claim to what is now the State of Ohio ; 
 but always desiring to look before she leaj)ed, always 
 keeping a sharp eye on the main chance, she waited 
 to see what should be the end of the matter ; so that 
 it was not until 1786, two years after Virginia had 
 given to the United States what formed afterward 
 the States of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and the 
 greater portion of Ohio, that Massachusetts surren- 
 dered her claim to the western country, by cession to 
 the general government. Last of all, old Connecti- 
 cut, who held with a still more unrelaxing gras^D to 
 her reserved territory in the northeastern corner of 
 Ohio, at length became convinced of the propriety 
 and justice of ceding her claim, and did so. 
 
 Thus, the whole of that wide domain passed into 
 possession of the federal government. At first, how- 
 ever, it was of comparatively slight use to the people. 
 The Indians held most of it ; and although hostilities 
 upon their part were suspended for a short time 
 immediately after the close of the Eevolution, yet, as 
 their late ally, the government of Great Britain, made 
 no terms for them in the treaty of 1783, but left them t,> 
 
308 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 care for themselves, and as the United States claimed 
 that territory by right of conquest, without stipula- 
 tion or provision for compensation to them, granting 
 them only slight reserves for residence and hunting- 
 grounds, their ire was again awakened, and their ven- 
 geance was ready to descend uj)on the frontiers. 
 
 Further, Spain and France had aided our country 
 in the struggle against our mother; but after that 
 struggle was ended, and we had achieved our inde- 
 pendence, they asked to be remembered and com^^en- 
 sated for their exj^enditure in our behalf Both were 
 in quest of territory. Both were jealous of the 
 predicted power and greatness of the new nation. 
 Both desired, in common with Great Britain, to 
 restrict our fathers within certain predetermined 
 limits. France and England joining, desired to 
 make the Ohio Biver onr northern boundary. Spain, 
 on another side, desired to keep them east of the 
 Mississippi and north of the Yazoo, that she might 
 remain in possession of all the district lying south 
 and west of those rivers, for her own occupancy. 
 One difficulty after another was thrown in the way 
 of our national diplomacy. The old confederated 
 Congress found itself incapable of the task it had 
 shouldered ; unequal to the difficulties of the emer- 
 gency. It is not my province to detail to you the 
 history of the convention for the formation of the 
 Constitution; the theory or powers of the new gov- 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. ^ 309 
 
 eminent; nor the policy of the cabmet of George 
 "Washington, with its t^Yo poles of dissimilar charac- 
 ter and creed, hy way of equipoise — Thomas 
 Jefferson representing the Republican or Democratic, 
 and Alexander Hamilton the Federal principle. The 
 great diplomatist of this administration was John 
 Jay — for intellect, patriotism, clear-sighted subtlety, 
 nobility of purpose and force of character, and lofty 
 purity of morals, one of the proudest names which 
 our annals can boast. Jay, at this time, charged 
 with the duty of negotiating treaties with England 
 and Spain, found himself in a most perplexing situa- 
 tion. Spain claimed the right of ownership to the 
 Mississippi River; denied the right of the western 
 people to navigate that river, and was about to close 
 all the ports upon the Gulf against our commerce, 
 and thus cut off the people w^est of the mountai]is 
 from all opportunity for foreign exchanges. Enor- 
 mous croj^s of all kinds grew up in their fertile and 
 exuberant fields, but there was no market in which 
 they could sell. Tliey had pressing needs, but there 
 was no market where they could buy. Their only 
 opportunities for obtaining the most necessary mer- 
 chandise were by mule tracks and pathways across 
 the Alleghany Mountains, from Baltimore and Fre- 
 derick. Long trains of these animals, with pack- 
 saddles laden with salt, iron, and lead, and whatever 
 else was in demand among the emigrants and settlers 
 
310 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 of the West, were daily trayelling the mountain 
 roads, at all seasons of the year. 
 
 But this meagre system of exchange offered no 
 prospect either of speedy wealth to those engaged in 
 it, or of present or future adequacy to the wants of 
 the western settlements, now beginning to increase so 
 vigorously. 
 
 Already the feeling had become definite and uni- 
 versal among the w^estern settlers, that the free 
 navigation of the Mississippi must be secured ; when, 
 in 1784, an assembly of the peoj)le of Kentucky was 
 summoned at Danville, by Col. Logan, one of their 
 oldest and ablest pioneers, to consult upon measures 
 for opposing an invasion by the southern Indians, 
 which he had learned was in contemplation. This 
 rumor proved to be incorrect ; but the assembly, 
 which contained a large number of influential and 
 Intelligent citizens, who had come together under the 
 impression that it was intended to wage an energetic 
 warfare upon the northwestern Indians, took occasion 
 to examine the existing laws applicable to the raising 
 of a military force ; when, to the common surprise 
 and chagrin, it plainly appeared that since the end 
 of the war, there was no existing authority to call 
 out men for any expedition against Indians or any 
 other enemy, nor even to assemble volunteers or 
 militia for the defence of their own homes and 
 hearths. Open on three sides to the incursions of a 
 
OF THE ivnssissippi. 31 1 
 
 ferocious and active enemy, their hands were efi'ectu- 
 allj tied, and no defence left them except such purely 
 voluntary aid as might be given without the counte- 
 nance of laws. Such a state of things was unendura- 
 ble ; and even in time of safety, the growing and 
 high-spirited District of Kentucky, now composed 
 of three large counties, could not but be restive 
 under the tardy and difficult administration of a 
 government acting at Kichmond, and separated from 
 the western settlements by so many hundred miles 
 of monntain and forest. The assembly was unani- 
 mously and earnestly of opinion that Kentucky should 
 have a government independent of Virginia; but 
 having no legal authority, recommended a conven- 
 tion of delegates, one to be chosen from each militia 
 company, to assemble in December of the same 
 year, to consider the question of separation from 
 Yirginia. 
 
 Tliis convention assembled, and was the first of a 
 series of nine, successively called by the Kentuck- 
 ians — unused to the management of representative 
 machinery — or required by the Assembly of Yirginia 
 or by Congress, in the course of the long series of 
 legislation and negotiation that lasted for seven 
 tedious and wearisome years, before the final act 
 of 1791 constituted Kentucky a State. During all 
 this long period, the feeble and disorganized com- 
 mnnity beyond the mountains Vv^as vexed by a seem- 
 
312 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 ingly interminable series of conventions ; by uncer- 
 tainty and fear respecting its fate ; by incessant and 
 cruel hostilities from Indians and English ; by party 
 spirit of the violent and reckless type which so com- 
 monly curses newly-settled States ; and by the artful 
 and secret intrigues of agents and partisans of the 
 court of Spain. 
 
 In 1784, while all these disturbing influences were 
 actively at work, there crossed the mountains, from 
 Maryland, a distinguished citizen and soldier of that 
 State, who had played a conspicuous part in the 
 Revolution, General James "Wilkinson ; a man long- 
 afterward intimately connected with all the princi- 
 pal political movements in the West. He had been 
 aid-de-camp to General Gates ; had figured, with 
 considerable credit, in many of the struggles of the 
 Revolution; and, at the conclusion, finding his for- 
 tunes impaired and his finances in so complicated a 
 condition that, with his present means, there were 
 no hopes of remedy, he directed a sagacious eye to 
 the growing "West ; and deciding promptly upon a 
 removal, came with a stock of goods to w^hat is now 
 Lexington, in Kentucky, for the purpose of establish- 
 ing himself in trade. His fine personal appearance, 
 winning manners, agreeable and dignified address — 
 his tact and ingenuity, knowledge of and adaptation to 
 human nature, and subtlety of speech — his powers of 
 insinuation, and plausibilit}^ — his elonuence, whetlier 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 313 
 
 spoken or written, equally adapted to the popular 
 level — all tliese endowments placed liim at once in 
 the highest position in the country. He was elected 
 a member of several of the organizing conventions; 
 became a prominent political character at once ; and 
 when the question of the navigation of the Missis- 
 sippi absorbed a large portion of the attention of the 
 lientuckians, this bold man embarked upon a haz- 
 ardous adventure. He procured a flat-boat, loaded 
 it with tobacco, descended the Ohio, and then the 
 Mississippi, and depositing his cargo in ^ew Orleans, 
 opened negotiations with the Spanish government. 
 The secret portion of his correspondence with Baron 
 de Carondelet, the Spanish governor at N'ew Orleans, 
 has never been made public ; but General Wilkinson 
 returned to Kentucky and informed the inhabitants 
 that he had made certain overtures to Carondelet; 
 that he had acquired for himself, by judicious nego- 
 tiation, the right of deposit for all his merchandise, 
 be it of what sort soever, in the government ware- 
 houses of the capital of Louisiana ; and that he had 
 secured a permission to trade there for a given num- 
 ber of years. He began at once to purchase all the 
 products of Kentucky for the pur]30se of prosecuting 
 this trade. He hinted furthermore that Carondelet 
 had informed him, under proper instructions from the 
 Spanish government, that if the people of Kentucky, 
 would sever their relations with the older States and 
 
 14 
 
314: 
 
 erect themselves into an independent territory oi 
 State, Sj)ain would treat or negotiate with them 
 making such treaties as should be most desirable and 
 agreeable to them, relative to outlets for trade or 
 otherwise. 
 
 This Vv'as the first hint the people of Kentucky 
 received in regard to this matter. Wilkinson for 
 some time continued his trade with iN'ew Orleans, 
 and began to lay the foundation of an immense for- 
 tune. Carondelet, not satisfied with his negotiations 
 with Wilkinson, sent one Power to approach some of 
 the other distinguished citizens of the District — for a 
 district it still remained. This man came to Benjamin 
 Sebastian, a prominent lawyer, and afterward a dis- 
 tinguished judge, and laid before him certain schemes 
 for the furtherance of the plan which had been 
 already submitted to Wilkinson ; and which insured 
 to the people of Kentucky the free navigation of the 
 Mississippi, and the right of deposit at ITew Orleans 
 for any number of years that they might desire. At 
 the same time? Mr. Guardoqui, the Spanish minister 
 accredited to our government, then in 'New York, 
 entered into treaty stipulations, with a similar object, 
 and in a secret manner, with Mr. Brown, territorial 
 delegate to Congress from Kentucky and subse- 
 quently its representative when admitted as a State. 
 
 And while the uneasy excitement about the secret 
 plans of Spain is spreading in Kentucky, and the 
 
OF THE J^nSSISSIPPI. 315 
 
 more open propositions of Guardoqui are almost pub- 
 lished. by Brown — Avliile the people are also vexed 
 and harassed with their interminable series of con- 
 ventions to no purpose — the object of the Spanish 
 court is nearly gained by Mr. Jay. This negotiator 
 lays before the confederate Congress a proposal, not 
 to give up the principle of the right to navigate 
 the Mississippi, but to cede the exercise of it for 
 twenty years, in consideration of certain advantages 
 offered in return. The seven northeastern States 
 earnestly favor the scheme ; but nine States being 
 required to adopt it, it fails. While it is in agitation, 
 however, the wrath of the Kentuckians becomes so 
 hot against the I^ew Englanders, for this selfish dis- 
 regard of the interests of the "West, that they become 
 almost ready to sever all connection with the Union, 
 and to set up an independent sovereignty within 
 the great valley. 
 
 Had this project prevailed in Congress, it is ex- 
 ceedingly probable that the after-progress of this 
 country would have been much hampered and entan- 
 gled by the indefinite complications which would 
 have sprung from the establishment of a rival 
 commonwealth beyond the mountains. As it was, 
 the bitter feelings which the scheme engendered 
 toward I^cav England remained strong for many 
 years, and the name of Jay was for a long time 
 almost infamous in the popular mind of Kentucky, 
 
316 PIONEERS, PEEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 as having been connected with what they appre- 
 hended to be a treacherous and unscrupulously selfish 
 scheme to sacrifice them and their future for the 
 advantage of a distant section of the country. Yet 
 Jay had never for a moment contemplated the re- 
 signation of tlie right to navigate the Mississippi. 
 Indeed he would have been the very last man in the 
 nation to yield a single jot of principle or of justice, 
 to infiict a wrong, or to distribute benefits unfairly. 
 His sole error was the universal one of under-esti- 
 mating the j^rospective growth of the common- 
 wealtlis of the Yalley. So far was he from any 
 improper pliancy on this point, that he had stead- 
 fastly supported the right to the river navigation, 
 both during the war and after it, in defiance of all 
 the tortuosities and intrigues which European diplo- 
 macy could bring to bear upon him, and of tlie large 
 offers of pecuniary assistance and threats of alterna- 
 tive desertion which were constantly presented by 
 the court of Spain as inducements toward the grant- 
 ing of what we sought. But the m-asses of the 
 people, however sure their " sober second thought," 
 are little competent to judge of the conduct of a 
 negotiator in a foreign land, in difficult times, who 
 must look at the needs and rights, not of one section 
 of his country, but of all ; and though Jay, now a 
 historical character, has long justly held a lofty and 
 honored place am^ong our Revolutionary heroes, in 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. g-j^T 
 
 the hearts of Kei^tuckians, as well as all others of his 
 countrymen, Ins spotless name was long a by-word 
 and a hissing among them. 
 
 So guarded were the words and actions of the 
 advocates of an independent government in Zen- 
 tuckj, that even now it cannot be demonstratively 
 proved that they bad actually agreed with Spain to 
 establish it. Still it is known that one or two of 
 them received Spanish pensions; and there can be 
 no reasonable doubt that Wilkinson, Brown, Sebas- 
 tian, Innis, and a few more, did earnestly desire such 
 an independent government, probably from the 
 double desire for political power and position for 
 themselves, and whatever pecuniary gains they could 
 e^ctort from the Spanish government. It is certain 
 that they pushed their plan to the furthest point pos- 
 sible, without instant ruin to their own prospects in 
 i^entuckj. 
 
 I proceed with the story of the Spanish intric„es 
 though out of strict chronological order. Caron- 
 delet's negotiation with Judge Sebastian throuo-b 
 Thomas Power, was brought to an end in n95 by 
 the treaty of October of tkat year, with Spain, which 
 secured the navigation of the Mississippi. Two years 
 afterward Power came again to Kentucky with a 
 plan from Carondelet for forming an independent 
 government west of the mountains. ITie public 
 mind was to be prepared by newspaper articles ; the 
 
:18 
 
 sclieme aided by Spain witli men and arms. Tliis 
 proposition was submitted to Sebastian, to Tnnis, to 
 I^icliolas, and to Wilkinson, and was decidedly dis- 
 couraged by all ; not as treasonable or unpatriotic, 
 but merely as impracticable under the circumstances. 
 Wilkinson, however, intimated that if lie should be 
 appointed governor of Natchez, for Spain, lie might 
 be able to proceed in some plan of the kind. Power 
 returned to ISTcav Orleans with this answer ; and thus 
 ended, as lar as is now known, any actual attempts 
 by Spain to dismember our Union. Sebastian, how- 
 ever, received a Spanish pension of two thousand 
 dollars a year, until 1800. 
 
 The story of the "West after the Revolution would 
 not be complete without some reference to the med- 
 dlesome and impertinent endeavors of revolutionary 
 France to reap in her turn some advantage among 
 the hardy and excitable population of the new trans- 
 AUeghanian State. There was no part of the United 
 States where the French nation received more love or 
 sympathy than in Kentucky. Her generous aid in the 
 dark days of our own contest with England were 
 gratefully remembered ; and her magnificent attitude 
 of successful defiance to the banded powers of 
 Europe who sought to beat down her newly-estab- 
 lished republican government, was enthusiastically 
 admired. That crazy democat Genet, the French 
 ambassador, deluded by tlie triumphant progress 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 6VJ 
 
 wliicli he made througli the country, believing that 
 he conld wield the moral and physical power of the 
 United States in aid of France in the contest be- 
 tween herself and England and Spain, sent four emis- 
 saries into Kentucky, to raise two thousand men, 
 and aj)point a general, descend the Ohio and Missis- 
 sippi in boats, attack the Spaniards in Louisiana, and 
 bring them under French authority. General George 
 Eogers Clark, the hero of Kaskaskia and Yincennes, 
 now considerably fallen in social and political posi- 
 tion, was so imprudent as to consent to receive the 
 supreme command of this chimerical army, with the 
 long-tailed title of "Major General in the armies of 
 France, and Commander-in-Chief of the French 
 Revolutionary Legions on the Mississippi." The 
 work of enlistment went vigorously forward. Demo- 
 cratic clubs, humble imitations of the Jacobin clubs 
 of France, were established over Kentucky, and 
 grew rampant with denunciations of the federal gov- 
 ernment ; of the Spanish treachery in closing the 
 Mississippi ; of tlie vile tricks which "Washington and 
 Jay were contriving to unite this country and Eng- 
 land again t France ; of the tyrannical excise act. 
 The new State was in a perfect ferment of disloyal 
 and fanatic excitement. There was much con-es- 
 pondence amongst the Federal and State officers 
 respecting these military schemes. President Wasli- 
 ington. Governor Shelby, and General Wayne wrote 
 
320 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 backward and forward. Depeau, one of the French 
 agents, wrote an extraordinary letter to Gov. Shelby, 
 in very French English, intended as a courteous 
 announcement of his business, and an invitation to 
 join in it. Shelby was even so much swayed from 
 his usual straight-forward common-sense as to write 
 to Gen. "\Yayne, in substance, that he had great 
 doubts whether he could consistently endeavor to 
 stop any Kentuckian or Kentuckians who should 
 merely set out to leave the State with arms and pro- 
 visions. Washmgton, who could not see the force of 
 such reasoning, laconically ordered Yfayne to garri- 
 son Fort Massac, on the Ohio, and to do what else 
 might be necessary to stop this muster of fools. The 
 Democrats, on this, grew more excited than ever. 
 They called a convention and passed some resolutions 
 full of bitter enmity to the general government ; and 
 this convention took measures to call another, whicli 
 squinted hard in the old direction of separation from 
 the Union. But just in the nick of time the news 
 came that the French Republic had recalled Genet, 
 and disapproved and disavowed his acts. This pricked 
 the bubble. Lachaise and Depeau, the chief French 
 agents, instantly lost their authority, and disap- 
 peared. Gen. Clark lost his long title and liis mili- 
 tary command. The officers and soldiers of the in- 
 tended army lost the generous grants which their 
 French friends had lavishly promised them, of lands 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 321 
 
 wliicli tliey did not own. And tlie public mind, 
 losing so many and promising subjects for excite- 
 ment, grew at once quite calm. 
 
 While Carondelet's intrigues were still proceed- 
 ing, and while the democratic and federal quarrel 
 w^as yet hot and fierce in Kentucky, the unpopular 
 administration of Washington was succeeded by the 
 actually hateful one of Adams. In the new govern- 
 ment the people of Kentucky had little confidence, 
 and entertained for it still less respect ; for they w^ere 
 convinced that it w^as unfriendly to them. ISTever- 
 theless, Kentucky had been admitted as a State ; and 
 a treaty had been formed with Spain, by which tlie 
 right of navigating the Mississippi for tliree years liad 
 been obtained, as well as the right to deposit mer- 
 chandise in I^ew Orleans for j)urposes of commerce. 
 But before this period expired, the Spanish governor 
 of Kew Orleans shut the port, and refused the -pcv- 
 mission agreed upon by the treaty. For even after 
 the organization of the new^ State, the scheme of 
 wooing her from her attachment to the confederacy 
 was still contemplated. Then came the alien and 
 sedition laws, ill-judged and oppressive enactments, 
 which awakened tumult and confusion throughout 
 the country, especially in Kentucky and Yirginia. 
 The former, irritated by their enactment, took the 
 first step in that system of nullification, afterward so 
 strangely put forward again by South Carolina. By 
 14* 
 
322 
 
 a series of resolutions passed by lier legislature, iu 
 1798-9, she denied the right of the general govern- 
 ment to interfere in matters of private State rights 
 and authority. 'No State of all the country was so 
 addicted to the principles of Jefferson, perhaps ; it 
 might be said, no people ever worshipped a dema- 
 gogue in the form of a politician as did the Iventuck- 
 ians Jefferson. And accordingly, they repudiated 
 the doctrine of Adams and his congress, and passed a 
 set of resolutions, drawn up by Jefferson with his 
 own hand for the purpose. Tlius did Kentucky de- 
 file its statute book with a direful blot ; a stain which 
 it has taken long years of fealty to the Union, to the 
 federal authority, the united central power of the 
 Republic, to wipe out. And no lapse of time will 
 remove the spot from her history. The written vrord 
 remaineth. The resolution in the book will forever 
 tell of the folly that placed it there. Let us hope 
 that the lesson will not be lost upon her sister States. 
 
 Thus goes on the muddy, crooked stream of poli- 
 tics ; Spain intriguing still ; England dispatching her 
 emissaries from the I^orth with the hope of harassing 
 the Kentucky people — and they yet retaining, though 
 not without doubt and difficulty, integrity toward the 
 confederacy. It is time for me now to j)ass from this 
 political part of my subject, and to return and trace 
 downward another line of history. 
 
 As I have said, the Indians suspended their liostili- 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 323 
 
 ties for a brief period after tlie close of the Eevolu- 
 tionaiy struggle. Finding that England had made 
 no j)ro vision for them in her treaty with the colonies, 
 they resumed hostilities after a more fearful sort than 
 had ever been seen before. By the treaty between 
 England and the United States, the former was to 
 relinquish all fortresses within our territory after the 
 boundary line had been run — the line which is now 
 the northern boundary of the Union. But there v\^as 
 also another stipulation : that English merchants were 
 to be allowed to collect their dues and debts in this 
 country precisely as before the Revolution. Vir- 
 ginia, indignant at the carrying away of slaves by 
 the British fleet, "nullified" this provision of the 
 treaty, and prohibited by law the collection of British 
 debts. England seized upon this pretext to retain 
 her hold of the fortresses upon the northern border. 
 So that her troops were yet stationed in certain forts 
 in Michigan, northern Ohio, and Indiana ; and from 
 these centres of operation and influence, the Indians 
 were constantly supplied with arms and provisions, 
 sometimes with advice and encouragement ; and were 
 continually making descents upon the border settle- 
 ments, hindering and almost absolutely preventing 
 the settlement of the N"orthwestern Territory. 
 
 Thus the people of Kentucky must be still on the 
 war-path ; their cabins and block-houses burned ; their 
 wives and children tomahawked and butchered as be- 
 
324 PIONEERS, niEAClIEKS AND PEOPLE 
 
 fore. Let ns pause a moment to recount some of the 
 incidents of this period, wliicli may be said to reach 
 from about 1784 to the battle of the Fallen Timber, 
 in lT9i. 
 
 A man named Davis walks out one morning, and 
 has only got a few steps from the door, when he turns 
 round and finds an Indian between him and the 
 threshold. Thinking to elude the savage, he runs 
 round the house so as to enter before him ; but on re- 
 turning finds that the cabin is filled with Indians, 
 and he himself is hotly pursued by the one whom he 
 had first seen. He rushes to a cornfield and suc- 
 ceeds in concealing himself. Hearing no noise, and 
 no shouts or screams from the cabin, and knowing that 
 without arms he can do nothing for the rescue of his 
 family, he runs at the top of his speed for -Q.Ye miles 
 to a block-house occupied by his brother and some 
 other settlers. These quickly sally out, return to Da- 
 vis's house, find that no blood has been spilled ; and 
 after great difficulty — for the Indians have taken every 
 means to obliterate their traces — succeed in getting 
 upon the trail. Following this with all speed, after 
 a number of hours they succeed in overtaking the 
 savages, who have still the wife and children of Da- 
 vis with them. One of the children, a boy of eleven, 
 is instantly thrown to the ground, as the Indians see 
 his father and friends approaching, and the hair and 
 skin from the top of his head skillfully removed hy 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 325 
 
 that surgical process called scalping. The rest of the 
 Indians, frightened at the crack of the rifles, take to 
 their heels, leaving the remainder of the family in a 
 sink hole by the side of the trail. The boy, spring- 
 up, his head streaming with blood, cries out at the top 
 of his voice ; " Father ! after them. ! Cuss those red- 
 skins — they've got my liar P'^ This is an illustration 
 of the spirit of the boys of that period. 
 
 There was a redoubtable hunter and Indian-fighter 
 of the name of Hart, whose quickness and keenness 
 in the warfare of the woods had obtained him the 
 name of Sharp-Eye from his Indian enemies. This 
 man had performed a number of feats which had 
 won him the unenviable distinction of the special 
 hatred of these red people. Making a descent upon 
 his neighborhood, secreting themselves over night, 
 they attack his family as they are sitting at their 
 breakfast one morning. An Indian levels his rifle 
 and shoots Hart dead. The son, a boy of twelve 
 years of age, grasps his father's rifle and sends a 
 bullet through the Indian's heart. The other savages 
 rush at the door in a body. The brave boy hurls a 
 tomahawk and splits the skull of a second; drives 
 his scalping-knife to the hilt in the heart of a third, 
 and then — the party is a large one, and the contest is 
 too imequal — they carry him off with his mother, 
 rather proud of the achievements of the lad. A 
 sister was killed on the journey ; but the boy and his 
 
326 PIONEERS, PEEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 mother, after being captives for some time, were ran- 
 somed, and returned home. 
 
 The spirit of the women of the country was of the 
 same indomitable sort. The house of a settler was 
 attacked just before the break of day. Hearing a 
 noise outside, he incautiously opened the door and 
 stepped out on the threshold, when he received the 
 contents of six or seven Indian rifles. Falling across 
 the entry, mortally wounded, his wife hastily pulled 
 the body in, and closed the door, just in season to 
 prevent the Indians from entering. They immedi- 
 ately, with clubs and tomahawks, commenced to cut 
 away the door. There were no firearms in the house, 
 the settler having been so reckless as to be without 
 them. They succeeded in breaking down one of the 
 puncheons of the door and were pressing in. The 
 bold wife had nothing but an axe ; but as one savage 
 after another crawled through, she hewed him down 
 with the axe, and drew him inside ; until four were 
 dispatched. The other three, thinking almost any 
 other plan more promising, now climb the roof and 
 seek to descend the chimney. But female ingenuity 
 is fertile in resources. There is only one feather bed 
 in the house, and quick as thought she empties it into 
 the bed of glowing coals in the fireplace. Two more 
 of the Indians, suffocated by the pungent fumes, fall 
 into the fire, and as they grovel in the live coals, she 
 splits their skulls with her axe. The last of the party 
 
OF TnE MISSISSIPPI. o27 
 
 tries the broken door again. As he is crawling 
 through, the valiant woman gives him also a cleath- 
 w^ound with her heavy weapon, and is left safe for a 
 time and alone w^itli her great sorrow and her brave 
 revenge, and with a ghastly company of eight bloody 
 corpses — her husband and his seven murderers. 
 
 There was for many years resident in the E^ortli- 
 western Territory, in what became afterward the 
 State of Illinois, a French Creole woman, born at the 
 post of St. Joseph's, upon Lake Michigan. She was 
 fortunate enough, during her singular life, to have 
 three husbands, two of them Frenchmen and one 
 American. She w^as known as Madame Lecompte, 
 the name of her second husband, for that of the 
 third she did not choose to keep ; a very vigorous, 
 clear-minded person, capable of adajjting herself to 
 circumstances, and well experienced in the customs 
 of her Indian neighbors. Born in 1Y35, she so- 
 journed some time in Michigan, and afterward 
 descended to the French settlements in Illinois, and 
 here took up her residence at Kahohia. Many times, 
 when the Indians were making descents upon the 
 French at the instigation of the English, this woman, 
 who w^as much beloved by the savages, received pre- 
 vious information from them that they were about to 
 attack the settlements, in order that she might escape 
 before the onslaught. The message alw^ays came in 
 the night-time ; but instead of escaping, the bold- 
 
328 
 
 hearted woman would instantly set out for tlie Indian 
 camp, approach as day was breaking, and freely 
 enter amongst their host, secure of respectful treat- 
 ment. Sometimes she would stop with them one, 
 two, or three days ; protesting, urging, reasoning with 
 them, and inducing them at length to give up their 
 foray. Returning to the settlement, with three or 
 four hundred savage warriors, who had come out to 
 burn and slay, she brought them, in friendly guise, to 
 make their humble acknowledgments to the settlers, 
 and to partake of their hospitality. Thus, in a dozen 
 cases at least, did this brave woman, at Kahokia and 
 Kaskaskia, prevent the destruction of the French and 
 American inhabitants. She lived till 184:3, reaching 
 the astonishing age of a hundred and nine years ; 
 and the old chronicler. Governor Reynolds, whom I 
 am so fortunate as to number among my personal 
 friends, says, that to the last she was active in body 
 and mind, and possessed her faculties and functions, 
 intellectual and physical, at that advanced period, 
 better than women of forty or fifty do now. She 
 was accustomed to go out in all weathers, walking on 
 the ice and snow, and in tlie open air, and health, 
 longevity, beauty of complexion, were more certainly 
 secured by this means, says Governor Reynolds, than 
 by making pilgrimages " on fine, rich carpets, be- 
 tween the piano and the air-tight stove." 
 
 William Whiteside, a soldier of the Revolution, 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 329 
 
 wlio had fought bravely and well at the battle of 
 Elng's Mountain, a strong athletic woodsman, of 
 Irish blood, was in 1795 settled in the American 
 Bottom, between Ivashaskia and Kahokia. Getting 
 intelligence that a party of Indians was encamped in 
 the neighborhood, with the design of stealing his 
 horses, the fiery old warrior summoned a little band 
 of fourteen men, his tried companions in many a 
 combat with the savages, and set out to surprise 
 them in camp. Surrounding them just before day, a 
 furious charge was made, and after a severe combat, 
 all the Indians were killed but one, who fled, and who 
 was killed when he got home, by his tribesmen, for 
 his cowardice. In this battle, Capt. Whiteside re- 
 ceived a wound which he thought mortal, and which 
 brought him to the ground. But he neither flinched 
 nor feared ; and he lay there exhorting his men to 
 fight bravely, not to retreat an inch, and never to 
 permit the enemy to touch him after he was dead. 
 One of his sons, who was unable to use his gun, being 
 wounded in the arm, now came up, and on examin- 
 ing his father's wound, discovered that the ball had 
 merely glanced from a rib, and passing round, had 
 lodged under the skin near the spine. He quietly 
 drew his butcher-knife and cut out the ball, as he 
 would out of a tree, merely remarking in a dry way, 
 " Father, you're not dead yet !" The old man, on 
 reflection, thought so too ; and jumping to his feet. 
 
330 PIONEEES, PEEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 cried out, " Boys, I can fight the Indians yet !" and 
 rushed again into the figlit. 
 
 I shall not delay to give details of the incessant 
 border barbarities of the Indians ; nor of the expedi- 
 tions which, one after another, went forth against 
 them. After a considerable jDcriod, the general 
 government undertook the defence of the western set- 
 tlements. I need not detail the adventures, the suffer- 
 ings, the defeats and degradation of the hapless hosts 
 of Harmor and St. Clair ; nor the splendid triumphal 
 progress of Anthony Wayne ; nor the decisive vic- 
 tory gained by him in the great battle of the Fallen 
 Timber, which reduced the belligerent tribes to a 
 condition of humble, though unwilling submission. 
 But I will take time to narrate a few circumstances 
 of individual adventure in Wayne's army, which 
 will serve as additional illustrations of the character 
 of western woodsmen of that day. 
 
 Attached to Wayne's army w^as a small body of 
 scouts, whose business it was to range up and down 
 the woods in front and flank of the line of march, 
 familiarize themselves wdth the movements of the 
 savages, and every now and then to arrest some 
 Indian and bring him to the camp, that the general 
 might get his news at first hand. The head of these 
 scouts was Captain William Wells, who had asso- 
 ciated with him a man named Miller, another named 
 McLennan, and three otheji's. These, while in camp. 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 331 
 
 were gentlemen at large, and no duties devolved 
 upon tliem ; but when tliey were on tlie war-patli 
 their occupations were of a sufficiently hazardous 
 description to make np for former ease. In 1793, 
 Wayne had sent out Wells, with Miller and McLen- 
 nan, for the purpose of catching an Indian. They 
 proceeded northward in the direction of some Indian 
 towns. When yet at a distance, they heard a sound 
 of merry-making ; and approaching an open glade in 
 the wood, found three Indians seated near its centre, 
 cooking venison, laughing and talking at leisure. 
 The three spies were too distant to rush in upon 
 them ; and it was necessary to take one of them alive. 
 They therefore skirted along the timber till they 
 came opposite to the point from which they Iiad first 
 discovered the savao:es. Here there was a fallen 
 tree ; and creeping along this mitil they were safely 
 ensconced between the branches, it was arranged 
 that the spy on the right should shoot the Indian on 
 the right ; he on the left should pick his man in the 
 same way, w^hile McLennan, who was in the middle, 
 and the fleetest man in the party, w^as to run after 
 the third Indian, and seize him. The fire was given, 
 the two Indians fell dead, and, as was expected, the 
 middle one took to his heels with all dispatch, 
 McLennan after him. The smoke had not cleared 
 away before the two men w^ere seen bounding along 
 at tlie top of their speed. ISTear at hand was a 
 
332 PIONEEES, PEEACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 stream of water. The Indian, seeing McLennan 
 gaining on liim, ran to the river, and plunging over 
 a bluff, twenty feet high, landed in a deep quagmire. 
 McLennan, without pausing, sprang over him ; and 
 up to their breasts, as they stood, both mired fast, 
 but within reach of each other, a desperate struggle 
 ensued. The knife and tomahawk were drawn, and 
 the two foes were on the point of a bloody conflict, 
 when the other two spies came up, and burst into a 
 hearty laugh at the absurd phase of the spectacle. 
 The Lidian, seeing that there was no chance for him, 
 dropped his weapons and surrendered. The others 
 extricated them from their embarrassing attitude; 
 and while the two who had been in the morass were 
 washing off the dirt, it was discovered that the man 
 who had thus been seized, was not really an Lidian, 
 though burned and browned so as to be almost of 
 their tawny complexion ; but that he bore indubit- 
 able marks of white origin. Miller liad himself been 
 a prisoner with the Lidians many years, having been 
 captured in his early youth ; and had left a brother, 
 Christopher Miller, in their hands. A strange sus- 
 picion flashed upon him. It was years since he had 
 seen his brother. The white Indian, however, was 
 sulky, and refused to answer any questions, until 
 Miller, riding up — for they had placed him upon a 
 horse — called him by his Indian name. The man 
 flushed, turned crimson, and asked, " How do you 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 333 
 
 know my name ?" Here was the trutli revealed as 
 by a mii-acle. The brothers' hands had been provi- 
 dentially stayed from shedding each other's blood ; 
 and after long and urgent entreaty, pleading even 
 with tears in his eyes, Miller succeeded in winning 
 Christopher from his w^ld Indian ways ; and at 
 length induced him to join their scouting and forag- 
 ing party, of Avhich he became one of the most reso 
 lute and indomitable members. 
 
 Thus reinforced, and with two other men, they 
 were sent on a subsequent occasion, by General 
 Wayne, to take other prisoners. They had pro- 
 ceeded thirty-five miles from Fort Defiance, in the 
 direction of Maumee. This was in the year 1794, 
 just before the great battle in wdiich Wayne was vic- 
 torious. Arriving within two miles of the English 
 post, they rode boldly into an Lidian town near to 
 where Fort Meigs was afterward built, as if they 
 had come from the British fort ; and being painted 
 and decorated with feathers in Indian style, although 
 they met Indians constantly, as some of them could 
 speak the language, they were supposed to be none 
 other than a party of Indians. In an out-of-the-way 
 place, beyond the town, they seize an Indian warrior 
 with his squaw, gag and handcufi" them, tie them 
 upon the saddle, and turn toward the American 
 camp. Presently they reach the neighborhood of a 
 large Indian encampment; and now^ these seven 
 
334: PIONEERS, PF.EACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 reckless men make a detour, and gain tlie brush at 
 some distance, where they conceal their prisoners, 
 and then resolve to return and have a bout with the 
 Indians in camp. It is understood by previous 
 arrangement that they are to ride in as if they were 
 all Indians, and enter into an amicable conversation 
 w^ith any parties about the fires, in order that they 
 may gain all the information possible. Sitting quietly 
 on their saddles, every man with his hand on the 
 trigger of his rifle, they coolly ride into the camj) as 
 agreed. They have an agreeable chat of fifteen or 
 twenty minutes with the Indian warriors, who are 
 loitering around the fires ; when an old chief sitting 
 upon ■ a log, whispers to his friends that there is 
 something suspicious about these men ; they don't 
 seem Indians. Wells overhears the remark ; the 
 spies discharge their rifles each into the breast of an 
 Indian, and then putting spurs to their horses, and 
 lying down on their necks so as to present less mark 
 for their enemy's fire, they ride full speed into the 
 forest, whooping and hallooing as if they were 
 demons. The Indians however, grasp their rifies 
 .and deliver their fire, in confusion and bewilder- 
 ment. Yet before the spies have got beyond the 
 circle of the firelioht McLennan is shot shrousrh the 
 shoulder, and "Wells, receiving a bullet in his arm, 
 loses his rifle. May, a third man, was taken prisoner ', 
 the others, after a dangerous and fatiguing journey, 
 
OF THE MISSISSirPI. 335 
 
 arrived safely at camp. And this was a fanny freak ; 
 an amusing adventure ; a specimen of tiie sport 
 relislied by the rugged Borderers of that old day. 
 
 McLennan was the fleetest runner in Wayne's army ; 
 doubtless one of the fleetest that ever lived. It is 
 told of him on good authority, that when tlie 
 army was encamped at Greenville, he took a short 
 run, and sprang over a camp wagon which rose, with 
 its cover on, just nine feet from the ground. 
 
 Captain Wells, the chief of this band of daj-ing 
 men, met an appropriate fate in a characteristic 
 manner. Long after Wayne's expedition, during 
 the Indian hostilities in 1S12, he held the official 
 position of interpreter to the Miami nation. The 
 Pottawatomies had surrounded the American garrison 
 of Fort Dearborn, where Chicago now stands; and 
 Wells, whose niece was wife to the commander, 
 Major Heald, had gone thither with the intention 
 of aiding the troops to escape to Fort Wayne. But 
 he was excessively obnoxious to the Pottawatomies, 
 who were also much enraged at finding that the gar- 
 rison of Fort Dearborn had destroyed their powder, 
 instead of delivering it up as was agreed. A little 
 after the garrison, according to a sort of capitula- 
 tion between the officers and chiefs, had set out on 
 their journey to Fort Wayne, the irritated Potta- 
 watomies attacked them. Wells, seeing instantly 
 that there was no hope, and knowing that if 
 
336 nONEEKS, PEEACHEKS AND PEOPLE 
 
 lie were taken prisoner, he would be subjected to 
 long and dreadful tortures, wetted powder and 
 blackened his face in token of defiance, and mount- 
 ing his horse, began to pour out on the Indians all 
 the abusive and insulting terms he was master of. 
 This, as he had intended, soon irritated them to such 
 a pitch that one of them shot him down from his 
 horse, and then springing upon him like a beast, cut 
 him open, tore out his heart and ate it. 
 
 And now I come to the last portion of my subject. 
 In the early years of the present century there sud- 
 denly arose from the midst of peace and security, a 
 danger that threatened anew the existence of the 
 country, by aiming at the disruption of its territory. 
 This was the result of certain plans of a man who 
 had served with credit in the Revolutionary war, 
 rising to the rank of colonel ; of a singularly acute, 
 and shrewd intellect, fascinating address, perfect 
 courtesy of manner, profoundly acquainted with 
 human nature, a quick reader of the faults and follies 
 of all about him, as haughtily and imscrupulously 
 ambitious as Lucifer himself; long a most able and 
 successful politician ; once Yice-President, after failing 
 of the Presidency itself only by a few votes ; fallen 
 however, in consequence of that failure in the esteem 
 of his party ; the deliberate and delighted murderer 
 of the greatest statesman our country ever boasted ; 
 but now an outlaw by proclammation, quite bank- 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 337 
 
 rupt in fortune and in political hopes, and ready for 
 any design, how bad or desperate soever, which ex- 
 hibited any chance of regaining wealth and power. 
 For between fame and notoriety, Aaron Burr seems 
 to have no choice. 
 
 Burr's plans were masked by a pretended enter- 
 prise for colonizing a large tract of wild lands among 
 the distant rivers and marshes of upper Louisiana, in 
 which he held a nominal interest under the Spanish 
 grant to the Baron de Bastrop. His actual design he 
 most probably never fully revealed to any person. 
 But the common belief is well founded that he in- 
 tended to attack the Spanish possessions, and to carve 
 out for himself some principality or magnificent 
 estate somewhere in the West, between the Missis- 
 sippi River and the Isthmus of Darien. Whether 
 his empire was to be Mexico, Texas, or Louisiana, 
 and how far his scheme included the territory of the 
 United States, will probably never be known. 
 
 Burr visited the West in two successive years, 
 1805 and 1806 ; winning friends and partisans every- 
 where, and by that strange personal magnetism 
 which was, perhaps, his most remarkable character- 
 istic, becoming especially a favorite among the 
 ladies. Upon his second visit, however, he was 
 arrested at the suit of Col. Joseph Hamilton Daviess, 
 then U. S. attorney ; who, almost alone among the 
 whole population of Kentuclv)^, was profoundly con- 
 
 15 
 
338 PIONEERS, PEEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 vinced of the treasonableness of Burr's designs. 
 Daviess is famous as an orator ; but far more deserv- 
 ing of renown, it seems to me, is the impregnable 
 moral courage and lofty rock-like steadfastness to liis 
 convictions which he showed in the series of vigorous 
 endeavors he made under circumstances the most 
 discouraging, to insure the trial of a man whom he be- 
 lieved a criminal. He was one of the very few federal- 
 ists in Kentucky; and as such, all his public acts 
 were of course bitterly censured, and his motives 
 continually questioned. In the present instance, 
 however, the bold attorney had not only to stand up 
 under the weight of this political odium, whicli his 
 powerful shoulders had already easily supported for 
 years, but under the accumulated storm of obloquy, 
 indignation, and ridicule, wdiich was liberally hurled 
 against him from all sides, for his persevering attacks 
 "upon a man of national reputation, whose personal 
 and political friends filled Kentucky, and wdio num- 
 bered among those who were either his very j)artners 
 in crime, or his zealous followers in a supposed jus- 
 tifiable political enterj)rise, numbers of the influential 
 citizens of the District. 
 
 Did the occasion permit, an interesting account 
 might be given of the exciting legal contest which 
 began on the third of J^ovember, 1806, before the 
 United States District Court, of which Harry Innis, 
 previously a fellow-intriguer of Benjamin Sebastian 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 339 
 
 with the Spaniards, was judge. A motion by Daviess, 
 for process to bring Burr up to answer a charge of 
 misdemeanor in organizing a military expedition 
 within the United States, against a friendly power, 
 opened the case. The motion was denied, but was 
 granted a short time afterward, at Burr's own re- 
 quest. Twice, a day was fixed for the trial, and 
 each time the resolute attorney found himself, to his 
 keen mortification, obliged to ask an adjournment on 
 account of the absence of an essential witness. The 
 second time Daviess requested the Court to keep the 
 jury impannelled until he could bring up the recusant 
 by cajpias / and while Burr, who had, on the former 
 occasion made a dignified and most telling address 
 to the Court, remained silent, Daviess was opj)osed 
 by Henry Clay, Burr's counsel ; and for hours to- 
 gether these celebrated "orators battled with each 
 other upon the legal question, but illuminated and 
 pointed their arguments with brilliant rhetoric and 
 sharp and personal assaults and rejoinders, which 
 held the crowded court-room in the profoundest 
 silence. 
 
 Innis refused to keep the jury without business ; 
 and Daviess, to gain a little time, sent to them an in • 
 dictment against the absent witness, John Adair, 
 which they found not a true bill. He then moved 
 to compel his attendance by attachment, but was 
 again bafiled ; and the case going to the grand jury, 
 
340 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 with the witnesses then present, Burr was triumph- 
 antly acquitted by the throwing out of Daviess' bilL 
 The friends of the victorious plotter gave a splendid 
 ball in Franhfort in honor of the occasion, and 
 Daviess' friends, rallying, followed it by another in 
 his honor. 
 
 Burr had only secured the services of Clay by a 
 most sweeping and enormous falsehood. He assured 
 him in the strongest and broadest terms that he 
 neither entertained views, nor possessed friends nor 
 means intended or calculated to disturb the govern- 
 ment in any manner whatever ; and that he had 
 signed no military commission, and owned no mili- 
 tary stores or weapons; and to this vast lie he 
 pledged his honor. The tremendous impudence of 
 the fabrication will appear, when it is remembered 
 that his military preparations had begun four months 
 before, and that at the very moment of making it, 
 the advance of his army, organized, armed, and pro- 
 visioned, was on Blennerhassett's island, on the 
 frontiers of Kentucky ; or even descending the Ohio. 
 
 It was not long before the delusion which had so 
 long obscured the Kentuckians, was thoroughly dis- 
 pelled, and they did justice to the penetration and 
 resolute perseverance of Daviess, whose reputation 
 throughout the West rose to a higher pitch than ever. 
 There are few public men who are not, at some 
 period of life, called to pass through a similar ordeal 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 341 
 
 of misunderstanding, perhaps almost ignominy. But 
 to him who is in the right, the time of recompense 
 always comes. The clouds do not always tarry about 
 the mountain's side. They roll themselves up and 
 shrink away in the sunshine, and the everlasting 
 j)eak stands out in its grandeur, lifted high in the 
 heavens, uninjured by the darkness that is past, and 
 seeming even more magnificent at the withdrawal of 
 its transient veil. 
 
 Burr, leaving Frankfort at the conclusion of the 
 trial, joined his forces, descended the Ohio and Mis- 
 sissippi, and was arrested and his men dispersed 
 near JSTatchez. He was taken to Washington, the 
 capital of the Mississippi Territory, and without diflS.- 
 culty found friends who gave bail in ten thousand 
 dollars for his appearance at court. He appeared, 
 moved unsuccessfully for a discharge, and apprehen- 
 sive of the consequences of a removal before a higher 
 court, fled away eastward by night. 
 
 On the 18th of February, 1807, late at night, 
 Nicholas Perkins, register, and Thomas Malone, clerk 
 of the court, are playing backgammon in their cabin, 
 in the little village of Wakefield, on the western 
 verge of Alabama, when a knock is heard at the 
 door, and on opening it, two travellers inquire of 
 Perkins the route to Col. Hinson's. While he 
 answers that it is seven miles away, by a difficult 
 path and over a dangerous creek, his companion 
 
34:2 PIONEERS, PKKACnERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 throws more j)Ine-wood on the fire, and the blaze 
 now enables the inquisitive register to observe that 
 the speaker has a keen, striking face, and ejes that 
 flash and sparkle with wonderful brilliancy; that lie 
 wears an old hat and coarse clothes, but remarkably 
 handsome boots. The travellers ride on, and Perkins 
 instantly assures his companion that the inquirer is 
 Aaron Burr, and urges him to go with himself at 
 once to Ilinson's and procure his arrest. Malone 
 declines. The register, hurrying off to the sherifi*, one 
 Brightwell, awakens him ; and they set out at once 
 for Ilinson's, which they reach after a severe jour- 
 ney. Perkins thinks best to stay in the woods, lest 
 Burr should recognize him, and sends Brightwell 
 into the house, who satisfies himself that they are 
 right, but, for some reason, delays to take any steps 
 for the capture. Perkins, after waiting shivering in 
 the woods until he is tired, and hearing nothing of 
 the sherifi", now makes the best of his way to Fort 
 Stoddart, on the Tombigbee, commanded by Captain 
 Edmund P. Gaines, where he arrives at sunrise. 
 Gaines, on learning the news, at once sets out with a 
 file of men, and about nine o'clock meets Burr, with 
 his companion, together with Brightwell, the recreant 
 sheriff, who seems to have been fascinated by Burr, 
 and now to have been guiding him on the road to 
 Pensacola ; from which port he would have sailed for 
 Europe, to endeavor there to obtain new means foi 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 343 
 
 liis intended expedition. Notwithstanding the vehe- 
 ment eloquence with which Burr denounced the 
 proclamations and proceedings for his arrest, and the 
 ingenious mode in which he enlarged upon the 
 responsibility of stopping travellers, the straightfor- 
 ward young soldier marches him to the fort, and 
 retains him there for some time, while he prepares to 
 send him prisoner to Yirginia. During this time, 
 Burr makes himself a favorite with an invalid bro- 
 ther of the commander, with Mrs. Captain Gaines, 
 an accomplished and lovely woman, daughter of 
 Judge Harry Toulmin, and with every one he meets. 
 After some weeks, Gaines succeeds in forming an 
 escort to his mind, consisting of Colonel JSTicholas 
 Perkins, wdio had caused the arrest, two United 
 States soldiers, and seven or eight men chosen by 
 Perkins as especially reliable, energetic, and unse- 
 ducible ; and after a long and most fatiguing journey, 
 all the hardships and dangers of which Burr endured 
 without a complaint, they reached the settled country 
 of the Atlantic seaboard. While passing through 
 South Carolina, where Burr was still popular, and of 
 which his son-in-law, Alston, was governor, he 
 attempted to escape, leaping from his horse and 
 appealing to the citizens whom he found assembled 
 at a merry-making at one of the towns on the road. 
 But Perkins, a tall and athletic man, seized Burr and 
 flung him bodily into the saddle, and with one guard 
 
844 PIONEERS, PEEACHEES AND PEOPLE. 
 
 holding his horse's bridle, and others urging the 
 beast from behind, they hurried him onward ont of 
 reiicli. In the revulsion of his disappointment at this 
 failure. Burr, ordinarily so inaccessible to fear or sor- 
 row, for once gave way to a violent outburst of grief, 
 and even wept like a child ; and one of his guards, a 
 kind-hearted man, wept with him. Burr was safely 
 conveyed the remainder of the distance to Rich- 
 mond; the story of his trial there, and his subse- 
 quent varying fortunes, his obscure and evil life, his 
 unhappy death, is sufficiently familiar to you. Tlie 
 moral of his career has often been recited, but it wHl 
 bear a repetition. The lesson is simple, but fearfully 
 important ; and its weight is not lessened by any cii'- 
 cumstance in the manners or the morals of our times. 
 Burr was a man of splendid intellect, and of power- 
 ful passions. He had both the magnificent machine, 
 and vast motive power. But he was destitute of 
 moral sentiment, or of religious feeling. He lacked 
 the guiding and controlling hand that must measure 
 the application of the force, and direct the working 
 of the enginery. And without this, without the wise 
 and just hand on engine and on helm, the magnifi- 
 cence of the vessel only makes her ruin the sadder ; 
 the power and speed of her movements only drive 
 her with a more fearful crash u]3on the fatal rocks. 
 Head without heart tends straight and fast to de- 
 struction, and brings the awful fate of Aaron Burr. 
 
Lecture VIII. 
 
 MANM m THE WILDERNESS; 
 
 OK, 
 
 THE OLD PREACHERS AND THEIR PREACHLXG. 
 
 15^ 
 
MANNA m THE WILDERNESS ; 
 
 THE OLD PREACHERS AND THEIR PREACHING. 
 
 After the defeat of tlie English forces before 
 Fort Duqiiesne Tinder the ill-fated Braddock, it was 
 desired still to wrest that strong position from the 
 grasp of the French, and General Forbes was placed 
 at the head of an expedition to effect that object. It 
 was thought fit, however, that he should be preceded 
 by some person snfficientlj able and experienced to 
 bring over the minds of the indomitable inhabitants 
 of the wilderness from the canse of the French to 
 that of the English. The person selected for this 
 hazardous enterprise was a Moravian missionary, 
 Christian Frederick Post. He had long been labor- 
 ing among the Delawares on the Susquehanna, and 
 had acquired a thorough knowledge of the Indian 
 languages, and of their habits and customs. He was 
 calm, simple-hearted, intrepid, and accustomed to all 
 the perils he had now to face. Confiding himself 
 and his cause to the hands of his Great Master, he 
 
 84T 
 
348 PIONEEKS, PEEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 betook himself to tlie forest, attended by a little com- 
 pany of savages. His negotiation was eminently 
 successful ; and though his life was threatened again 
 and again, he succeeded in returning safely to the 
 settlements. By the wise and skillful efforts of this 
 man, the Indians were completely won over to the 
 cause of the English. The fall of Fort Duquesne 
 was the consequence ; and the arms of the English 
 were crowned with triumph. 
 
 After the close of the war, in 1761, Post re- 
 turned to his labor among the Indians, crossed the 
 Alleghany Eiver, and found himself upon the 
 Muskingum, in the now State of Ohio. Here he 
 settled among the Delawares, whose language he 
 knew, and among whose brethren he had already 
 labored for many years. But the tribe among whom 
 he now found himself, while a part of them were 
 inclined to a peacable disposition toward the Eng- 
 lish, were still in part exceedingly hostile ; and he 
 found great difficulties in his way. These, however, 
 he serenely met and overcame. Having taken pos- 
 session of a piece of ground allotted him, he proposed 
 to erect a cabin, for the double purpose of a home 
 and a school-house, that he might instruct the savages 
 and their children. As he commenced clearing the 
 timber from this ground, some of the Indians in- 
 quired his intentions. He told them that a mission- 
 ary must live, and in order to eat, he must raise corn. 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 349 
 
 " Nay," said the Indians ; " the French priests with 
 whom we are acquainted, to whose labors we have 
 been accustomed, look fat and comely, and they raise 
 no corn ; and if you be the servant of God, as you 
 say you are, and as they say they are, your God will 
 feed you, as he feeds them ; you can therefore have 
 no large tract of ground to till. If you have a farm, 
 other English will come and open farms, and then a 
 fort must be built to defend you ; and then our lands 
 will be taken away from us, and we shall be driven 
 toward the setting sun." The logic of the Indians 
 was excellent, and their power sufficient to sustain 
 it, if it was not; Post had, therefore, to content 
 himself with a small patch sufficient for a vegetable 
 garden. Here, then, in company with the cele- 
 brated Heckewelder, he commenced his labors. 
 
 The war of Pontiac beginning in the following 
 year, the two missionaries, warned of their danger 
 by the simple-hearted Indian children of the forest, 
 returned east of the mountains, and there remained for 
 six years, when, together with David Zeisberger, they 
 came back to the Muskingum, and laid the foundations 
 of the town of Gnadenhutten, a memorable settle- 
 ment of the good Moravians and their Indians. This 
 was the first establishment of those devout and 
 useful missionaries west of the mountains. Many an 
 Indian's heart was won to the cause of the truth by 
 their patience, constancy, and judicious humble 
 
350 PIONKEES, PEEACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 instructions; and flourishing out-stations began to 
 grow np all around them. During all the Revolu- 
 tionary struggle, the Moravians were successfully 
 laboring toward the conversion of the Delaware 
 Indians. But the towns they occupied were unfor- 
 tunately just upon the frontier, between the whites 
 upon the one side, and the Indians upon the other. 
 The Wyandots and Shawnees, fiercest of all the 
 hostile tribes of the ITorthwest, in making incursions 
 upon the frontiers of Virginia and Pennsylvania, 
 must needs pass through the settlements of these 
 Christian Indians; and the settlers in the western 
 parts of those States, in attempting to make reprisals 
 for the outrages perpetrated upon them, must also 
 take the same road. They were thus feared and sus- 
 pected by both parties ; and the British in the neigh- 
 borhood of Detroit, at length determined that their 
 settlements should be broken up, and, with or 
 against their will, they must now be removed to the 
 neighborhood of Sandusky. This they were loath to 
 do, and would not voluntarily abandon their peaceful 
 homes and firesides, their pleasant maize fields, and 
 the sunny clearings around their comfortable resi- 
 dences. But they were forcibly taken away by 
 command of the British ofiicers. ^N'early a hundred 
 of them perished in the winter of 1781-2, in the 
 neighborhood of Sandusky ; and the survivors re- 
 solved to return to their old settlements, and there 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. oOl 
 
 gather in tlieir corn, wliicli had been allowed to 
 remain out during the winter. 
 
 A. company of settlers from the western part of 
 Pennsylvania about this time resolved on an excur- 
 sion into the Indian territory for the purpose of 
 punishing the "Wyandots, who had been committing 
 outrages within that State. About ninety of these 
 men, under the command of one Col. Williamson, after 
 two or three days' march from Fort Pitt, reached the 
 peaceful settlements of our Christian Indians. The 
 converts were abroad in the fields, men, women, and 
 children, gathering in their corn. Seeing the white 
 men approaching, and supposing them friendly, they 
 came forward to meet them courteously, and cor- 
 dially invited them to their homes. The whites told 
 them that they had come for the purpose of convey- 
 ing them for safe keeping to Fort Pitt. Some of the 
 Indians had been there the preceding year, and had 
 been treated with remarkable kindness by the com- 
 mandant. To this proposition of the whites they 
 therefore readily acceded, and collected themselves 
 in the village. All the remaining Indians, who were 
 scattered in various localities within a circuit of four 
 or five miles, were also brouglit in. "When they 
 were all gathered together, they were put under a 
 guard, and the question was then put by the colonel, 
 " Shall these Indians be put to death or marched to 
 Pittsburg?" All in favor of sparing their lives 
 
352 PIONEEES, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 were ordered to stej) out two paces in advance of tlie 
 line as the detachment stood. Only sixteen men 
 of the whole ninety took the requisite step. The 
 vote was for death. The intelligence was communi- 
 cated to those humble and simple-minded people, 
 now imprisoned and helpless within their own dwell- 
 ings, and they were told that with the morrow's 
 dawn they must all perish. They begged for life, 
 but their prayer was unheeded, save by that Ear 
 which is ever open to the prayers of all. The white 
 men were deaf to their pleadings, and even to the 
 wailings of women and the innocent entreaties of 
 little children. And on the morrow that company 
 of men, with your blood and mine in their veins, 
 Anglo-Saxon men, took those people, five and thirty 
 men, four and thirty women, five and forty little 
 children, laid them out on blocks of wood, and stand- 
 ins: over them with their axes, clove their skulls in 
 sunder ; one of the most atrocious, horrible, devilish 
 deeds that was ever perpetrated upon the face of God 
 Almighty's earth ! 
 
 Fearfully enough was this black-hearted murder 
 avenged by Him who watches the deeds of his recre- 
 ant children. ISText year these same volunteers fitted 
 out another expedition. They marched this time five 
 hundred strong, intending not only to burn and lay 
 waste the territory of the hostile Indians, but also to 
 destroy those of the inoffensive Christian Indians who 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 
 
 353 
 
 yet remained. 1 am glad to say tliat most of them, 
 diabolical miscreants as tliey were, fell victims either 
 to the tomahawks of the hostile savages, or to the 
 silent and nnrelenting power of the wilderness. Col. 
 Crawford, who had been an old friend and agent of 
 George Washington, and was unwillingly and unwit- 
 tingly made commandant of this last party, was burnt 
 alive with peculiarly frightful torments, by the Wjan- 
 dots, by whom he was taken prisoner. 
 
 The Moravian brethren were the first to bring the 
 Word of Life and Truth into the vast region of the 
 Mississippi Yalley ; always of course excepting the 
 old Jesuit Fathers and other Catholic missionaries 
 who came with the French. There are yet, in 
 the western country, and have been ever since the 
 time of those atrocious murders, descendants of the 
 Christian Indians, the converts of the Moravian 
 brethren ; and I believe there are yet some white 
 Moravians in the eastern part of the State of Ohio. 
 
 South of the Ohio, the earliest Christian denomina- 
 tion to enter Kentucky as a field of labor, were the 
 Baptists — a large and exceedingly influential sect in 
 Virginia and Isovth. Carolina, from which States 
 most of the early settlers of Kentucky came. While 
 there were few preachers who came with the single 
 purpose of preaching the Word, there were a good 
 many who were licensed to administer the sacra- 
 ments, or whose object was to instruct the young, or 
 
35i PIONEERS, PEEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 like their secular companions, to take possession of 
 the country, and to secure for themselves farms and 
 estates. These were not long after followed by 
 Presbyterian ministers and missionaries, who came 
 here expressly for the purpose of preaching the Gos- 
 pel. It is not my desire here to assume a sectional 
 or denominational position. JSTevertheless, it is neces- 
 sary to call special attention to the characteristics, 
 peculiarities, lives, manners, customs, names, and 
 reputations of some of the preachers of my own 
 church, the Methodist. I am not to detract in the 
 slightest degree from either the Baptists or Presby- 
 terians, the two other pioneer churches in the wil- 
 derness. Their case has been presented in literature. 
 But the Methodist church has had comparatively 
 little advocacy before the people at large. But little 
 is known, outside of its own limits, of its operations, 
 movements, or men ; or of their agency in the pro- 
 motion of civilization and Christianity. And it is 
 with these men that I am more familiarly acquainted, 
 and as, for the major part of this lecture, I am to 
 rely upon my own personal observation and acquaint- 
 ance with living men, and with and of those who 
 liave passed away from the scene of action within the 
 last twenty years, it is both natural and necessary 
 that I should principally speak of them. 
 
 The Baptists did a noble and excellent work, as 
 did also the Presbyterians, in the early times of the 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 355 
 
 "West. Tlie Methodist cliurcli was a younger cliurcli 
 than these — its first reguhir preachers having hmded 
 on this continent in 1770. Fourteen years after their 
 first teacher, sent out by "Wesley, set foot in America — 
 seven years after the first Baptist minister in Ken- 
 tucky — and three years after the first Presbyterian — • 
 they commenced penetrating the wilds of the Far 
 West, and tlieir pioneer missionaries, James Haw 
 and Benjamin Ogden, crossed the Alleghanies and 
 entered the boundless tracts of Kentucky. Others 
 rapidly followed him. At first there was much an- 
 tagonism — a sort of pugnacious rivalry or " free 
 fight" between these various denominations out in 
 the West — nor has this yet quite passed away. There 
 is an active, rough, resolute courage, independence, 
 and pluck about the western people, which inclines 
 them to close scufiiing and grappling, a sort of knock- 
 down attitude visible through all the moods of their 
 life ; and their clergy are not free from the same pe- 
 culiarities. They were therefore great controversial- 
 ists ; and there was an immense din about Baptism 
 and Pedobaptism ; Free Grace and Predestination ; 
 Falling from Grace and the Perseverance of the 
 Saints, etc., etc. Brethren of difi'erent denominations 
 often held what they called discussions or debates ; 
 where one of one denomination challenged one of 
 anotlier. Meeting together before the people, occu- 
 pying a temporary pulpit in a grove, they would 
 
356 PIONEERS, PREACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 thus treat — and maltreat — the doctrines and viewa 
 of each other, to the eminent edification, and often- 
 times the entertainment of the assembled multitude. 
 The people, nevertheless, were somewhat insensible 
 to the preached "Word during the first twenty years 
 of its dispensation. They were absorbed by Indian 
 wars, and by the pressing demands upon their labor, 
 necessary to maintain pliysical existence in a new 
 country. Soon afterward came in French infidelity 
 with French politics ; and deism and atheism were 
 openly avowed on every hand. Many of the principal 
 citizens of the West were not afraid or ashamed to own 
 themselves skeptical or infidels in regard to the old 
 system of Eevelation. Thus the field which these pio- 
 neer preachers were called to till was a hard and stony 
 one; and they had much difl3.culty in pushing their way. 
 The Presbyterians and Methodists found it neces- 
 sary, toward the close of the last century, to conjoin 
 their efforts and unite for the furtherance of the com- 
 mon cause. This was in the southern part of the 
 State of Kentucky. They held " union meetings ;" 
 sacramental meetings, where the two denominations 
 worked together, kindly and efficient yoke-fellows. 
 Under these efforts the people at length became much 
 excited on the subject of religion, and there then broke 
 out, in the spring of 1800, the most extraordinary re- 
 vival of religion that ever happened on this conti- 
 nent, or perhaps in the history the church since the 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 357 
 
 Day of Pentecost. It was called the Cumberland 
 Revival, or the Great Revival. It broke out at one 
 of these sacramental occasions, when the Methodist 
 and Presbyterian ministers were holding a two or 
 three days' meeting, for the purpose of stimulating 
 the attention of the people to the all-important sub- 
 ject of personal holiness. At this, there were strange 
 manifestations. The people were seized as by a sort 
 of superhuman power ; their physical energy was 
 lost; their senses refused to j)erform their functions ; 
 all forms of manifesting consciousness were for the 
 time annulled. Strong men fell upon the ground, 
 utterly helpless ; women were taken with a strange 
 spasmodic motion, so that they were heaved to and 
 fro, sometimes falling at length upon the floor, their 
 hair dishevelled, and throwing their heads about 
 with a quickness and violence so great as to make 
 their hair crack against the floor as if it were a team- 
 ster's whip. Then they would rise up again under 
 this strange power, fall on their faces, and the same 
 violent movements and cracking noise would ensue. 
 Such peculiarities characterized this first meeting. 
 
 The meetings went on, and at length there was a 
 grand convocation at Cane Ridge, Kentucky, where 
 the leading Presbyterian minister was Barton W, 
 Stone, afterward renowned in the ecclesiastical 
 annals of the West, as the father and head of those 
 " New Lights " who became subsequently followers 
 
358 PIONEEES, PEEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 of Alexander Campbell, and a section of that body 
 now called " Christian." Stone was then tlie Pres- 
 byterian minister of Concord and Cane Kidge meet- 
 ing-liouse. He appointed a sacramental meeting. 
 The report of these peculiar doings spread so rapidly 
 through Tennessee, Kentucky, Yirginia, and what is 
 noAV Indiana, that peoj)le came sixty, seventy, a hun- 
 dred, even tliree hundred miles to attend this meet- 
 ing, and it is said that on one night there were not 
 less than thirty thousand people present at the Cane 
 Kidge ground. There were ]3i'esent eight or ten 
 preachers of different denominations, standing up on 
 the stumps of trees, fallen logs, or temporary pul- 
 pits, all of them holding forth in their loudest tone — 
 and that was a very loud tone, for the lungs of the 
 backwoods preachers w^ere of the strongest. They 
 roared like lions — their tones were absolutely like 
 peals of thunder. The celebrated William Burke, 
 who died in Cincinnati only a short time ago, was 
 one of the principal orators on that occasion. He 
 had not been treated, he thought, with courtesy by 
 his Presbyterian brethren. He had arrived on the 
 ground on Friday night, and was not asked to par- 
 ticipate in any of the exercises on Saturday. Sunday 
 morning came, and many friends crowded around 
 him to know if he w^ere going to preach. He said 
 that if he were invited he would, but that 
 he had not been invited. Brother Stone wanted 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 359 
 
 him to get up, and make an exj^ose of his doctrines. 
 " My doctrines," said Burke, " I preach every day," 
 — this he said with a good deal of vim — " they are in 
 the books — ^go and read. If I am to make an expose 
 of Methodist vicM^s, then you might be called upon 
 for yours." Mr. Stone said he was satisfied; that 
 that would do. Burke, however, was not satisfied, 
 and as he was not asked to preach by the authorities 
 of the ground, he took a stand on his own hook, a 
 fallen log, and here, having rigged up an umbrella 
 as a temporary shelter, a brother standing by to see 
 that it performed its functions j)roperly,.he gave out 
 a hymn, and by the time that he had mentioned his 
 text, there were some ten thousand persons about 
 him. Although his voice when he began was like a 
 crash of thunder, after three-quarters of an hour or 
 an hour, it was like an infant's. 
 
 It is said that all these people, the whole ten thou- 
 sand of men and women standing about the preacher, 
 were from time to time shaken as a forest by a tor- 
 nado, and five hundred were at once prostrated to 
 tlie earth, like the trees in a " windfall," by some 
 invisible agency. Some were agitated by violent 
 whirling motions, some by fearful contortions ; and 
 then came " the jerks." Scoffers, doubters, deniers, 
 men who came to ridicule and sneer at the superna- 
 tural agency, were taken up in the air, w^hirled over 
 upon their heads, coiled up so as to spin about like 
 
360 
 
 cart-wheels, catcliing liold, meantime, of saplings, 
 endeavoring to clasp tlie trunks of trees in their arms, 
 but still going headlong and helplessly on. These 
 motions were called the " jerks ;" a name which was 
 current in the West for many a year after; and many 
 an old preacher has described these things accurately 
 to me. It was not the men who w^ere already mem- 
 bers of the church, but the scoffing, the blasphemous, 
 the 2:>rofane, who were taken in this way. Here is 
 one example : A man rode into what was called the 
 "Eing Circle," where five hundred people were 
 standing in a ring, and another set inside. Those 
 inside were on their knees, crying, shouting, praying, 
 all mixed up in heterogeneous style. This man comes 
 riding up at the top of his speed, yelling like a 
 demon, cursing and blaspheming. On reaching the 
 edge of the ring, he falls from his horse, seemingly 
 lifeless, and lies in an apparently unconscious con- 
 dition for thirty hours ; his j)ulse at about forty, or 
 less. When he opens his eyes and recovers his 
 senses, he says he has retained his consciousness all 
 the time — that he has been aware of what has been 
 passing around — but was seized with some agency 
 which he could not define. I fancy that neither 
 })hysiology, nor pyschology, nor biology, nor any of 
 tlie ologies or isms, have, thus far, given any satisfac- 
 tory explanation of the singular manifestations that 
 attended this great revival. 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 3G1 
 
 These meetings taking place in open woods, and 
 attracting such immense multitudes, no provision 
 could possibly be made for tliem by the surrounding 
 neighborhood. People came in their carriages, in 
 wagons, in ox-carts, on horses, and, themselves accus- 
 tome>l to pioneer habits and lives, they brought 
 their own food, commonly jerked meat and corn 
 dodgers, and pitched their tents upon the ground. 
 
 Such was the origin of camp-meetings. The first 
 camp-meeting ever seen, after the Feast of Taber- 
 nacles, was that upon the Cane Eidge, where the 
 people came without the design of encamping, but 
 where necessity required it. These meetings pro- 
 ceeded for two or three years, and great was the 
 overthrow which resulted to all forms of infidelity. 
 Of course there also ensued great divisions and 
 heart-burnings among the difi'erent denominations. 
 The Baptist, as well as the Presbyterian and Method- 
 ist churches largely participated ; and all these 
 churches were split up more or less after the abate- 
 ment of the first great excitement. A good many 
 of the people converted in these meetings became 
 Shakers. A body of Shakers who came from Phila- 
 delphia and settled in Kentucky, received large 
 recruits. One man, who had gathered about him 
 what he call the twelve apostles, set off in search of 
 the Holy Land, and died miserably of starvation on 
 an island in the Mississippi. And various were the 
 IG 
 
362 PIONEEESj PEEACHEKS AND PEOPLE 
 
 other fancies. One said lie held converse with the 
 angels and spirits, not after the modern use of rap- 
 ping on tables, but orally and immediately ; and that 
 physical food was not absolutely indispensable to 
 sustain his life. He also starved to death ; and then 
 his church broke up. As I say, there were various 
 opinions as to these fruits and consequences ; but I 
 have been told by old men who have watched the 
 current of affairs since then, for these fifty-five years, 
 that the good results of that meeting were not to be 
 calculated. 
 
 I now come to a more particular consideration of 
 some of the men concerned in this movement. The 
 ministry of the Methodist church of the wilderness 
 assumed the position and the responsibility of their 
 calling, under the confident belief that each man of 
 them was specially called, designated, and sent forth 
 by the Holy Spirit of peace and power as an ambassa- 
 dor for Christ. The churches decided upon the gifts 
 and graces of the men ; settled, according to their 
 best belief and conviction, whether the call be a 
 real call. If their opinion coincided with his, he was 
 then set apart for the sacred ofiice of the ministry, 
 and sent forth. At the time of which I speak, he 
 was sent forth to an office which was no sinecure. 
 His field of labor was the world. The allowance, 
 the limit of the salary which the discipline of the 
 church allowed him to receive, was sixty-four dollars 
 
OF THE Mississipn. 363 
 
 per annum, and that was to include all presents he 
 might receive of yarn stockings, woollen vests, and 
 homespun coats, together with wedding-fees. "What- 
 ever he might receive, from whatsoever quarter, was 
 to be counted up in this allowance of four-and-sixty 
 dollars, and if the amount exceeded this, the sur- 
 plus must be handed over to the church authorities 
 for the use of the "poorer brethren. Out of these 
 sixty-four dollars, he must provide a horse, saddle, 
 wearing apparel, and books. West of the mountains 
 sixty-four dollars was a sum hardly to be expected, 
 either in silver coin of the realm, or in presents of 
 any description. E^othing more was allowed a man 
 with a wife than without a wife, for it was under- 
 stood among the ministers of the old church, that a 
 preacher had no business with a wife, and that he 
 was a deal better without one. The practice in that 
 respect has sadly changed. Mr. Wesley had such an 
 experience of his own in the wife line, that he discou- 
 raged marrying among the brethren; and Francis 
 Asbury, who was the master-spirit of Methodism on 
 this continent, was so absorbed in his work,^so en- 
 grossed by it, that he discountenanced matrimony. 
 He said, nevertheless, that it was the business of 
 every living man, to support a living woman. He 
 therefore gave one-half or two-thirds of his entire 
 income, which was very small, to the support of an 
 old woman, a distant cousin in England ; and when 
 
364 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 slie died, lie appropriated the sum to the support of 
 some other woman. Further than that, in the direc- 
 tion of matrimony, he never went. "When one of the 
 young brethren was so unfortunate or so absurd as to 
 link himself in matrimonial bonds, it was understood 
 that he had better '' locate," in the language of the 
 church, still retaining authority to preach, but pursu- 
 ing some other calling as a means of support, and 
 deriving none from the church. He retired from 
 regular itinerant work, and became a local preacher. 
 Thus did brother Asbury set the example to the 
 younger brethren. McKendree, who was his succes- 
 sor in the episcopate, in the same way discounte- 
 nanced all interesting relations with the sisterhood. 
 
 There was thus small encouragement, indeed, in 
 the way of pecuniary support, w^iich these men had 
 to look forward to. They were coming to the wilder- 
 ness to face perils, want, weariness, unkindness, cold, 
 and hunger; to hear the crack of the Indian rifle 
 from some neighboring thicket, to feel the ball cut- 
 ting the air as it whizzed past their ear, and perhaps 
 to fall from the unerring shot of some skillful 
 redskin. And if their lives were spared, by the 
 guardianship of a good Providence, or the interposi- 
 tion of his sjDecial care in their behalf, the bare earth 
 in winter and summer was three-fourths of the time 
 to be tlieir bed, their saddle their pillow, and the sky 
 their coverlet. They labored without pecuniary 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 365 
 
 compensation or support, preacliing the Gospel often 
 at their own cost and charges ; and when applying for 
 victuals or a shelter, often and often were they sternly 
 or rudely denied it by a brother of some other deno- 
 mination, so bitter were the prevailing feelings of 
 party denominationalism. Thus they worked on, 
 with no provision for their advancing years except 
 the guardianship of the Master who had called them 
 — wdth no prospective sunshine of affluence to cheer 
 their downward path to the grave — with none of the 
 comforts of this world, save the approval of their 
 own consciences and the indwelling testimony of 
 God's Spirit. Surely such an office was not a sine- 
 cure ; and men who could make a respectable living 
 in the craft of blacksmithing, farming, carpentry, 
 or masonry, could hardly have gone into this work, 
 if they had not felt the irresistible impulse of a spe- 
 cial call. They were not, as a general thing, men of 
 what we now call education. Book knowledge was 
 very scant with them. They were thorough students 
 of their Bibles ; and their Bibles they generally read 
 upon their knees. It was a common habit with them 
 to read the Good Book in the shelter of a thicket, or 
 out upon the lonely prairie. When the snow was on 
 the ground, the travelling preacher, awaking from 
 his night's slumber as the first rays of daylight were 
 breaking through the eastern sky, giving just enough 
 light to see the page of the Sacred Book, would sel- 
 
366 PIONEERS. PREACHERS AND PEOPL'tf, 
 
 clom saddle and mount his liorse till lie had per- 
 formed his private devotions, kneeling there in the 
 midst of the snow and ice where he had been sleep- 
 ing ; would seldom proceed upon his journey till he 
 had committed his w^ay and commended his soul to 
 God, and had studied, at least three or four chapters 
 of his constant companion and manual. They were 
 diligent students of the holy Scriptures, and they 
 were learned in hymns. They studied tlie hymn- 
 book nearly as devoutly and constantly as the Bible ; 
 and with these two, they had an arsenal from which 
 they could bring forth weapons adapted to every 
 emergency. There was another supplement to their 
 Scriptures. This third volume, one which they con- 
 stantly, carefully, devoutly perused, profoundly stu- 
 died, w^as the ever-open volume of Human I^ature. 
 They were well acquainted with men; they read 
 their eyes, their countenances, their hearts, their con- 
 sciences. 
 
 From this analysis, you will readily conclude what 
 was their style of preaching. They were earnest and 
 forcible speakers. They felt that great issues were 
 at stake, standing, as tliey so often did, before a con- 
 gregation of three or four thousand. They felt that 
 all this great company of men and women in a little 
 time must be dead ; that perhaps this was the last 
 time tliey should ever have the opportunity of speak- 
 ing to them. The weight of souls was on them; 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 367 
 
 they felt that the blood of these people might rest on 
 their own souls, unless their full and immediate duty- 
 was done to them ; therefore, most earnestly, and 
 even passionately to warn, to counsel, to entreat, to 
 admonish, to reprove, to win them by the love of 
 Christ to be reconciled to God — this was the burden 
 of their preaching. They were men of quick, intense, 
 and profound emotions, of lively fancy, and vivid 
 imaginations ; and before their inward eye was ever 
 clearly pictured their expected final haven of repose 
 and joy, the antithesis to this their present painful 
 life of weariness and labor. And, upon the other 
 hand, the dark and unfathomable abyss of perdition 
 was open to them. 
 
 They w^ere thorough students of other books than 
 the Bible, when they had opportunity; and these 
 were frequently, and even generally, of an imagina- 
 tive description. Young and Milton were singularly 
 intimate companions of these old wayfarers. Mil- 
 tonic descriptions of perdition abounded in their 
 preaching ; and the Judgment, with all the solemn 
 array of the last Assize, was vividly delineated before 
 them. And w^hile to our sober, cold, and calculating 
 criticism, it might seem that their descriptions of the 
 the good and bad world savored too much of a topo- 
 graphical character — as if they had been travelling 
 through certain countries, and were nov\^ giving a 
 vivid detail of all they had experienced— while it 
 
368 PIONEERS, PEEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 miglit seem so to us, it did not to the people wlio 
 listened to them. They were rude and ignorant like 
 them ; unversed in books. They were stern in their 
 denunciation of what they did not believe ; and rose- 
 water sentimentalism, agreeable metaphysical disqui- 
 sitions, a profoundly elaborate exegesis upon particu- 
 lar passages of Scripture, would have gone but little 
 way in influencing those congregations of back- 
 woodsmen. I have read of a certain bishop who, 
 on a text concerning the miracles at the Pool of 
 Bethesda, said : " My beloved hearers, I shall in the 
 first place speak to you of the things whicb you 
 know, and I do not know ; second, of what I know, 
 and you do not know ; third, of the things that 
 neither of us know." There was another eminent 
 prelate, who, upon reading his text, said : '' I shall 
 first speak of the chronology of the subject, then its 
 topography, and then its psychology." ITeither of 
 these styles of preaching would have gone far with 
 the backwoods people. Their earnest life, filled with 
 necessities, and arduous struggles to supply them, 
 must have appropriate religious food ; and these 
 simple-hearted, firmly-believing preachers Avere just 
 the ones to give it to them. And give it they did, 
 witli right liearty good will. 
 
 Tliere was an immense deal of vim and stamina in 
 their method. They spoke loudly and with their 
 whole body ; their feet and hands were put in requi- 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 869 
 
 sition as well as tlieir tongues and eyes. It was a 
 very fierce, cutting, and demonstrative style of 
 preaching, as you may fancy. With little opportu- 
 nities to get u]) splendid discourses — for they had no 
 studies but the woods, and no libraries but those of 
 which I have told you — ^they had to make their ser- 
 mons as they were travelling along the way — and a 
 hard and rugged way it often was. 
 
 Such a man was Bishop Asbury, to my mind one 
 of the most important, if not the most important per- 
 sonage in the ecclesiastical history of this continent. 
 "With all respect to Jonathan Edwards, Dr. Dwight, 
 Dr. Channing, and all the other eminent and pre- 
 eminent men of New England — I have read them, 
 and knew some of them — I think that Francis As- 
 bury, that first superintendent and bishop of our 
 Methodist church, was the most renowned and re- 
 doubtable soldier of the cross that ever advanced 
 the standard of the Lord upon this continent. 
 Yet you will not find his name in a single history of 
 the United States that I know of ; and it is a burning 
 shame that it is so. He travelled for fifty years, on 
 horseback, from Maine to Georgia, and from Massa- 
 chusetts to the Far West, as population extended; 
 journeying in that time, as was computed, about 
 three hundred thousand miles. He had the care of 
 all the churches ; was preaching instant in season 
 and out of season ; was laboring indefatigably with 
 
 16* 
 
870 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 tlie yoiiDg men to inspire and stimulate them ; winning 
 back the lost and bringing amorphous elements into 
 harmony, in a church which, when he began witli it, 
 in 1771, numbered probably not fifty members ; and 
 which, when he was an old man — he died in 1816 — 
 mimbered, white and black, from Maine to California, 
 and from far northwestern Oregon to sunny southern 
 Florida, nearly a million of members. So vast a 
 church did Francis Asbury build, almost solely by 
 his own profound wisdom, untiring effort, and cease- 
 less devotion ; and he did as much for building school- 
 houses and colleges, erecting churches, establishing 
 sound views of morality, and lofty purity in the forms 
 of life ; for gathering and establishing in doctrine and 
 discipline this immense body of Christians, now 
 the most numerous in the country, having more by 
 one-third of stated ministers, and more colleges; than 
 any other two denominations in the land. That one 
 who has done this should not have had his name 
 even so much as named in a single school history in 
 the United States, I say is a shame. 
 
 This man was surrounded by men much akin to 
 him ; for he seemed to infuse his spirit into all with 
 whom he came in contact. One of his associates and 
 friends, one of the young men w^hom he raised up, 
 was afterward a famous preacher of eastern Ten- 
 nessee — James Axley, a very renowned man in his 
 dav; and another was James Craven. Many of 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 371 
 
 those old preachers were bitterly opposed to whisky 
 and slavery. Old brother Craven, when once preach- 
 ing in the heart of Yirginia, said, " I^ow here are a 
 great many of you professors of religion; yon are 
 sleek, fit, good-looking, yet there is something the 
 matter with you — you are not the thing you ought to 
 be. Now you have seen wheat" — most of his 
 hearri3 were farmers — "wheat which was very 
 plunp, round, and good-looking to the eye; but when 
 you weighed it you found it only came to forty-five 
 or fo: ty-eight pounds to the bushel. There was 
 someJiing the matter. It should be from sixty to 
 sixty three pounds. Take a grain of that wheat 
 between your thumb and your finger; squeeze it, 
 and out pops a weevil. E'ow, you good-looking 
 Christian people only weigh, like the wheat, forty- 
 five or forty-eight pounds to the bushel. What is 
 the matter ? When you are squeezed between the 
 thnmb of the law and the finger of the Gospel, out 
 pops the negro and the whisky bottle." Old father 
 Axley, preaching on one occasion, cried out, " Ah, 
 yes ! you sisters here at church look as sweet and 
 smiling as if you were angels ; and one of you says to 
 me, ' Come to dinner,' and I go ; and when I go, you 
 say ' Sit down, brother Axley awhile, while I go about 
 the dinner ;' and you go to the kitchen, and I hear 
 something crying out, " Don't, Missus," and I hear 
 the sound of slaj^s, and the poor girl screaming, and 
 
372 PIONEEES, PBEACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 tlie sister whaling and trouncing Sally in tlie kitclien 
 as hard as she can. And when she has performed 
 this office, she comes back looking as sweet .and 
 smiling as a summer's day, as if she had been saying 
 her prayers. That is what you call Christianity, is 
 it?" It was in this way that these old preachers 
 preached. The style was adapted to the people. 
 They understood this, where they could not have im- 
 derstood profound disquisitions respecting original 
 sin. Tliis old brother Axley was sent in 1806-7 into 
 Attakapas County, Louisiana, to travel there as a 
 missionary. He was about five feet eight inches 
 in height, strong and sinewy, accustomed to all man- 
 ner of exposure and suffering. Among this rude 
 border populace, of whom a large component are 
 French Catholics, he had not much to expect in the 
 way of comfort. He had no money, was very hungry, 
 and indeed reduced nearly to starvation, when he 
 came riding up to a plantation. They knew him by 
 his coat to be a preacher, and they wanted none such 
 in their houses. The old gentleman entered and 
 asked if he could have a dinner and supper and 
 night's lodging. 
 
 " No." 
 
 The only persons present were a widow lady and 
 some children and black j^eople. 
 
 " No," said the w^oman, " you cannot ; we don't 
 want any such cattle here." 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 373 
 
 Here, then, was a prospect of sleeping another 
 night out in the cold. He had nothing to eat, and 
 perhaps he ran an actual risk of perishing by starva- 
 tion. He thought of the lonely journey, and of the 
 perils that compassed it. Then his faith lifted him 
 to the better, brighter world of heaven, its rest and 
 reward for the wayfarer ; and he thought of the good 
 Father, and of the angels that are sent to succor and 
 minister, and his heart presently filled with overflow- 
 ing gladness ; and he struck up a hymn, for he was 
 a great singer. These men were all great singers, 
 and when they could not carry a point by speech, 
 they often fell back upon a song : 
 
 " Peace, my soul ! Thou needst not fear 
 Thy great Provider still is near, 
 Who fed thee last will feed thee still ! 
 Be still, and sink into his will." 
 
 He went on with his song, and, looking about him, 
 saw that he was gaining ground. He sang three 
 hymns, and by that time the woman and all the chil- 
 dren and negroes were crowding to hear him, with 
 tears in their eyes. 
 
 As he concluded, the old lady shouted, " Pete, put 
 up the gentleman's horse ! Girls, have a good sup- 
 per for the preacher !" And thus the preacher was 
 lodged and fed for a song. 
 
 Axiey came to Baltimore to attend a general con- 
 
374 PIONEEES, PEEACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 ference in 1820. There was a dispute about a tecli- 
 nical question — wliether presiding elders should be 
 elected by preachers or not ; and there had been a 
 great deal of warm, not to say hot discussion about 
 it. Brother Axley was silent. He did not say a 
 word, until at the end of the session, the bishop 
 called upon him to offer a prayer. He knelt to lead 
 the devotions, and began thus : " ]^ow, O Lord, thou 
 knowest what a time we have had discussing, argu- 
 ing, about this elder question ; and thou knowest 
 what our feelings are ; we do not care what becomes 
 of the team — it is only who drives the oxen." 
 
 He used the directest mode of getting to the centre 
 of a subject. He preached among a people who were 
 sharpshooters, and who practised driving a nail with 
 their rifles at fifty yards. And as they practised 
 close and sharp-shooting with the rifle, so did he with 
 his tongue. 
 
 There is an old friend of mine, my first presiding 
 elder, yet living in Illinois — Peter Cartwright — who 
 was one of those old preachers in the "West, and has 
 many of their peculiarities. I may give you one 
 incident of this man's life, as a specimen of their 
 physical courage and prowess ; for it was sometimes 
 necessary for them to fight with carnal weapons, and 
 many of them had obstinate combats with the rough 
 pioneer people — and commonly came off victorious. 
 Cartwright, in common with most of those early old 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 375 
 
 preachers, was a strong opponent of slavery. E'ow 
 the question was being canvassed in Illinois, between 
 1S18 and 1823, whether this institution should be 
 ingrafted upon the Constitution, when the State was 
 applying for admission into the Union. The old 
 gentleman resolved to remove to Illinois, and take a 
 hand in the quarrel. He had been living in Ken- 
 tucky and Tennessee, and had preached there for a 
 quarter of a century, when he was appointed to Illi- 
 nois as presiding elder, and had a circuit from 
 Galena on the northwest, to Shawnee-town on the 
 south — a district nearly as great as the entire country 
 of England. Around this lie was to travel once in 
 three months, at a time when there were no roads, 
 scarcely a bridge or ferry — and keep his regular 
 appointments to preach, Sunday after Sunday, besides 
 attending love-feasts, and administering the sacra- 
 ments. Then, after preaching on the Sunday, he 
 would generally announce a stump speech for the 
 Monday, and call upon his fellow-citizens to come 
 and hear the question discussed, whether slavery 
 should be admitted or not. Of course, taking a poli- 
 tical side, he was regarded as a politician, and there 
 was a good deal of angry feeling about the old 
 preacher. On one occasion, he rode to a ferry upon 
 the Sangamon Itivcr ; the country about was rather 
 thickly populated, and he found a crowd of people 
 about the ferry, which seemed to be a sort of gather 
 
6ib PI0NEEK8, PEEACHEKS AND PEOPLE 
 
 ing place for discussing politics. Tlie ferryman, a great 
 herculean fellow, was holding forth at the top of his 
 voice about an old renegade, one Peter Cartwright, 
 prefixing a good many adjectives to his name and 
 declaring that if he ever came that way he would 
 drown him in the river. 
 
 Cartwright, w^ho w^as unknown to any one there, 
 now coming up, said ; " I want you to put me across." 
 
 " You can wait till I am ready,'* said the ferry- 
 man. 
 
 Cartwright knew it w^as of no use to complain ; and 
 the ferryman, when he had got through his speech, 
 signified his readiness to take him over. The 
 preacher rode his horse into the boat, and the ferry- 
 man commenced to row across. All Cartwiight 
 wanted was fair play ; he wished to make a public ex- 
 hibition of this man, and, moreover, was glad of an 
 opportunity to state his principles. About half way 
 over, therefore, throwing his bridle over the stake on 
 one side of the boat, he told the ferryman to lay 
 down his pole. 
 
 " "What's the matter ?" asked the man. 
 
 " Well," said he, " you have just been using my 
 name improper, and saying that if I ever came this 
 way, you wT)uld drown me in the river. I'm going 
 to give you a chance." 
 
 '' Are you Peter Cartwright ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 377 
 
 And tlie ferryman, nothing loatli, pulls in his pole, 
 and at it thej go. Thej grapple in a minute, and 
 Cartwright being very agile as well as athletic, suc- 
 ceeds in catching him by the nape of the neck and 
 the slack of the breeches, and whirls him over. He 
 souses him down under the tide, while the compa- 
 nions of the vanquished ferryman look on, the dis- 
 tance insuring fair play. Cartwright souses him 
 under again, and raising him, says : " I baptize thee 
 in the name of the Devil, whose child thou art." 
 He thus immerses him thrice, and then drawing him 
 up again, inquires : " Did you ever pray ?" 
 
 ''ITo," answered the ferryman, strangling and 
 choking and dripping in a pitiful manner. 
 
 " Then it's time you did," says Cartwright ; " I'll 
 teach you : say ' Our Father who art in Heaven.' " 
 
 " I won't," says the ferryman. 
 
 Down he goes under water again, for quite a time. 
 Then lifting him out, " Will you pray, now ?" 
 
 The poor ferryman, nearly strangled to death, 
 wanted to gain time, and to consider the terrors. 
 
 " Let me breathe and think," he said. 
 
 " Ko," answers the relentless preacher, " I won't ; 
 I'll make you," and he immerses him again. At 
 length he draws him out, and asks a third time, 
 '' Will you pray now ?" 
 
 "I will do anything," was the subservient answer. 
 So Cartwright made him repeat the Lord's Prayer. 
 
378 PIONEERS, PEEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 " l^ow let me up," demanded this unwilling convert. 
 
 " 1^0," sajs Cartwright, " not yet. Make me three 
 promises : that you will repeat that prayer every 
 morning and night ; that you wdll put every Metho- 
 dist preacher across this ferry free of expense ; and 
 that you will go to hear every one that preaches 
 within five miles, henceforth." 
 
 The ferryman, all helpless, barely alive and tho- 
 roughly cowed, promised ; and Cartwright went on 
 his way. 
 
 That ferryman joined the church afterward, and 
 became quite an eminent and useful member. 
 
 Peter Cartwright, I say, was my own presiding 
 elder. This is a veracious story ; and I might go on 
 for pages giving you anecdotes of these Methodists, 
 their j)eculiar powers, their odd original ways, their 
 methods, their perils, and their success. They were 
 an urgent sort of people : very pressing, deadly in 
 earnest — their souls were firmly convinced of the 
 truth of what they were saying — there was no eva- 
 sion, equivocation, or doubt about it ; they therefore 
 spoke straight to the mark, and did what they had to 
 do. They had their faults and their defects, no 
 doubt. Who has not ? Doubtless they may have 
 been lacking in niceties and elegances — the refine- 
 ments and beauties of civilized society ; but they 
 were adapted to their condition and exactly filled 
 their station. It is much the practice to ridicule 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 3Y9 
 
 ministers of tiie Gospel ; to treat them decently as it 
 were out of pity, as debilitated beings, lialf-way be- 
 tween women and children — with a kind of conde- 
 scension and patronage. And the question is often 
 asked, with what is meant to be tremendous em- 
 phasis and overpowering sarcasm, " What have the 
 ministers done ; and what are they doing now ?" I 
 beg leave to say in their behalf that they ask neither 
 patronage nor condescension ; neither compassion nor 
 pity. They are able to do their own work, and have 
 done it ; and if your country along this Atlantic sea- 
 board fails to furnish abundant and superabundant 
 evidence of their possession of the noblest elements 
 of the ministerial character — sublime courage, indo- 
 mitable energy, daring self-forgetfulness, lofty, ar- 
 dent, absorbing, and efficient Christian piety — then I 
 say go west of the mountains, and in those noble 
 pioneers who bore to the starving and perishing mul- 
 titudes in the wilderness the means of grace — who 
 hastened when most need was, not waiting for mere 
 human helps, bringing manna, such as was at hand, 
 and amply sufficient for spiritual food, here and here- 
 after — go and find among them some of the sublimest 
 elements of human character that this or any other 
 country ever furnished. These constitute a most com- 
 plete and unanswerable refutation of the mean, and 
 base, and slanderous insinuations which are so unhap- 
 pily current throughout a large portion of our society. 
 
380 
 
 Perhaps I cannot more appropriately conclude this 
 lecture than by giving a hasty summary of the life 
 and character of one of the more prominent of the 
 early western preachers ; and for the same natural 
 reason already alleged, my instance will be taken 
 from among those of the Methodist denomination. 
 
 Of Bishop Asbury I have barely spoken, and of 
 his abundant labors. That mere mention must on 
 this occasion suffice. 
 
 Peter Cartwright, also already alluded to, a man 
 yet enjoying a green and vigorous and useful old age, 
 and one of the most characteristic and efficient of the 
 western pioneer preachers, was born in Amherst 
 County, Yirginia, in 1785, the son of a Kevolutionary 
 soldier; was taken to Kentucky by his parents a 
 few years afterward, when they settled there; and 
 was brought up in Logan County, a district so wild, 
 wicked, and infested with desperadoes and refugee 
 criminals, as to be popularly known in that region as 
 " Kogues' Harbor." A strong, active, sharp-witted, 
 jovial young fellow, he grew up a horse-racer and 
 gambler, in embryo at least, and went on until he 
 was sixteen, in the high road to all the vices of that 
 rude and lawless period and community. Then he 
 was suddenly converted, with one of the inexplicable 
 convulsive changes which we hardly dare consider or 
 seek to analyze, lest on one hand we find delusion, or 
 on the other prove deficient in reverence for the ope- 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 381 
 
 rations of the Holy Spirit. He sold his race-horse, 
 burned his cards, fasted and prayed, read the Bible, 
 and after laboring under fearful anguish for months, 
 at last, at one of the numerous camp-meetings held 
 in consequence of the great gathering at Cane Eidge, 
 found peace in believing, by another revulsion as sud- 
 den as that which had plunged him into an agony of 
 remorse and dread three months before. He joined 
 the Methodist church in 1801 ; that body then num- 
 bering, in the Mississippi Yalley, about two thousand 
 five hundred souls, all told. It contained in 178T 
 just about ninety-five souls. ITow it contains, within 
 the same territorial limits, not less than three quar- 
 ters of a million. 
 
 Cartwright was licensed as an exhorter in 1802, 
 and as a preacher six years afterward. From that 
 time until this, for more than fifty years, he has been 
 a steadfast and most efficient laborer in his chosen 
 field. The brief summary which he gives in his auto- 
 biography — one of the most entertaining books ever 
 written — of the totals of his work, may be condensed 
 somewhat as follows : His entire loss by non-receipt 
 of the regular Methodist allowance — formerly eighty 
 dollars a year, all over that sum to be handed over 
 to the church — and by robbery, casualties, etc., 
 $6,000 ; extras received to ofiset against this, $2,000 ; 
 amount of money given in charity, etc., $2,300 ; 
 number received into the church, 10,000 ; number 
 
baptized, cliildren and adults, 12,000; funeral ser- 
 mons preached, 500 ; total number of sermons 
 preached, at least 14,600. 
 
 The crowded years of this long and busy life were 
 marked from week to week wdth the strangest occur- 
 rences, the natural results of the wild unfettered 
 thoughts and life of the West ; often most grotesque 
 and at first sight coarse, and even ridiculous, silly 
 or absurd to an eastern man ; and yet requiring but 
 a brief consideration to discover how peculiarly fit 
 and proper were the rough repartees and even the 
 comical tricks, practical jokes, and ready physical 
 force with which this hardy soldier of the church 
 militant upheld his authority, or silenced his oppo- 
 nents at camp-meetings, or in controversy with the 
 ignorant fanatics, the deceivers, and the rabid secta- 
 rians of his rugged field. 
 
 When a Baptist preacher was drawing off his con- 
 verts, he drove him away by joining his band of 
 believers in character of a Christian, and then at the 
 place of immersion confounding him by suddenly 
 leaving him the alternative of admitting him into 
 the church unimmersed, or taking the responsibility 
 of denying him Christian fellowship unless rebaptized. 
 
 His old-fashioned Methodist liatred for fashionable 
 ornaments comes quaintly out in his story of a rich 
 man, who could not find peace in believing until he 
 had torn off his shirt-ruffles and thrown them down 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 383 
 
 in the straw at the camp-meeting ; after which, " in 
 less than two minutes God blessed his soul, and he 
 sprang to his feet, loudly praising God !" 
 
 A " book-learned " minister once tried to confound 
 him bj addressing him in Greek. With ready wit 
 he listened, as if intelligently, and replied at some 
 length in the backwoods German, which he had 
 learned in his youth, which the other took for 
 Hebrew, and was confounded. And the old man 
 proceeds to compare the educated preachers he had 
 seen to a " gosling with the straddles." 
 
 The camp-meetings were almost always infested by 
 rowdies, who often organized under a captain and 
 did all in their power to break up the exercises by 
 noise, personal violence, liquor-selling and drinking, 
 riotous conduct, stealing horses and wagons, and all 
 maimer of annoyances. Once Cartwright blocked 
 their game by appointing their captain himself to the 
 business of preserving order. Again, the captain of 
 the rowdies was struck down among the ''mourners" 
 just as he had come quietly up to hang a string 
 of frogs round the preacher's neck. Once he con- 
 fronted their chief with a club, knocked him off his 
 horse, and as his discouraged companions fled, se- 
 cured him and had him fined fifty dollars. Once he 
 captured the whisky which the rowdies were drink- 
 ing, and when they came up at night to stone the 
 the preacher's tent, he had ah-eady been among them 
 
384 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 in disguise and learned their plan, and singly drove 
 them all oil* with a sudden sharp volley of pebbles. 
 
 Again, he sent a liquor-seller to jail for selling on the 
 camp-ground, had himself and four bold friends sum- 
 moned by the timid officer as a posse, and never left 
 the culprit until he had j)aid fine and costs; and 
 when the enraged rowdies undertook to beat up the 
 preacher's quarters at night, he drove off one of their 
 leaders by hitting him a violent blow with a " chunk 
 of fire," and another with a smart stroke on the head 
 with a club, which drove out his " dispensation of 
 mischief." At another time, he had himself and "^yq 
 stout men summoned by a frightened peace-officer, 
 secured a whisky-seller who had been rescued by his 
 fellows, then took the deputy-sheriff, who would 
 have ordered the prisoner released, and seizing thir- 
 teen more of the mob, had them all fined, or made 
 to give security on an appeal. One more whisky- 
 dealer, who kept a loaded musket by him, the 
 shrewd and fearless Cartwright secured by night in 
 his own wagon, scared him handsomely, fired off his 
 musket, threw away his powder, and drove him 
 away, beaten and ashamed. 
 
 Discussing doctrines with a boastful Baptist pres- 
 byter, he silenced him with a question witty and inge- 
 nious, whether its implication is true or not, viz. : 
 " If there are no children in hell, and all 3"oung 
 children who die go to heaven, is not that church 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 385 
 
 which has no children in it more like hell than 
 heaven ?" 
 
 Coining to a new circuit, he found at his first 
 appointment but one solitary hearer, and he a one- 
 eyed man ; but preached his very best to him for 
 three-qnarters of an honr. At his next coming, this 
 hearer had so sounded his praises that he had a large 
 attendance, and a great reyival followed. 
 
 When a certain woman used to disturb his class- 
 meetings, he hoisted her out of doors by main force, 
 and then held the door shut by standing inside with 
 his back to it, while he went on with the exercises. 
 "When a fat and unbelieving old lady troubled him 
 at camp-meeting by kicking her daughters as they 
 knelt to pray among the " mourners," he caught her 
 dexterously by the foot and tipped her over back- 
 ward among the benches, where she bustled about a 
 long time to get up, because of her size, while the 
 victorious preacher went straight on with his exhort- 
 ing. There was a dance at an inn where he stoj)ped, 
 and no room to sit in but the ball-room. A young 
 girl politely asked him to dance with her. He led 
 her out on the floor, and as the fiddler was about to 
 strike up, said to the company that it was his custom 
 to ask God's blessing on all undertakings, and he 
 would do this now. Instantly dropping on his knees, 
 he pulled his partner down too, and prayed until 
 the fiddler fled in fright, and some of the dancers 
 
 17 
 
386 PIONEERS, TEEACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 ■\vept or cried for mercy ; then proceeded to exhort 
 and sing hymns, and did not cease his labors until he 
 he had organized a Methodist church of thirty-two 
 members, and made the landlord class-leader. 
 
 A grey-haired old man, a Baptist, whose custom it 
 was to do so, once interrupted the amusing stories he 
 was dealing out to his congregation, by calling out 
 sternly, " Make us cry, make us cry ; don't make us 
 laugh !" "VYith equal sternness, and turning short 
 and sharp upon him, Cartwright instantly answered, 
 " I don't hold the puckering strings of your mouths, 
 and I want you to mind the negro's eleventh com- 
 mandment, and that is, ' Every man mind his own 
 business.' " The abashed old man was silent. 
 
 While Cartwright was candidate for the Legisla- 
 ture of Illinois, he sought out a man who had spread 
 a slanderous story that he had tried to escape paying 
 a note, by perjury. Finding him in a public place in 
 a crowd, he told him to acknowledge his falsehood 
 there and then, or he would " sweep the streets with 
 him to his heart's content." The coward acknow- 
 ledged his lie ; and if he had not, the feai'less preacher 
 would surely have chastised him as he promised. 
 "While he was in the House, afterward, an enraged 
 opponent threatened to knock him down if he finished 
 a certain course of remark. Cartwright finished it, 
 and when the House adjourned, marched straight up 
 to him and asked him if he was for peace or war ? 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 387 
 
 " Oh, for peace," was the answer ; " come home and 
 take tea with me." So they went, arm in arm ; and 
 when the company, including the governor and his 
 wife, were about to eat without asking a blessing, 
 Cartwright said plainly, " Governor, ask a blessing." 
 The official blushed, apologized, and requested the 
 preacher to do it, which he did. 
 
 He once had a discussion with an infidel, who 
 ruled the Bible out of evidence ; to which Cartwright 
 submitted, and in his turn would have ruled Tom 
 Paine out. And when his adversary flew into a rage 
 at this, and cursed and blasphemed, the preacher in 
 his turn filled with righteous wrath, seized him by 
 the head and jaw, and rattled his teeth together like 
 so many pebbles. The angry man would have struck 
 him, but was prevented, and afterward became his 
 friend. 
 
 But the time would fail me to relate the innumer- 
 able singular experiences of this wonderful old man. 
 Such as he are the real pioneers of Methodism in the 
 Mississippi Valley; strong, fearless, active, ready, 
 quick-witted, jovial, even humorous and jocular, 
 rough, as able as the best in a free fight, yet kindly, 
 pure, sensible, fatherly, benevolent, unwearied in 
 self-sacrifice and well-doing; wise in counsel, tho- 
 roughly practical, yet the personification of idealists 
 in their prompt appreciation of whatever was proper 
 for their use, whether fashionable or not ; often set in 
 
388 PIONEERS, 
 
 some narrow prejudice and bitterly sectarian, yet 
 broad and liberal in views of church government, 
 and showing and wielding with effect all the quali- 
 ties which constitute rulers of men. And above all, 
 filled and overflowing with the love of Christ and the 
 ardent desire to save sonls. Such were Peter Cart- 
 wright and his noble brethren of the early church of 
 the wilderness. 
 
 I might occupy pages in commemorating the noble 
 and admirable qualities of others of the great Metho- 
 dist leaders ; of Henry B. Bascom, the yonng Apollo 
 of the West, the lofty orator, and noble useful Christ- 
 ian and minister ; of the veteran preacher James B. 
 Finley ; of many others of the great army of devoted 
 men, some now gone to their last account, some yet 
 living and laboring among ns — still at work within 
 my own beloved church. But I mnst close. Whole 
 volumes have already been written npon the lives of 
 Cartwright, Bascom, Finley, and others. It would 
 be presumptuous and useless to attempt more in this 
 place than this passing allusion. 
 
Lecture IX. 
 
 ITS MANIFESTATIONS, 
 ELOQUENCE AND HUMOR. 
 
WESTERN MIND: 
 
 ITS MANIFESTATIONS, ELOQUENCE AND HUMOE. 
 
 The query was propounded in the "EdinbiirgliEe- 
 view '' more than a quarter of a century ago, " Who 
 reads an American book ?" The question has been 
 often asked, both on this and on the other side of 
 the Atlantic, why have we not an American litera- 
 ture ? I should now hardly be willing to concede 
 that we have not. It would be a strangely ignorant 
 or prejudiced Englishman who would pretend that 
 we had not. And yet it would not be strange if we 
 had not. The demands upon American mind have 
 been of too pressing and urgent a character to allow 
 it to devote much time or attention to the specific 
 pursuit of letters. Here was a continent to subdue ; 
 a wilderness to be reclaimed ; mountains to be 
 scaled ; lakes, oceans and gulfs to be joined together ; 
 and meantime the supplies for daily necessity and 
 daily consumption to be raised, and conveyed to mar- 
 ket. Men must have bread before books. Men 
 must build barns before they establish colleges. Men 
 must learn the language of the rifle, the axe and the 
 
 391 
 
plough, before they learn the lessons of Grecian and 
 Eoman philosophy and history ; and to those pur- 
 suits was the early American intellect obliged to 
 devote itself, by a sort of simple and hearty and con- 
 stant consecration. There was no possibility of 
 escape ; no freedom or exemption from this obliga- 
 tion. The early settlers had to solve the imperative 
 instant questions of present want; problems that 
 were urging themselves upon their attention with 
 every day, and with every recurring season. When 
 the forest is felled, and the soil is turned, and the 
 ■ granaries are established, and the mouths of wives 
 and little ones filled, and their bodies clad, then may 
 American intellect betake itself to the study and mak- 
 ing of books. 
 
 These remarks aj^ply to the sea-board here, as much 
 as to the interior. We are comparatively a young peo- 
 ple. Agriculture, commerce, manufactures — the earli- 
 est practical problems of society — though now in some- 
 what more developed forms, must still be studied. 
 And if this is true of the country east of the moun- 
 tains, how much more emphatically and peculiarly 
 is it true of that west of the mountains ! Tlie for- 
 mer is an old country in comparison with the latter. 
 The earliest settlers of our race established them- 
 selves there only in 17T0 — only ninety years ago — a 
 brief space in a nation's life. And how vast and vari- 
 ous were the tasks which at once presented them- 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 393 
 
 selves to the few settlers, demanding instant and 
 constant fulfillment, and threatening death if ne- 
 glected. A boundless territory, to which the land 
 lying east of the mountains is scarce more than a drop 
 in the bucket, was to be wrested by sturdy and long- 
 continued labor from the dominion of nature, freed 
 from savage beasts, and made the cultivated fruitful 
 home of civilized society. Tillable and arable fields, 
 homes, gardens, towns, were all to be acquired by a 
 series of laborious victories over the unresisting, yet 
 opposing forces of nature. 
 
 Again : the men who did this must also maintain 
 and cultivate and protect the structure of social life, 
 by framing something — whether rude or elaborate 
 matters not so much — but something in the nature of 
 a body of laws, and a system of ^government. The 
 crude and scanty means of educating the young and 
 preaching the Gospel were also to be afibrded ; but I 
 need only mention them. 
 
 And still further : all this had to be done in the 
 presence of a class of perils dreadful beyond anything 
 conceivable by the citizens who now dwelt so securely 
 under the shadow of strong municipal and State or- 
 ganizations, and whose very recital makes the flesh 
 creep, and the blood run cold. I mean the Indian 
 and British hostilities, which were so long such a ter- 
 rible and incessant drain upon the vigor and the 
 very life-blood of the infant western common- 
 ly* 
 
394 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 wealths. Such requirements drew heavily tipon all 
 the functions of body, mind and heart ; chiefly how- 
 ever upon the first. For the first task of a new na- 
 tion, as I have shown, is for the muscles and sinews. 
 Only when this is fulfilled conies the demand upon the 
 brain and upon the soul. 
 
 But the western people have been steadily rising 
 in the path thus indicated, for many years. In com- 
 mon with tlie older communities east of the moun- 
 tains, they have been rising and advancing in the 
 pilgrimage of humanity, up from the region of mus- 
 cular development and animal activity, to that of 
 intellectual and moral culture. Such progress can 
 never be raj^id. Life's great tasks are not achieved 
 in a hurry. Personal culture is the work of time ; 
 and it is only in. him who descends from a line of 
 cultivated ancestors, that the highest exhibition of 
 human attainments, ordinarily speaking, is possible. 
 Much more is this true of a race — of a nation. 
 
 Around the early settler lay the broad shadows 
 of the primeval forests. Beneath him was the rich 
 turf that had never been disturbed by a coulter ; and 
 around him the solemn primeval groves that had 
 never reverberated to the sound of the axe — where 
 only the deafening yell of the savage war-whoop had 
 disturbed the silence, and where only the dreadful 
 carnage of savage warfare had discolored the soil. He 
 possessed broad streams, matchless in beauty, and a 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 395 
 
 soil rich beyond measure ; vacant ; only awaiting 
 occupancy; and returning the largest product and 
 profit to the tiller's energy and industry. In this 
 lovely country, cabin homes were to be erected, and 
 the forms of social and civil organization to be esta- 
 blished. 
 
 Tliese things were rapidly done. And is this a little 
 thing ? Do you call this an insignificant product of 
 a nation's brains ; a trifling net result of a nation's 
 activity? The erection of such a government as 
 that whose blessings we now enjoy, where every 
 man, the humblest, the poorest — where every 
 child, though an outcast and alien, sits secure be- 
 neath the broad and certain sggis of our national 
 liberties, our national freedom, our national juris- 
 prudence and police — do you call this, indeed, a 
 small result? We have whittled out, amongst us, 
 constitutions for one-and-thirty confederated States. 
 The vast genius and learning, the still vaster skill 
 and talent, all the combined energies of France, 
 month after month, and year after year, endeavored 
 to construct a constitution ; and how has it failed ! 
 It failed first, a little after our own Constitution 
 went into successful operation ; and it has been fail- 
 ing almost ever since. But what we have to show 
 is a noble result of the labor of a nation's brains. If 
 we had never written a book, if we had never penned 
 a line save those which are found in our Congres- 
 
396 
 
 Bional debates, and statute-books and Constitutions, 1 
 take it that we liave nevertheless built one of the 
 grandest intellectual pyramids the sun ever yet 
 shone upon. This is not a tribute to national vanity ; 
 it is a just statement of a nation's claims. 
 
 And now these settlers, hardy, intrepid, unkempt, 
 unwashed backwoodsmen, betake themselves to their 
 business as law-makers. And in this, as in every other 
 business they proceed with a certain eager earnestness, 
 a kind of rapt enthusiasm. If they are to be law- 
 makers, they will be law-makers in deed and in truth ; 
 and there shall be no shilly-shally, no child's play, no 
 trifling about it. The laws may be simple, and even 
 seasoned with a spice of grim comicality ; but they 
 are stringent, direct, and effective. There was one, 
 for example, at an early day in the West, that no 
 man should be allowed to remain in that region who 
 had not some visible and honorable means of supj)ort. 
 Every man must have work to do, and must be doing 
 it, sufficient to procure him the money, or the 
 money's worth, which is necessary in order to live. 
 There came into one of the new States where this law 
 was in force, a young man who seemed to have no 
 employment. His hands were in his pockets, and 
 his mouth puckered to a whistle, and that seemed his 
 business in this life. Some of the old gentlemen of 
 the vicinity informed him that they had a statute of 
 this description on their books, and that he must find 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 397 
 
 some occupation, or he had better go to some other 
 and idler country. But he fancied, as some of our 
 young folks to-day are apt to do, that they were a 
 set of incapable old fogies, who set an absurd over- 
 value upon their laws and constitution, and that 
 they were not to be heeded. In his coat pocket was 
 the secret of his living — a pack of greasy cards, into 
 the mystery of the manipulation of which he pro- 
 posed to initiate all the young men of the place ; 
 winning their money, corrupting their morals, and 
 debauching their dispositions ; and then to "gang his 
 gate " as a missionary of the devil, onward to other 
 regions, to repeat the same operation. At the expir- 
 ation, however, of the notice served by the old fogy 
 gentlemen, a writ was, to his astonishment, served 
 upon him by an officer, and he was carried to the 
 "jug," as they metaphorically called the jail, putting 
 the end for the means, I fancy, because they saw 
 clearly enough that the jug generally brings people 
 there. Having deposited him here for safe keeping, 
 due advertisement was made, and the young man, in 
 pursuance of the quaint penalty attached to this law, 
 was marched out into the middle of the public square, 
 and set up on the horse block, where the sheriff, as 
 auctioneer, knocked him down to the highest bidder. 
 This fortunate person was the village blacksmith, who 
 forthwith put a chain round his leg and took him to 
 his smithy, where for three months, from six o'clock 
 
398 PIONEERS, PEEACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 in the morning till six in the evening our young 
 friend was inducted, with some exertion on the black- 
 smith's part, and much more on his own, into the 
 whole art and mystery of blowing and striking ; and 
 was deposited for safe keeping every night in the 
 jail. At the expiration of his time, the young man, 
 liberated from his confinement, shook off the dust of 
 that town from his shoes, and as he turned his back 
 to the place, swore it was the meanest coimtry that 
 a white man ever got into. 
 
 Their laws, I say, may have been strict, and the 
 execution of them may have been stringent and swift 
 enough ; for oftentimes the only sheriff was the ready 
 rifle, resting upon the pummel of the saddle, and the 
 only judge, the awful Judge Lynch, who held his 
 dread tribunal under the shadow of the first tree, 
 and whose decrees were executed without appeal, 
 bill of exceptions, new trial, recommitment, respite 
 or pardon, by stalwart men, who swung the culprit 
 up by a rope led over the branch of a tree, instantly 
 after j udgment given. 
 
 The law of these new countries, whether codified 
 and written by select wise men, or dictated by the 
 clear but rough conclusions of the untutored shrewd 
 conscience and commonsense of the community, 
 must be enforced, and judgments under it executed. 
 For laws not enforced are hotbeds of crime. The 
 case here was urgent, the pressure instant ; and the 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 899^ 
 
 conduct of STicli courts of " Eegulators " as very com- 
 monly administered this prompt rude justice, though 
 it seems, compared to our civilized and refined no- 
 tions, harsh and barbarous in the extreme, was, in 
 truth, the only possible means of securing any legal 
 sanctions, any punishment for guilt or protection for 
 innocence. For these new settlements woi^e an Al- 
 satia to which there gathered all the vagabonds, 
 rufiians, swindlers, thieves, criminals of every name, 
 whose evil deeds had made the older settlements too 
 hot to hold them, and who trusted to renew a safer 
 course of guilt among the wild forests and thinly 
 scattered settlements. Society must and will protect 
 itself; and until better means are provided, it will 
 use those which are at hand. It has always been so 
 since Cain, the murderer, felt that every man that 
 found him would slay him, and since the hand of 
 every man was against the first outlaw, Ishmael. It 
 has always been so, dovrn to the day when we have 
 seen great cities rid, only by such rude and lament- 
 able means, of bands of villians impregnable to their 
 laws. It will be well for our own great Republic to 
 remember this ; for precisely as our voters cease 
 to consider thoughtfully, decide carefully, vote 
 wisely, and act decisively — precisely as they shall 
 fail in their great political duty of making good laws, 
 choosing good men to enforce them, and then watch- 
 ing sharply over the good laws and the good raen 
 
4:00 PIONEERS, PEEACIIEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 too — jnst in that same measure, for every neglect do 
 we take a step backward toward the law of the 
 strong hand, social dismemberment, and barbarism. 
 
 Besides the law-making or law-enforcing assem- 
 olies of these rude foresters, whether more or less 
 formal, the militia musters afforded another favorite 
 opportunity for these social and genial people to 
 gather themselves together. There was fighting, 
 and desperate fighting too, in their midst or on their 
 borders, for half a century and more after their first 
 settlements. This long experience resulted in a 
 decided tendency to military organizations and 
 amusements ; and these drills and gatherings W' ere 
 punctually attended, and all the exercises of the oc- 
 casion strictly and earnestly obeyed, both on account 
 of their vast practical importance, and as a gratifica- 
 tion of their military instincts. Such "public 
 bandings," as they were called by a local synonym 
 of the "trainings" and "musters" of other States 
 and all similar gatherings, were eagerly made use of 
 by politicians ; a class of men wdio very early be- 
 came numerous and active in the West. 
 
 Perhaps this circumstance may be said to have 
 produced the first manifestations of western mind, and 
 one of its most prominent and characteristic ones, — 
 viz. : oral political addresses — stump speeches, so 
 called. This name was derived from the platform 
 most commonly used by the orators of the back 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 401 
 
 woods, whose actual or intended constituents, as tlie 
 case might be, coald not be troubled with the elabo- 
 rate niceties of desks or boarded rostrums, and who, 
 by a most natural ascent, usually occupied a stump, 
 the convenient Pnyx of every country square or 
 court-house green. These ambitious aspirants, com- 
 monly not much if at all more learned than their 
 ragged auditory, and superior to them only in 
 shrewdness, or desire of office, or impudence, or all, 
 neither needed nor could use any subtle trains of 
 reasoning or lofty sublimities of thought. Any 
 excesdvQ tumefactions of sjDeech often collapsed 
 ignominiously at the prick of some stinging joke, 
 probably bearing no particular relation to the speak- 
 er's speech, and applicable only because successful. 
 Thus, a well-known anecdote of one of these windy 
 gentlemen relates that he was quite overthrown 
 at the summit of a gorgeous flight of eloquence, 
 and left to slink dumbfounded from the stage, be- 
 cause an unscrupulous adversary of tropes and 
 figures bawled out at his back, " Guess he wouldn't 
 talk quite so hifalutenatin' if he knowed how his 
 breeches was torn out behind!" The horrified 
 orator, deceived for an instant, clapped a hand to 
 the part indicated, and was destroyed — overwhelmed 
 in inextinguishable laughter. 
 
 But a trifling misadventure did not always upset 
 the speaker. Tlius, one of them who had let fly that 
 
402 PIONEERS, PEEACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 favorite fowl of orators, the American eagle, was 
 tracing his magnificent flight into the uppermost 
 em23yrean. He followed the wondrous bird with 
 ecstatic eje and finger raised ; and as he cried out, 
 " Don't jon see him, fellow-citizens, a risin' higher 
 and higher?" — an unsophisticated "fellow-citizen," 
 in his immense simplicity, confiding that there was a 
 real eagle, and gazing intently in vain to behold 
 him, sung out, " Well, d — d if I can see him ! " 
 " IIoss ! " exclaimed the s]3eaker, transfixing the 
 matter-of-fact man with his gaze and his gesture, 
 and sx^eaking in the same oratorical magnificence of 
 tone — " Hoss ! I was a speakin' in a figger ! " And 
 ofi" he wxnt again wdtli his eagle ; his promptness 
 and seriousness in the two transitions effectually 
 shutting out any ridicule. 
 
 This audience was of men whose physique had been 
 cultivated at the expense of much of their intellect ; 
 whose sense was not proper but common ; whose 
 knowledge had not come from books, but from the 
 hard necessities and incessant exertions of a la- 
 borious and perilous life. The speaker, then, must 
 use their vernacular — a vernacular which we should 
 think vulgar — and his metaphors and similes, if he 
 used them at all, must be such as would readily pene- 
 trate beneath their tangled hair, and find lodgment 
 in their intellects. And he must, at the same time, 
 appeal to their feelings ; for the feelings exercise a 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 403 
 
 much quicker and surer power over the intellect, 
 than the intellect over the feelings. He could not, 
 accordingly, stand still and merely emit his words as 
 a fountain passively pours out water, for he who 
 would move his audience must be moved himself. 
 It would never do for him to stand and read off a 
 written paper, first looking at the audience and then 
 back to his manuscript. It is the eye which wields 
 the speaker's power over an assembly. If you 
 would affect any man, your eyes must meet his. If 
 you would transfuse into him your thought, your 
 feeling, your passion, your imagination, your poetry, 
 — if, in a word, you would transfuse your life into 
 him, your eye must meet his ; in the forcible old 
 Scripture phrase, you must " see eye to eye." And, 
 as it is with one man, so it is with many. For the 
 manner of the word is powerful, much more than 
 the word itself. It is not the brains which produce 
 results, it is the individual, the being, the self, the I, 
 behind them ; the manner of the speaking clothes 
 the spoken words with whatever of power or beauty 
 is exerted or shown by the speaker. It is the power 
 of the orator accordingly, his earnestness, his pro- 
 found conviction, his intense realization of his truth, 
 his yearning desire to transfer his conciousness of it 
 to the hearers, which, as it were, throws it red-hot 
 into their minds and hearts. They receive it ; and 
 the sensation or emotion which spreads among them 
 
404: PIONEEES, PEEACHEKS AND PEOPLE 
 
 as lie speaks, flashes back to liim from their kindling 
 eyes ; and Lis strength, which he has sent out to 
 them, comes back to him, grown gigantic with the 
 strength of thousands ; and now he speaks in the 
 power of a thousand souls instead of one ; and the 
 flux and reflux of mutual influence, as managed for his 
 purposes by the intellect of the speaker, thus become 
 the means and the measure of his power over 
 himself and them. Thus it is, that the rude fellow 
 upon the barbarous backwoods hustings, who over- 
 flows with language ungrammatical and unrhetorical, 
 whose address fairly bristles with odd phrases and 
 border lingo, becomes a prophet clothed in garments 
 of supernatural power, and leads his audience, wil- 
 ling captives, whithersoever he lists, till, like the 
 ancient Franks when they made a king, they bear 
 him on their shoulders to his triumph. 
 
 Such a people, not trained to logic nor disciplined 
 in reasoning ; who proceed by common sense, practi- 
 cal prudence, ordinary business forecast, and acquaint- 
 ance with the men and things and principles of every- 
 day life, yet of excitable passions and feelings, and 
 who are only to be efiectully appealed to by a speaker 
 of the kind I have attempted to describe, and who is, 
 in their phrase, " dead in earnest," are passing 
 through a mental discipline preliminary to the higher 
 walks of literature, and to the development of the 
 nobler moral faculties. 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 405 
 
 And this first manifestation of western mind — in 
 their peculiar spoken eloquence, is always the same ; 
 whether before a jmy, on the stump, at the camp- 
 meeting, at a militia muster, a barbacue, a corn- 
 husking, a house-raising, a log-rolling, a wedding or 
 a quilting — for the constituency is always the same — 
 is unvarying and universal. The man who would 
 move them, would fuse their minds into one homo- 
 geneous subjection to his will, no matter what his 
 other subordinate or collateral attainments, must al- 
 ways have these elementary primal powers; the 
 power to say whatever he has to say clearly and 
 forcibly , and the power of saying it with the strength 
 of conviction, earnestness *and intense enthusiasm. 
 
 The men of the East, trained to a colder style of 
 speech, who demand a reason for every thought sub- 
 mitted to them ; who have had the discipline of two 
 studious and orderly centuries this side the Atlantic ; 
 who are under the organic influence of so many 
 generations dwelling among churches and school- 
 houses and printing-presses — a discipline which is 
 a great privilege, a benign heritage, yea, even a 
 benediction from above upon them — can scarcely 
 conceive and could not at all comprehend the in- 
 fluence which one of these western orators exerts 
 upon his audience, or its gladdening and rejoicing 
 efl'ect upon his own nature ; nor how the people gather 
 and throng around him and revel in his speech as an 
 
406 nONEERS, PEEACHEE8 AND PEOPLE 
 
 unbouglit, iinpurcliaseable pleasure, one of the rarest 
 of life. 
 
 This rough people, born and bred in the wilderness, 
 has, after the universal human fashion, expressed a 
 characteristic and interesting representation of its 
 traits and tendencies in its language. For there is, 
 so to speak, a western Anglo- American language, 
 corresj^onding singularly and strictly with the west- 
 ern style of thought, and the character of western 
 men. This language is thickly studded with rude 
 proverbial forms, all redundant with wild untrained 
 metaphors, some of which, if you please, we will call 
 cant and slang. But all these phrases have a mean- 
 ing, often quaintly and curicfasly expressed ; and they 
 have usually sprung spontaneously out of the associa- 
 tions or necessities of the speakers' lives. Or, again, 
 they are as freely and naturally the outgrowth of the 
 minds that produce them, as is the luxuriant cane of 
 the strong deep rich soil of the brakes; not drawn or 
 pressed forth by forces from outside, but the free 
 fantastic blossoms of untaught spontaneous thoughts. 
 
 To this western language, as well as to the thought 
 that threw it out, fun and humor gave a color almost 
 predominant. Even in the hardest and sternest 
 periods of their history, when the crack of the rifle 
 and whiz of the tomahawk were constantly in their 
 ears, they relished fun to the last and most exquisite 
 degree. A vein of humor runs through all the nature 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI, 407 
 
 of this people. They may seem stern, even savage ; 
 sombre, and even sorrowful ; self-possessed and quiet ; 
 and all these they are, at times, perhaps often. But 
 not constantly ; they are moved by the influence of 
 the occasion, and carried out from these serious 
 frames of mind. Eut they are jovial and fun-loving, 
 always ; and whatever their circumstances, they will 
 have, from time to time, a season of such utter heart- 
 felt relaxation as sometimes to border on license; 
 where the most uproarious jollity and glee is the 
 order of the day. There is a curious entry in the 
 diary of George Rogers Clark, made during a visit 
 to Kentucky at a time when the whites were suffering 
 greatly from the attacks of the savages, showing how 
 this characteristic struck the hardy soldier; ''25th 
 July, 1776. Lieut. Lynn was married this day at 
 Harrod's Station" — remember that in all that year 
 there was not a day when the neighborhood of Har- 
 rod's Station was free from the presence of hostile 
 savages — " and the merry-making was absolutely 
 marvellous." Old Bishop Asbury, who made a jour- 
 ney into the same region in 1783 or 1784, while the 
 Indian fighting was still going on, and the people 
 were pressed to the uttermost, says, " It is marvellous 
 to see hosv the desire for matrimony reigneth in this 
 country." The entrances upon these matrimonial 
 speculations, so heartily ventured upon by the young 
 people — by the girls generally at fifteen and the boys 
 
408 PIONEERS, PEEACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 at seventeen — were invariably made tlie occasions for 
 the j oiliest and most thorongligoing fun. 
 
 The negroes were ex officio, as ever, lovers of jokes 
 and fun, and even in time of war were as cool and 
 as inclined to jollity as their reckless masters. One 
 of them, who was out along with his master and a 
 band of foresters in hot pursuit of a party of Indians, 
 who had committed an outrage uj)on some lonely 
 cabin or blockhouse, made an observation which still 
 remains on record; a simple speech enough, but 
 which may serve to illustrate my point. The pursu- 
 ers gained sight of the Indians while descending a 
 hill. As the foremost of the whites was hastening 
 forward, closely followed by the warlike Sambo, the 
 captain of the whites, observing that the Indians 
 greatly outnumbered his force, gave the low whistle 
 which was the signal of retreat. Sambo, however, 
 heedless of the unwelcome order of recall, pressed on 
 clown the hill with his white companion, and taking 
 shelter in a thicket, observed an immense Indian peer- 
 ing above the hill beyond, to reconnoitre the position 
 of the pursuers, his head just visible from behind the 
 trunk of a tree. Sambo raises his rifle and blazes 
 away at him, singing out at the top of his voice, 
 " Dar 1 Take dat to remember Sambo the black white 
 man !" and then retraces his steps. 
 
 Even the Indians, usually reckoned so sombre and 
 saturnine a race, were by no means destitute of a 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 409 
 
 veiy peculiar dry and quaint liumor. Indeed, it is 
 beyond doubt tliat in the social security of their far 
 and peaceful homes in the wilderness, they laughed 
 and chatted and joked, and sung and told stories 
 with as much glee, and careless, hap]3y delight, as 
 any civilized circles. But though the indications of 
 their possession of wit and humor are equally well 
 authenticated, they are much rarer. A good speci- 
 men of Indian humor, without any such intention on 
 the part of the savage, was a remark made by one of 
 them while the fearful earthquakes of 1811-12 were 
 -devastating the valleys of the Mississippi and Ohio, 
 and the wildest and most terrific freaks of nature 
 were being exhibited in many portions of that vast 
 area. While New Madrid seemed sinking bodily 
 into the abyss, and the bed of the vast Mississippi 
 River was undergoing an absolute change of location, 
 its great floods rushing through the monstrous chasms 
 which opened a new and strange path for the waters, 
 while the great trees were rocking to and fro, trem- 
 bling and falling, and the earth gaped in bottomless 
 rents, the savage stood cool and stoical, his arms 
 folded upon his breast, gazing upon the scene. A 
 white man addressed him with the inquiry ," "What 
 do you make of all this? "What do these things 
 mean ?" The Indian, sorrowfully enough, and as if 
 the last prop of all his hopes here and hereafter were 
 gone, thus delivered a most original — and aboriginal 
 
 18 
 
410 PIONEEES, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 — tlieoiy of earthquakes : " Great Spirit got whisky 
 too miicli !" 
 
 The wild life of the borderers naturally occasioned 
 die coining of many singular words and phrases. 
 These, like many of the idioms and modes of speech 
 peculiar to the Indians, were the result not of imagi- 
 nation, but of a paucity of language. It is common 
 to descant upon the poetry and eloquence of the In- 
 dians ; and the celebrated speech of Logan is often 
 mentioned — as Jefferson mentioned it — as almost un- 
 paralleled in the records of ancient or modern ora- 
 tory. Yet, in the first place, it may well be ques- 
 tioned whether those words ever passed Logan's lips. 
 And if they did, although it is very true that they 
 are preeminent among specimens of Indian oratory, 
 it is still true of that oratory in general, that its poet- 
 ical phrases and ever recurring formulas and figures 
 and personifications are singularly few in number, 
 and monotonously repeated, and this for the reason 
 that these wild and unreflecting and thoughtless peo- 
 ple, ignorant of abstract thinking, destitute of 
 abstract ideas, and circumscribed within a very nar- 
 row circle of mental action, are unable to convey any 
 except a very small number of very ordinary and 
 every-day ideas, without employing terms borrowed 
 from material nature. Their language possessed no 
 words — or almost none — for the expression of abstract 
 ideas ; nor did it contain words of high intellectual 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 411 
 
 significance, or deep ethical meaning. Even for 
 concej)tions as ordinary among ns as "prosperous 
 circumstances," " affluence," or " a season of remark- 
 able enjoyment," they had no better form of expres- 
 sion than " a sunshiny day ;" or "a day as placid as the 
 bosom of a lake." Such terms as these, or, for in- 
 stance, those well-known figurative expressions of 
 "burying the hatchet," "brightening the chain of 
 friendship," and the like, although to those unac- 
 quainted with them seeming poetic enough, are in 
 truth the meagre products of the barest and barren- 
 est poverty. 
 
 It was this dry and meagre form of language which 
 drove both Indians and Anglo-American borderers 
 to the use of analogous terms, whose inappropriate- 
 ness often renders them quaint or even witty, where 
 no such effect was intended. There is in print a well- 
 knoY/n writ, issued by an Indian justice of the peace, 
 long ago in Massachusetts, which illustrates my point. 
 It ran thus : — " I, Hihoudi, You, Peter Waterman. 
 Jeremy Wicket. Quick you take him, fast you hold 
 him, straight you bring him before me. Hihoudi." 
 A singularly close parallel to this was the proclama- 
 tion of the western sheriff, at the beginning and 
 ending of court. As the ermined judge ascended 
 the tribunal, this matter-of-fact functionary bawled 
 out, " O yes, O yes, court am open!" and when the 
 labors of the day were over, he proclaimed again 
 
412 PIONEERS, PEEACHER8 AND PEOPLE 
 
 with genuine western adherence to sense and logic, 
 and disregard of form, the substance of the fact, thus : 
 " O yes, O yes, court am shet !" 
 
 Thus, I repeat, many of the expressions of the wes- 
 tern borderers which seem to us imaginative, humor- 
 ous, or ludicrous, though in some cases, perhaps, de- 
 rived from ancestors or ancestral peculiarities, were 
 usually adopted as the first which came to hand 
 when the new idea to be expressed came up asking 
 for a word. The foresters had no training in lan- 
 guage, and no habitude in abstract thought, or in 
 modifying and distinguishing notions. But they had 
 abundant readiness and self-reliance, and when they 
 wanted a new word they either took an old one and 
 modified it into a new one, much on the principle 
 which forced their wives to make one utensil serve 
 as wash-basin, kettle, dish, dish-pan, and swill-pail ; 
 or they manufactured one out of whole cloth, often 
 in ridiculous exemplification of that figure of speech 
 to which the grammarians have given the clumsy 
 name of onomatopoeia : namely, making the sound 
 suggest the sense. 
 
 The former of these two methods made words like 
 " spontanaceous " for spontaneous ; " obfusticate " for 
 obfuscate ; " cantankerous " for cankerous ; " rampa- 
 gious " or " rampunctious " for rampant ; " hifalutin " 
 or " hifalutin atin " for high-flying; " tetotaciously " 
 for totally; and the like. The latter resulted in 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 413 
 
 terms Laving often a ludicrous general similarity to 
 proper English words of the long Latin kind, but 
 utterly unfounded in fact ; the merest phantoms of a 
 raw, absurd and unconscious fancy. Such are "sock- 
 dolager" for a knock-down blow; " Explatterate," 
 to crush or smash ; " explunctify," for the same ; 
 " honey-fuggle," to hang about one and flatter him for 
 mean purposes ; and so on. 
 
 Many of the figures of speech and forms of rheto- 
 ric which characterize western eloquence, partake of 
 the same bombastic and unsound character ; this, 
 however, of course not being true of the best of the 
 western orators. And all these, words and figures 
 and sentences, while they possess a show of poetical 
 or imaginative character, with more or less of its 
 actual essence, are nevertheless as a whole the pro- 
 ducts of deplorable and extreme barrenness of mind 
 and poverty of thought. 
 
 But with the gradual growth of population, wealth, 
 refinement and education, there is of course a gra- 
 dual change in these respects ; the phraseology and 
 the intellect of the people improve and develop to- 
 gether. This change is brought about at the West, 
 in great measure, by means of the increasing fre- 
 quency of public speaking. And we must not judge 
 of the power exerted upon the people, nor the good 
 done them, merely by estimating the amount of posi- 
 tive information furnished by the speaker, and his 
 
414 PIONEEES, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 grade of intelligence. It is from the stimulation 
 wliicli tlieir natures experience, from his pouring out 
 and rendering up to them of the treasures of his own 
 life and soul, that the abiding profit of his work is 
 derived. Now the rude speeches and sermons of the 
 West task and stimulate the intellects of the people, 
 and set their minds in motion. The steam is turned 
 on ; and when that is done, the engine must move 
 forward or backward, or else explode. It may be 
 admitted — to carry out the figure — that an explosion 
 has sometimes happened, but on the whole, the gene- 
 ral result has been a movement ahead. As was na- 
 turally to be expected, there was undue emphasis, 
 exaggeration, violence, and exceeding heat. All this 
 Was perfectly natural, and to be expected ; but from 
 this noisy fermentation has come out, after all, a style 
 of eloquence which has become distinctively and em- 
 phatically American eloquence. The spoken elo- 
 quence of New England is for the most part from 
 manuscript. Her first settlers brought old world 
 forms and fashions from the old world with them. 
 Their preachers were set at an appalling distance 
 from their congregations. Between the pulj)it, 
 perched far up toward the ceiling, and the seats, was 
 an awful abysmal depth. Above the lofty desk was 
 dimly seen the white cravat, and above that the head 
 of the preacher. His eye was averted and fastened 
 downward upon his manuscript, and his discoui'se, 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 415 
 
 or exercitation, or whatever it might be, was de- 
 livered in a monotonous, regular cadence, probably 
 relieved from time to time by some quaint blunder, 
 the result of indistinct penmanship, or dim religious 
 light. It was not this preacher's business to arouse 
 his audience. The theory of the worship of the 
 period was opposed to that. His^ people did not wish 
 excitement or stimulus, or astonishment, or agitation. 
 They simply desired information ; they wished to be 
 instructed ; to have their judgment informed, or their 
 reason enlightened. Thus the preacher might safely 
 remain perched up in his far distant unimpassioned 
 eyrie. 
 
 But how would such a style of eloquence — if, in- 
 deed truth will permit the name of eloquence to be 
 applied to the reading of matter from a preconcerted 
 manuscript — how would such a style of delivery be 
 received out in the wild West ? Place your textual 
 speaker out in the backwoods, on the stump, where a 
 surging tide of humanity streams strongly around 
 him, where the people press up toward him on every 
 side, their keen eyes intently perusing his to see if 
 he be in real earnest — " dead in earnest" — and where, 
 as with a thousand darts, their contemptuous scorn 
 would pierce him through if he were found playing 
 a false game, trying to pump up tears by mere act- 
 ing, or arousing an excitement without feeling it. 
 Would such a style of oratory succeed there ? By no 
 
416 PIONEERS, PEEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 means. The place is different, tlie hearers are differ- 
 ent ; the time, the thing required, all the circum- 
 stances are totally different. Here, in the vast nn- 
 walled church of nature, with the leafy tree-tops for a 
 ceiling, their massy stems for columns ; with the end- 
 less mysterious cadences of the forest for a choir ; with 
 the distant or nearer music and murmur of streams, 
 and the ever-returning voice of birds sounding in 
 their ears for the made-up music of a picked band of 
 exclusive singers: here stand men whose ears are 
 trained to catch the faintest foot-fall of the distant 
 deer, or the rustle of their antlers against branch or 
 bough of the forest track — whose eyes are skilled 
 to discern the trail of savages, who leave scarce a 
 track behind them ; and who will follow upon that 
 trail, utterly invisible to the untrained eye, as surely 
 as a bloodhound follows the scent, ten or twenty, or 
 a hundred miles — whose eye and hand are so well 
 practised that they can drive a nail or snuff a candle 
 with the long, heavy western rifle. Such men, edu- 
 cated for years, or even generations, in that hard 
 scliool of necessity, where ev6ry one's hand and wood- 
 man's skill must keep his head ; where incessant 
 pressing necessities required ever a prompt and suffi- 
 cient answer in deeds ; and where words needed to be 
 but few, and those the plainest and directest, required 
 no delay nor preparation, nor oratorical coquetting, 
 nor elaborate preliminary scribble ; no hesitation nor 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 417 
 
 doubts in deeds ; no circumlocution in words. To 
 restrain, influence, direct, govern, such a surging 
 sea of life as tliis, required something very different 
 from a written address. The effect of the ISTew 
 England manner of preaching upon a western man 
 is illustrated by the broad and random criticism of 
 that same rough old Peter Cartwright, of whom I 
 have already written. All that he thought it worth 
 while to say of the young clergyman who delivered 
 a written sermon somewhere along his western track, 
 was, that " it made him think of a gosling that had 
 got the straddles by wading in the dew." What that 
 eloquence is which can and does control such a con- 
 stituency, can scarce be conceived, except by those 
 who have heard it. Yet there is is, and of a lofty 
 grade of power and beauty ; and it has become dis- 
 tinctively American in method and style. 
 
 It would not be difficult to fill volumes with quo- 
 tations illustrative of the eloquence and wit and 
 humor of the West. But such quotations are too 
 plentiful in our contemporary literature to make any 
 such selection at all necessary ; and I have preferred 
 accordingly to present such an imperfect analysis as 
 I might of the shaping causes which have waited on 
 its birth and growth. The causes of the character of 
 western mind, the nature and derivation of its con- 
 stituents, have been too little examined to be under 
 stood or appreciated. 
 
 18* 
 
418 PIONEERS, PKEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 As I already quoted a negro as affording an 
 instance of the grim and cool humor characteristic 
 of his western home, if not of his own tropical 
 blood, so I desire to cite another as having, in 
 a brief and homely description, exemplified a very 
 high order of rude natural eloquence. This was 
 a preacher, who was endeavoring to set forth the 
 attributes of the Almighty ; and who summed up the 
 mysterious and awful powers of the Unknown God 
 i-n a single sentence, which, for terseness and telling 
 force and beauty, it would be difficult to match. 
 Using a common western and southern idiom, he 
 thus said : " He totes the thunder in his fist, and 
 flings the lightning from his fingers." 
 
 I well remember the impression produced upon 
 me — a boy of twenty-two years of age, educated 
 in the woods and prairies of the West — when I attended 
 for the first time the session of Congress at "Wash- 
 ington. I imagined that whatever eloquence I might 
 have heard was, at least in some sense, deficient in 
 the higher and sublimer qualities of oratory. I had 
 heard and read much of the great men of our 
 national legislature, and fully expected to be 
 charmed beyond measure, in House and Senate, 
 with new revelations of majesty and beauty ; to be 
 educated into a j)erfect passion for eloquence ; to sit 
 long happy days and nights in the halls of Congress, 
 listening, a humble scholar, to those great men as 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 419 
 
 they expounded or enforced the principles of tlie 
 laws and the statesmanship of the land. The disap- 
 pointment I experienced was inconceivable. I had 
 expected a new kind of speech, something loftier 
 and nobler than I had heard before ; bnt, after hear- 
 ino; the most famous debaters, the world-renowned 
 champions of that great arena, I went home to my 
 boarding-house every evening with the mental ex- 
 clamation, " Can it be possible that all these men 
 have taken lessons in eloquence from the old Metho- 
 dist preachers and exhorters of the West ? " The 
 most effective and successful of them were those who 
 spoke loudest and with most passion, and thumped 
 the desks the hardest, just as it was at the West. I 
 have seen Adams and Webster thumping on the 
 desks in front of them as if they had no knuckles 
 at all, or wanted to knock them off. The western 
 style of oratory has become American ; it is extem- 
 pore, the thoughts suggested by the occasion, and 
 the words such as mustered upon the hasty call of 
 the thoughts; often harsh, or rude, or ill-sounding 
 words ; but, nevertheless, words of force, every one 
 effective in performing the service of the occasion. 
 
 A western writer, in a sketch of a trip into the 
 State of Kentucky about 1806, has occasion to 
 describe one who was an early and splendid master 
 of the style of eloquence of which I have spoken. 
 This writer had occasion to visit the lower or Green 
 
420 PIONEERS, PEEACHEKS AND PEOPLE 
 
 Kiver counties, and on arriving at a county town 
 found the court just assembling, and a great con- 
 course of people from all tlie region round, gathered 
 together in expectation of a trial which had excited 
 very great interest in all the neighborhood. He 
 entered the court-house, an extempore affair — ^for all 
 the appurtenances of justice, like the speeches of 
 that day and place, were improvised. The abode of 
 justice was a log-cabin. On one side sat the judge, 
 and the sheriff, shouting out "Oyez, oyez," proclaimed 
 the opening of the court. Business was begun, and 
 the docket regularly called ; and in process of time 
 this case, so eagerly looked forward to, was put 
 in course of trial ; the witnesses were called and 
 examined, and the pleadings commenced. The case 
 was a civil suit for damages for slander, brought by 
 a poor orphan girl, whose fair name, her only posses- 
 sion, had been defamed by the defendant, a wealthy 
 man in that region. She had no kinsmen who could 
 revenge this great wrong by personal prowess, by 
 the strong hand, as the custom of the country would 
 ordinarily have required ; and the spirited young 
 girl found herself perforce left to the slow resource 
 of the law. The counsel for the plaintiff, as he ap- 
 peared to my authority, was tall, straight, and rather 
 slender ; of dark, or at least, swarthy features. Long 
 black locks fell over his face, an eagle-eye looked 
 keenly from beneath his forehead, and his costume, 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 421 
 
 as imjuridical a dress as could well be conceived, 
 was that of a Imnter in those woods: buckskin 
 hunting-shirt, with fringed border leggins and 
 moccasins. He rose and commenced his speech. 
 As he proceeded, the wild backwoodsmen, who had 
 gatliered from their sports and antics about the 
 court-house green, crowded around, and now breath- 
 less, their attention riveted by the eloquence of the 
 speaker. Every niche of the little building was 
 crowded, and every window and doorway filled with 
 absorbed listeners. As with imperative and heart- 
 touching power the speaker described the helpless 
 loneliness of the orphaned maiden his client, her sad 
 isolation within the broad and busy world, judge, 
 and clerk, and jury, and audience, were subdued 
 with irrepressible emotion. And again, as he as- 
 sailed the man who attempted to defile her reputa- 
 tion, it seemed as if a tornado of fire were drying up 
 all the streams. As the hot and scorching wind 
 of his sarcasm and invective swept through the 
 audience, their eyes flashed and their bosoms heaved ; 
 he carried their very souls captive, and every man of 
 them made the orphan's cause his own. So utterly 
 did the assembly pass beneath the influence and into 
 the spirit of that indignant and terrible denunciation, 
 that had the slanderer been on the spot it is very 
 doubtful whether he would have left the place alive. 
 And when the words of this backwoods counsel 
 
422 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 were ended, the jury, without retiring from their 
 seats, brought in a verdict for heavy damages. 
 
 Some years thereafter, and jnst subsequently to the 
 war of 1812, this same writer had occasion to be in 
 the State of Indiana, and was near one of Harrison's 
 battle-grounds. Early in the morning he rose and 
 rode out to see the scene of the fight ; and fiist 
 lie repaired to a S23ot where, underneath a broad and 
 noble tree, was a little mound of earth without 
 paling or defence, and with no stone to mark the 
 head of him who rested there — for he had come 
 to visit the grave of the eloquent advocate whom he 
 had heard in southern Kentucky. Here lay the 
 successful lawyer, the all-powerful orator, the brave 
 soldier, the noble and upright man, the husband 
 of the sister of Chief Justice Marshall, the man who 
 had held Aaron Burr at bay, and who opposed and 
 exposed the plots with which that arch seducer was 
 wiling away honest citizens to treason and death ; 
 the equal antagonist of Henry Clay, and who, if in- 
 stead of falling at the battle of Tippecanoe, he had 
 lived as long as Clay, would have won as high, if not 
 a higher place, than did even that great orator of 
 the West. Such was he who is yet familiarly s]3oken 
 of and cherished in memory throughout all the West 
 as Jo Hamilton Daviess, one of the noblest, most lofty 
 minded, loftily and daringly ambitious, and yet one 
 of the most simple-hearted and truthful of all the 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 4:23 
 
 eminent men tliat the fruitful border land has 
 yet produced. 
 
 I have mentioned the name of him who was then 
 the rival of Daviess. 'No two men are more perfect 
 representatives and ideals of that western mind whose 
 qualities and productions I have feebly endeavored 
 to describe. They came from the people, and were 
 rocked in the cradle of adversity. Their eyes were 
 disciplined in the rights, and their ears to the sounds 
 of the forest. They were the ready and sensitive and 
 diligent students of nature, in all her stern and harsh 
 and rugged forms, and in all her sweet sylvan bean- 
 ties. Waterfalls and the quiet voice of placid streams, 
 the vivid verdure of the spring and the warm luxu- 
 rious breath of summer ; the cold and the rigid frosts, 
 the white still snow and the bitter furious storms of 
 winter ; the sound of the battle too, and the alarms 
 and perils of war — all these had trained them. They 
 bore throbbing fiery hearts, often vivid with excite- 
 ment and wild with passion; and their audiences 
 were men of like mold and hearts, and like passions 
 with themselves. Thus they found congenial mate- 
 rials to be worked upon; free, open, sensitive and 
 truthful souls, ready to receive the imj^ress of their 
 burning genius ; and for men like them, starting in 
 any professional career, either as lawyer, states- 
 man or divine, no nobler or fitter materials could 
 have been found. 
 
424 PIONEERS, PEEACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 Tlius did Henry Clay embark "upon the career of 
 a lawyer's life, liis heart in liis hand ; his natare in 
 full and free sympathy with that of the masses ; al- 
 ways true to freedom and justice, and no respecter 
 of persons ; enforcing as occasion served that perilous 
 duty of the emancipation of the negro race ; serving 
 a Avrit for the keej)er of a dram-shop, upon a distin- 
 guished lawyer, for drinks and liquor unpaid for, and 
 so securing the undying hostility of an influential 
 man. At one bound, he springs into the foremost 
 rank of the legal talent of the day. He is little 
 learned in books ; he has not moved even in the 
 graceful society of his own native Yirginia ; it must 
 be the movements of the trees bending in the wind 
 that have taught him his grace and dignity of attitude 
 and gesture. He has spent little time over the great 
 works of Greek and Eoman orators ; it is his own 
 earnest convictions, his piercing intelligence, his true 
 sympathies and keen perceptions and instincts, that 
 reveal to him what are the thoughts required, and 
 the words in which they should be clothed. Thus 
 profoundly true, and wondrously adapted to that 
 community, he becomes the master of the intellect 
 of the West. Stepping by a transition so natural and 
 common, from law into politics, he enters the United 
 States Senate, and either there or in the House 
 becomes the head of the party who advocated the 
 last war with Great Britain ; and boldly and deter 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 425 
 
 minedly leads the van in upholding the government, 
 in the face of many bitter adversaries and with many 
 faint friends, and against the whole embodied opposi- 
 tion of ]S^ew England. Sent to Europe as commis- 
 sioner to conclude the treaty of Ghent, together with 
 Adams, Bayard, Gallatin, and Russell, he is a 
 controlling spirit in the negotiations ; and Lord 
 Castlereagh, one of the most polished and finished 
 of the courtiers of Europe, from youth familiar with 
 the most refined and aristocratic society of the old 
 world, pronounces this untutored child of the wilder- 
 ness the most elegant and accomplished gentleman 
 he had ever seen. Eeturning home, he passes from 
 one post of honor and distinction to another, receiv- 
 ing almost every office in the gift of the people 
 except the highest ; and links his name, together 
 with one or two others, to every great event and 
 epoch in our history from that date almost to the 
 present. 1820, 1832, 1850, found Clay and "Webster 
 standing side by side ; foremost in withstanding 
 every storm. Against each onset, they stood, like 
 some colossal monumental forms, breasting the full 
 tempest and malignity of its fury, sometimes so 
 utterly hidden in the darkness and rage of the ele- 
 ments, that they seem to be tottering and falling, to 
 be ground to atoms far below. But they not only 
 outlast, but govern the wild elements that assault 
 them: they "ride the whirlwind and direct the 
 
426 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 storm." And as tliey thus stood so often, so shall 
 stand for hundreds of years to come the names of the 
 two great men, one from the "West and one from the 
 ISTorth ; the graceful Ash of Kentucky, and the massive 
 Granite Block of IS^ew Hampshire. 
 
 Henry Clay had not the culture, the profound legal 
 lore, the thoroughly disciplined logical faculty, of 
 Webster ; nor his broad and dome-like brow, or the 
 deep and cavernous eyes from which flashed forth 
 such profound and mighty fires when he stood before 
 Bench or Senate. But Henry Clay, graceful, agile, 
 dextrous, full of fire and passion, yet with a will 
 fixed as fate, a born commander of men — ^the joy 
 and light of every social circle he entered ; loved by 
 women as no man on this continent has ever been ; 
 and for whose defeat in ISM I suppose more women's 
 tears were shed than for any single event before — 
 stands before us as the illustrious type and represen- 
 tative of the eloquence of the western country. And, 
 take him for all in all, as man of the people and 
 orator of the people, whatever his short-comings or 
 failings, it will be many a long year before we look 
 upon his like again ! 
 
 I cannot conclude without a brief reference to 
 a few writers whose works embody most of the pecu- 
 liar traits and oddities, fun, humor and wit, of the 
 southwestern United States. These are. Col. T. B. 
 Tliorpe, now of New York, Johnson Hooper of Ala- 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 427 
 
 bama, and Judge Longstreet of Mississippi. Thorpe's 
 " Bee-Hunter " is an unrivalled sketcli of the times 
 of the first pioneers in Arkansas. Judge Longstreet, 
 whom I am half sorry, half glad, to own as a fellow 
 Methodist preacher, is the author of "Georgia 
 Scenes ;" and Johnson Hooper wrote that famous and 
 most characteristic book, " The Adventures of Simon 
 Suggs." These, and other works of these three 
 gentlemen, contain the fullest and most characteristic 
 delineations of the ways of thinking, acting and 
 speaking in those distant regions, anywhere to be 
 found in print. 
 
Lecture X. 
 THE GREAT YALLEY; 
 
 ITS PAST, ITS PRESENT, AND ITS FUTURE. 
 
THE GREAT YALLEY : 
 
 ITS PASr, ITS PRESENT, AND ITS FUTURE. 
 
 I HAVE now, in a series of isolated pictures, 
 sketclied the history of the Mississippi Yallejjby a 
 successive portraiture of its representative men and 
 periods, during three centuries ; from the first voyages 
 of the hardy Spanish discoverers who skirted its coasts, 
 and their bold and ill-fated endeavors to penetrate 
 the hostile xealms of its far interior, so long believed 
 to blaze with unimaginable wealth of gold — so 
 fearfully revealed as a fatal forest wilderness swarm- 
 ing with desperate and warlike defenders — down to 
 that strange enterprise of Aaron Burr, which in so 
 many points of wild and hopeless absurdity, of vision- 
 ary hardihood, of unscrupulous, conscienceless wicked- 
 ness, and disregard of rights human or divine, 
 resembles the early inroads of the Spaniard ; — and 
 down to those other crusades, longer in continuance, 
 scarcely less perilous for hardship and danger, and 
 immeasurably loftier in spirit and in aim, the wan- 
 dering self-denying missionary lives of the pioneer 
 preachers — the worthy successors of Marquette, of 
 Breboeuf and of Jaques. 
 
432 PIONEERS, PliEACHERS AlTD PEOPLE 
 
 It remains, in the concluding lecture, to sum up 
 the whole in such a manner as may group into one 
 single picture, the figures, the light and shade, the 
 distance and the foreground of these several sketches 
 — to treat what I will call the nation of the Great Yal- 
 lej, as one ; to follow its history from the end of the 
 series of delineations I have given, down to the pre- 
 sent ; and to essay the far more venturesome task of 
 tracing some outline, or I should rather say of 
 indulging in some dream — of its unknown future. 
 
 In thus attempting to fix the collective traits and 
 total significance of the Yalley and its people, let 
 me ask the reader first to observe what that people 
 is ; what manner of race of men is that of the Yal- 
 ley. We have already studied them by classes, and 
 by thought ; but what are they historically — etlino- 
 logically ? 
 
 It is a most ancient practice, to begin every his- 
 tory at the Creation — a practice honored by great 
 votaries, from the times of the antique chroniclers of 
 Germany, and the monkish Latin historians of the 
 middle ages, down to that eminent authority, Herr 
 Professor von Poddingkopf, so delightfully cited by 
 the most eminent and the latest departed of all the 
 American prose writers, the genial and beloved 
 Irving. But I shall not go back so far ; not quite 
 back to the flood. 
 
 In Africa and in Asia, and in America too, there 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 433 
 
 have existed civilizations more or less exalted iii 
 grade, and lasting in endurance. But the works of 
 the mound-builders of the "West — for our cycle of 
 allusions may begin at the very point whither it is 
 at last to bring us — and the Aztecs of the south, the 
 Egyptians and Ethopians, the Assyrians, Persians, 
 Hindoos, Chinese — all the monuments of their arts 
 and arms, their codes of laws and systems of thought, 
 have passed either into utter oblivion, complete de- 
 struction, a stiff immovable catalepsy not deserving 
 the name of life, or a suj^erannuated and decrepit 
 age. 
 
 But that race, whatever its earlier designations, 
 which was the parent of the various European 
 families of men, possessed higher qualities. It may 
 not have been superior to others in stature, or strength, 
 or beauty, in force or acuteness of intellect, perha]3S 
 not always in purity of morals or in religious truth. 
 But in one thing it has demonstrated itself superior: 
 in the capacity of unlimited and universal improve- 
 ment. Through the vicissitudes of ages, under num- 
 berless phases of development, and despite many 
 periods of torpidity and even of retrogression, one 
 people has as it were evolved from within itself ano- 
 ther, and always a better. 
 
 The genius of civilization, having done his utmost 
 with Egyptains and Assyrians, led the Greeks and 
 the Eomans to far higher summits of intellectual 
 
 19 
 
434 PIONEERS, PKEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 achievement and of etliical knowledge. Tlien Cliris- 
 tianity, in like manner, after experiment and failure 
 in Asia, transferred the centres of her dominion 
 to European soil. From the Christian Era, the 
 history of Europe is the history of human progress. 
 Among the nations of Europe, the Germanic civiliza- 
 tion has been of a higher moral tone and a more 
 deeply formed institutional character, than the Latin. 
 And of the Germanic nations, that branch which 
 became the Anglo-Saxon and then the English, 
 stands this day foremost of all. And — now at last 
 returning to this continent — the Anglo-American 
 nation, a new nation, is evolved as it were from 
 within the bosom of the English nation, by that 
 strange process wdiich, a long array of precedents 
 assures us, places every such latest-born people upon 
 a higher level of existence than that of its parent — 
 there to exemplify some still greater principle, 
 to teach some still loftier lesson of destiny and of 
 progress. Last of all, there has arisen within this 
 mighty Yalley, streaming over the bordering Alle- 
 ghanies, pushing westward by the side of the great 
 northern Lakes, disembarking on the sandy shore of 
 the Gulf, or struggling up the yellow fiood of the 
 Mississippi, yet one more nation within a nation; 
 and now in the basin of the Great Kiver is abiding 
 and increasing a multitude already numerous enough 
 to wield tlie political destinies of our land, and in 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 435 
 
 possession of opportunities never before in reacli of 
 any human community on this eartli, for aehieving 
 eminence in all that humanity desires of happiness, 
 nobility and goodness. 
 
 In historic descent these are the foremost children 
 of men ; the youngest sons, the Eenjamins of old 
 mother earth ; and truly they are planted in a heri- 
 tage well worthy of a parent's or a brother's partial 
 fondness. As Benjamin's mess was five times that of 
 any of his brethren, so is the vast and fair domain of 
 the Mississippi Yalley — including as it naturally does 
 the Gulf States — three times as extensive as the At- 
 lantic slope, and somewhat less than twice as exten- 
 sive as the third great natural division of our terri- 
 tory, the Pacific slope. I need not compare its 
 w^ealth of soil and climate and rivers and metals, to 
 theirs. 
 
 God reserved this goodly land for those who hold 
 it now. Many were the bold voyagers of antiquity ; 
 but none until Columbus was directed across the 
 western sea to America. Enough there were of hardy 
 explorers among the sons of Spain, and enough of 
 wise and strong men, able to found and to govern 
 new kingdoms ; but none of them were to establish 
 themseh'es here. The traders and the soldiery of 
 France were many and hardy and brave, and her 
 Jesuits and Franciscans, with all the zeal that the 
 love of souls and the desire of martyrdom coulil 
 
436 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 inspire, labored for years among the forest tribes; 
 and the pliant genius and dextrous skill of her set- 
 tlers almost fused the civilized and savage nations 
 into one. But this splendid domain was not for 
 France. E'or was it even to become a colony of the 
 British empire ; a possession of the resolute Anglo- 
 Saxon men, who, if any of the European kingdoms, 
 were fitted to hold and to govern it. All these 
 claimants, one after another, sought to establish a 
 title ; but each and every claim was disallowed by 
 him who ruleth both the affairs of the children of 
 men and the armies of heaven. This land was not a 
 land for Spain, nor France nor England. A separate 
 race had been elected and consecrated to the sublime 
 task of redeeming its vast expanse from solitude and 
 barbarism; of conquering it for a cultivated hu- 
 manity ; of making it the home of happy multi- 
 tudes ; a broad foundation for God's church ; a new 
 field for the solution of man's threefold problem, his 
 relations to God, to the earth, and to his neighbor. 
 Neither the spirit of effete feudalism, nor the stron- 
 ger spirit of a ceremonial church ; neither the des- 
 potic power of a monarchy ruling under the civil 
 law, nor the irresponsible destructive sway of any 
 band of greedy traders, was to possess the new realm ; 
 but that strong off-shoot of the noble old Anglo- 
 Saxon stem, which has well been called the Anglo- 
 American, was to have and to rule it; and a long 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 437 
 
 and severe discipline was that wliicli had prepared it. 
 The people of England, rising slowly and stubbornly 
 upward from the slavery of the Norman conquest ; 
 helped unconsciously and unintentionally by the 
 extorted gift of the Great Charter ; beginning to con- 
 trol even the brutal bull-dog strength of the Tudor 
 monarch s ; then rising and slaying a senselessly 
 oppressive king — a people taught by the sweet 
 sounds of old Chaucer ; around whose path had been 
 thrown the strange and mystic imaginings of Spenser ; 
 who had listened to the " native wood-notes wild," of 
 Shakspeare; and who had found even a nobler poet, 
 and a fearless and mighty defender, in John Milton ; 
 who had learned wisdom of Francis Bacon ; whose 
 imao:inations and consciences were at once entranced 
 and convinced by the wondrous spiritual dream of 
 Bunyan ; and whose reason had been instructed by 
 the clear understanding and acute philosophy of 
 Locke : this people had here and there ripened to the 
 point of capacity and desire for self-government, 
 under the double and opposite stimulus of the lasting 
 Puritan leaven which the Heformation had diffused 
 in England, and of the grinding and intensifying 
 tyranny of the Tudors and Stuarts. 
 
 Thus it came to pass that there went out from Eng- 
 land that small body of strong men, who "builded 
 wiser than they knew," and founded this nation. 
 Well trained in cool self-reliance, iron courage, 
 
438 PI0NEEE8, PEEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 impregnable perseverance ; strong and ready of hand 
 and of lieart, wise in tlionglit, learned in tliat plii- 
 losopliy wliicli is most readily transmuted into right 
 and efficient action, and above all, clothed and pene- 
 trated and borne onward by a strength incredible to 
 those not of them, the strength of Faith in God — they 
 sailed away across the sea. With all these high and 
 noble traits, unconsciously the greatest statesmen on 
 earth, having prepared the iron pillars of their little 
 nation of a hundred men in their ship, they landed in 
 America, with the fabric of their church and State 
 all ready prej^ared for erection. 
 
 And as in after years the posterity of these small 
 colonies entered within the vast inland realm of 
 which I am speaking — as the hostile savages faded 
 away, and the forests began to fall, and the sunlight 
 to work its wondrous chemistries upon the wealthy 
 soil beneath, and bountiful mother Earth bared her 
 bosom to the plough and hoe — how marvellously did 
 that Providence which had planted them there, provide 
 one aid after another, coordinate with the increasing 
 needs of the increasing nation ! 
 
 Small centres of inhabitants, feeble, unconnected, 
 isolated, mere points of crystallization u]3on the vast 
 expanse, lie like distant dots along the great rivers, or 
 in the wide woods. It is intercourse that consoli- 
 dates a nation. Life blood must circulate. A huge 
 inert overgrown body dies of mere magnitude. Bat 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 489 
 
 how shall this indispensable need be supplied? 
 Antiquity hath no answer to the problem, or the 
 Koman empire might have held together. Modern 
 science has no suggestion to make : horses and men 
 are the swiftest and strongest messengers, except the. 
 inconstant, treacherous winds. But James Watt 
 studied the boiling of a teakettle, and as in the 
 oriental tale there rose up from the thin vapor of a 
 sealed jug a mighty giant, so did the genius of the 
 Scotch mechanician evolve from the vapors of that 
 mean vessel the superhuman* might of the steam 
 engine. Then one of our own countrymen, laying in 
 turn his modifying hand upon the volatile essence of 
 fire and water, constrains its giant strength into the 
 service of the steamboat — and the wants of the nation 
 of the valley are supplied! Again, as population 
 thickens and wealth increases, and men begin more 
 and more, after the mysterious word of the prophet, 
 to go to and fro in the earth, Kobert Stephenson 
 invents the locomotive ; and straightway the hurry- 
 ing millions of the Yalley, no longer confined to the 
 channels of the rivers, flit over the mountains or 
 through them and across the plain, on that stronger 
 and closer network of civilization, and of interwoven 
 civic strength, the railroad. And last of all, within 
 these last years we have the electric telegraph, which 
 may fitly be likened to that great system called the 
 sympathetic nerve, which flashes hither and thither 
 
440 PIONEERS, PEEACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 througli the body the constant sustaining streanas 
 of nnconscions life ; which maintains the health and 
 action of all the wondrous processes, and keeps all 
 alive, but which the imperial, central, conscious will 
 cannot reach. For so does the little telegraphic wire, 
 flashing endless communication hither and thither all 
 over the land, hold us, mind with mind, in a compre- 
 hensive, indissoluble unitary life. Ah, it is in such 
 pecuniary enterprises as these, set up in the fervent 
 worship of Mammon, that we shall find a power, all 
 quiet and unrecognized, but with all the unimaginable 
 strength of a truly Divine messenger, infinitely more 
 potent against the rising yells of that infernal army 
 of Disunion, this day thickening around us, than in 
 any such old world fancies as patriotism and humanity, 
 justice and forbearance ! 
 
 Nor has less wisdom or kindness been shown in 
 providing for the needs of the intellectual and reli- 
 gious faculties. I have already referred to the zeal 
 and intrepid j)erseverance of the ancient Catholic 
 missionaries, whose not unworthy successoi^. Father 
 De Smet, Bishop Elanchet and their brethren are still 
 faithfully and efiiciently laboring among the fierce 
 tribes of the distant ISTorthwest^ I have also spoken 
 of the Protestant missionaries who quickly followed 
 on over the mountains, to look after their small flocks 
 in the wilderness. Tlie minister and the schoolmas- 
 ter were provided, as the rising generation began to 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 441 
 
 need their aid. The fierce stern exigencies of their 
 perilons life in tlie wilderness trained them in quick- 
 ness of eje and readiness of hand, in prompt and 
 loftj courage, in fruitfulness of resource and a hardy 
 self-reliant perseverance that never yielded. While 
 thus the hard school of necessity trained them, by 
 rude, incessant, inevitable lessons, into a rough but 
 noble strength, it was the duty of the teacher and of 
 the missionary, not so much to excite the forces of 
 nerve and soul — for that external stimulus so com- 
 monly needed elsewhere had here been supplied by 
 nature and the wilderness and the savage, and mind 
 and soul were here all awake, full of force and acti- 
 vity — but to direct, to moderate, to restrain. The 
 work is prosperously in progress. The school-houses, 
 log-built and humble though they were, have yet 
 been the centres of a continual and increasing diffu- 
 sion of knowledge and of goodness. In those 
 obscure edifices, all the week, the teacher led his 
 youthful charge in the paths of learning ; and on the 
 seventh day, the same lowly building became the 
 sanctuary of the Most High, and the backwoods 
 preacher expounded to the same children and to 
 their parents also, the message of God, preparing 
 them both for this life and for that which is to come. 
 But in thus seeking to sketch the characteristic 
 elements of the people of the Great Yalley, I must 
 not omit to allude to one important feature, viz., the 
 19* 
 
442 PIONEERS, PKEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 mingled ciirrents of its blood. The main stock is 
 Anglo-Saxon. Important infusions of Scotcli and 
 Irish blood were in the veins of very many of its 
 best and bravest men. There has always been some 
 small admixture from amongst the French of Illinois 
 and Louisiana. Scarce a tinge of Spanish blood can 
 be traced. On one of the outskirts or appendages 
 of the Yalley — the peninsula of Florida — a colony 
 of fifteen hundred Greeks was once j^lanted, whose 
 blood still runs in the veins of some of the best fami- 
 lies of St. Augustine. A somewhat more diffused 
 intermixture may be followed, from those Huguenot 
 French who settled along the Atlantic coast from 
 Boston to Charleston. Great numbers of Germans 
 have long contributed toward this miscellaneous 
 national stock the solid or the graceful traits of the 
 old Teutonic character. In the JSTorth may be traced 
 colonies of Norwegians, of Dutch, a few Swedes and 
 Danes. There has been no perceptible addition of 
 Italian blood ; nor of that of the Aborigines ; for 
 the border intercourse of centuries has been bloody 
 and murderous, with a strange, sad uniformity. 'No 
 modification is yet visible, and let us hope that none 
 will be, from the last strange immigration of brutal 
 Chinamen to our distant Pacific coast. 
 
 And thus we find the western people to-day, not 
 one of those pure races whose uniform destiny seems 
 to be to disappear, but a community of bloods rather 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 443 
 
 than a race, one of those homogeneous mixtures of 
 character not found except in these latter days of his- 
 tory, whose Talue and power amongst the great 
 republic of nations no precedents enable us to ascer- 
 tain, but for whom there are many reasons to antici- 
 pate a grand and noble future. 
 
 Having thus endeavored to represent the original 
 and added constituents of the People of the Great Yal- 
 ley, let us next observe them and their landed common- 
 wealths, at the point to which they have now attained. 
 
 Imagine, therefore, a spectator — yourself, if you 
 will — with an ideal vision broad and keen enough to 
 embrace and discern so much, and lifted high up in 
 air, even so that you may look far abroad over all the 
 Great Yalley, and those adjuncts or appendixes which 
 naturally and politically belong with it, namely the 
 Gulf States and Michigan. And observe, being in 
 spirit with this visionary beholder of mine, the mul- 
 tiplied features of power and grandeur presented to 
 your eye. From the white and sunny sands of Flo- 
 ridian Cape Sable and the sea-washed little Wreck 
 City of Key "West, to the cold remote northwestern 
 village of wintry log-built forest-circled Pembina 
 and the improvised mining towns of Aurora and 
 Denver, raised as it were in a night by the strong 
 sorcery of Mammon on barren hill-sides all treeless 
 and forlorn : from smoke-canopied Pittsburg, grimy 
 dwelling of forges and mills, on the antique site of 
 
4:4:4: PIONEERS, PEEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 vanished Fort Du Quesne, to the struggling semi 
 prosperous frontier town of Brownsville, where 
 Texans look with faces sour and contemptuous, yet 
 eager and expectant, to the wide territories of Mexico, 
 and where there seems to prevail a chronic border 
 warfare, the frictional irritation between chafing 
 races : from the skirting AUeghanies on the east to 
 the interrupted but sufficient ramparts of the Rocky 
 Mountains in the West, and from the warm blue of 
 the salt Gulf to the cooler waters and hues of the 
 great northern chain of fresh-water seas: over all 
 this vast domain, grown up to its present level of 
 magnificent power within three-quarters of a century 
 — ^the lifetime of one man — how wonderful, how 
 mighty, how complicated, are the masses and forms 
 and movements of human life and labor ! 
 
 Twelve millions of souls are fulfilling their desti- 
 nies within the space of this great panorama ; 
 belonging to sixteen sovereign States, and five 
 younger sisters — ^Territories, some of them already 
 impatiently knocking at the doors of Congress for 
 admission into the Union of their elder sisters ; and 
 if I do not add to this number that of their brethren 
 beyond the western mountains, the half-million and 
 more of California, and the thousands of Utah, and 
 Oregon and Washington Territory, it is for the 
 sake of geographical rather than logical correctness, 
 for those Pacific States are most properly out- 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 4:45 
 
 skirts, suburbs, advanced posts of the great bive of 
 men in the Yalley. 
 
 Amid this vast and busy tbrong of men whose 
 multiplied labors have already done so much to 
 change the dark unbroken forest, and silent open 
 prairie into a garden of God, are efficiently operating 
 the manifold engineries of civilized life. To and fro, 
 along the thousands of miles of the vast river system, 
 are rushing a thousand steamers, from eleven hundred 
 tons burden downward, in place of the little awk- 
 ward Orleans, of a hundred tons, launched by Fulton 
 and Livingston at Pittsburg, in 1812. The lake fieet, 
 over and above this, is of twelve hundred vessels and 
 more; and from the great southern marts of the 
 Yalley, another vast auxiliary ocean fleet brings in 
 or bears away an annual mass of imports and exports 
 of a hundred and twenty-five millions of dollars. 
 The network of railroads has but barely begun to 
 knit itself through and over a few portions of the 
 Yalley ; but this beginning is a giant one. Over 
 thirteen thousand miles of railroad, the more eager 
 spirits of the Yalley fly hither and thither on errands 
 of business, or affection, or pleasure. 
 
 In 1776, -the Baptist John Hickman first began to 
 labor as a Protestant minister west of the Alleghanies. 
 ISTow, in seventeen thousand churcl^s, of twenty sects, 
 the Word of God is statedly dispensed to an average 
 of something like five millions of regular hearers. 
 
4:4:6 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 "When or where the first log school-house was 
 erected, and the first little platoon of recruits of 
 learning 
 
 " Discharged their a-b ab's against the dame," 
 
 — or master, I cannot say, except that it was within 
 the last eighty years. But now, a hundred and fifty 
 colleges crown woody heights, or shelter themselves 
 in retired valleys ; and in these, and in fifty thousand 
 public and private schools, nearly two millions of 
 youth are receiving a moral and intellectual train- 
 ing whose depth, and breadth, and thoroughness is 
 yearly greater, and w^hich yearly better prepares its 
 graduates to plunge out into the great battle of life — 
 to perform wisely and well his or her single duty as 
 a citizen oi' a wife. 
 
 Once more : let me repeat a few similar statistics — 
 dry kernels, but, to a reflective mind, nevertheless, 
 the seeds of infinite conceptions of grandeur and 
 beauty — relative to one section of the great domain 
 of the Yalley — the ITorthwest. This is the tract 
 between the Ohio, the Lakes, and the Mississippi, 
 which contains two hundred and sixty thousand 
 square miles, and which Washington, who early 
 owned lands within it, called a " western worldP 
 
 A hundred years ago — in 1751 — it contained five 
 little French towns, with about one thousand inhabi- 
 tants, all nestled down together, like a little group of 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 447 
 
 timid lambs, "withiu a hidden valley in the southwest 
 of Illinois — and no other European settlements. The 
 first State admitted into the Union from it was Ohio, 
 in 1802. The earliest English settlements within 
 Ohio were made in 1774, but none was of any im- 
 portance imtil the settlement of Marietta, in 1788, 
 when tiie English inhabitants may have numbered 
 five thousand. Little more than three-quarters of a 
 century has passed, and into what gigantic propor- 
 tions has this section of the great Yalley already 
 grown ! Five great States occupy its territory ; not 
 less than seven millions of p>eople inhabit it ; every 
 year its farms produce not far from three hundi-ed 
 millions of dallars in value ; its mines, eighty mil- 
 lions ; its lumber, seventy millions ; its twenty thou- 
 sand and more of manufactories, a hundred and thirty 
 millions; its fisheries, three millions. It has nine 
 thousand miles and more of railroads ; fourteen hun- 
 dred miles of canals ; seven thousand miles of tele- 
 graph. It contains two hundred banks, with twenty 
 millions of capital. Its whole material extent, real 
 and personal property together, is reckoned to be 
 worth more than one and three-quarters hillions of 
 dollars. 
 
 But this startling expansion is not to be reckoned 
 by business and statistics alone. The Northwest has 
 built eight thousand churches, which will hold four 
 millions of people ; fifty colleges, and twenty-five 
 
448 PIONEERS, PKEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 thousand schools, where are studying a million and a 
 half of pupils ; and it supports a thousand news- 
 papers, twelve hundred libraries more or less public, 
 and scientific and literary societies innumerable. 
 
 Again, a yet more wondrous exemplification of 
 the exuberant, gigantic vital strength of this great 
 inland realm is aflorded by the growth of its cities. 
 In former ages of the world, many enormous cities 
 were raised up by despotic jDOwer, or increased during 
 centuries by a slow process of accretion. But in our 
 great Yalley it is as if the strong, rich soil gave birth 
 to the sudden vastness of the marts, that rise almost 
 like exhalations on lake-side and river-bank. A 
 proud and glorious instance do they furnish of the 
 superiority of the power of a free and enterprising 
 people, over the spiritless, slavish obedience of Asiatic 
 subjects, or of monarchical conservatisms. 
 
 Across the northei'n portion of the great Yalley, if 
 you glance upon the map, you can easily trace two 
 great lines of cities dotting, like great jewels, the 
 chain of trade and intercourse between East and 
 West. The northern line, from Bufi'alo by Cleveland 
 and Detroit, ends at Chicago ; the southern line 
 begins with Pittsburg, and extends, by Cincinnati 
 and Louisville, to St. Louis. The nine cities of the 
 first have increased their total population, during the 
 last ten years, from 159,000 to 454,000 ; and the nine 
 of tlie second line, during the same period, from 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 449 
 
 335,000 to 600,000. The most wondrous of them all, 
 Chicago, which in 1840 had 4,800 inhabitants — 
 which in 1830 had 70 inhabitants — ^had last year 
 125,000. 
 
 In what other way could I set before you what the 
 Mississippi Yalley now is ? Mere statistics, you wilL 
 say ; uninteresting figures ; dry bones of information. 
 But, as I said before, it is these very figures which 
 are, if rightly viewed, instinct with whatever is gi'and 
 and marvellous. "Within this brief period — for one 
 human life, long though it may be, is brief enough 
 compared with the age of this world — within this 
 brief period, the Nation of the Yalley has grown up 
 with such a portentous speed and strength as reminds 
 us of that gigantic fountain which pours suddenly a 
 full-grown river from the unknown caverns of the 
 lower earth : from nothing, to myriads of souls ; from 
 nothing, to millions of money ; from nothing, to an 
 infinity of strength and power, and to a high grade 
 of culture and excellence. Thus I state the summary, 
 by comparisons, in general terms. But it is the 
 scries of arithmetical numbers that affords the most 
 tangible basis for thought — the firmest and clearest, 
 and, indeed, the only valuable conceptions, upon 
 such a point as this. 
 
 And now I have passed over two parts of this sum- 
 ming up. I have examined this western race, and 
 inquired what is it by blood and by constituent parts; 
 
150 PIONEEES, PEEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 and I have sought to indicate, by dint of some mathe- 
 matical totals, some general idea of what it is now, in 
 number, strength, and attainment. And it remains 
 to essay a more dangerous task — to speak of its 
 future. I am no prophet, either, to promise good 
 things, or to threaten evil ; nor do I pretend to any 
 wonderful measure, even of merely human prescience. 
 All that I venture to attempt is, to state obvious 
 meanings of visible phenomena — of those indications 
 which the great Master of Life has given to us on 
 purpose that we might reason on them and conclude 
 from them. 
 
 The Yalley is to be, as it has been, a great harbor 
 of refuge for the poor and oppressed of other lands. 
 It is the rightful glory of our Anglo-American race 
 to have opened welcoming arms to the refugees of 
 every nation. "No thought of selfish isolation ever 
 entered the hearts of the men that inhabit the 
 unparalleled region of the "West. They justly felt 
 that union and cooperation, not isolation and exclu- 
 siveness, is the principle of human progress. Tlie 
 Gentile Tyrian, ever under the stern and uncom- 
 promising polity of the Jewish theocracy, brought his 
 tribute of skill and of splendid gifts to the great 
 temple of Solomon ; Ophir sent its gold, the far Indies 
 their precious stones; and Candace, queen of 
 Ethiopia, from the furthest ends of the earth, came 
 on an acceptable pilgrimage to the shrine of the 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 451 
 
 Hebrews' God and the throne of the Hebrew king. 
 All commerce, all agriculture, all art, laid their con- 
 tributions upon the hallowed mount where God's 
 home was builded of old. And thus to-day, in this 
 vaster and immeasurably more wondrous temple — 
 this great edifice of free civil and religious polity 
 tlie strength and beauty of the wealthy Yalley — shall 
 all people and all tongues worship, and ofifer upon 
 its altars their various offerings, of all the good gifts 
 with which God has endowed them. Principally, 
 these thronging thousands contribute of their physical 
 strength. Canals are to be digged ; railroads to be 
 builded ; all that mass of material improvements to 
 be perfected, which is the dream of the practical 
 statesmanship of our Union. These are needed 
 before our land shall attain its ideal condition of a 
 totality of natural gifts and forces, modified bj 
 human skill — ere it will yield the greatest possible 
 amount of fruits to its people. And thus have long 
 been pouring in the legions of a great industrial army, 
 from Ireland, Germany, ]!!Torway, Sweden, Denmark, 
 Holland ; the men whose strong arms and laborious 
 habits render them competent to execute precisely 
 those masses of mere detail and drudgery so neces- 
 sary to the broad schemes of the Anglo-American 
 brain, but so distasteful to his preferences for mental 
 labor, for organizing, for directing ; for thinking, in 
 short, that others may do. It is this long succession 
 
452 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 of imn.'Igrants wliicli most singularly marks the wis- 
 dom of that mighty Hand which guides the fates of 
 the Yalley. The first generation furnishes laborers. 
 But their children, half-children of the soil, and 
 receiving the powerful impress of the invigorating 
 new world, and of its active minds, at once rise 
 upward and become farmers or mechanics; while 
 the cohorts of the railroad and the scattered ranks of 
 hired laborers are recruited from new arrivals. 
 
 Yet, again, the same over-ruling wisdom provided 
 that this innumerable host of people, of strange man- 
 ners and religion, would not find the portals of the 
 Yalley thrown open to them until the great pillars 
 of its commonwealth — its religious and political 
 forms — were powerfully and permanently adjusted. 
 JSTot until the proper and distinctive Anglo-American 
 forms of worship and of society were already received 
 and vigorously in operation, did the foreign bands find 
 room for the soles of their feet. Then, after the new 
 people had grown large enough and strong enough 
 for the action of the peculiar power of absorption and 
 integration with itself which marks the Anglo-Saxon 
 race, came the gradual influx of the strangers, pour- 
 ing steadily in, fusing and disappearing within the 
 ranks of the host already there. 
 
 Nearly four-fifths of the foreign population of our 
 country has arrived upon our shores since 1830 ; and 
 more than half of its total of three millions, since 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 453 
 
 18^0 Yet how few are those who apprehend any 
 dangi J! to our nation or to its valuable traits or pri- 
 vileg' % from this great transfusion of new blood ! 
 Who needs to doubt or to fear for our future ? Many, 
 at different times, have been terrified at the ruin sup- 
 posed to await the land from the spread of Eomanism 
 and of its attendant civil despotisms among us. But 
 how groundless an apprehension ! "VThen Jesuitism 
 had the land all to itself, it was unable to keep it. 
 Eome, unopposed, backed by the throne of France, 
 aided by the subtlest dij)lomacy, the greatest generals, 
 the wisest statesmen, long endeavored to retain her 
 hold upon the soil — but in vain. And when she thus 
 failed, is it for a moment to be supposed that she 
 iOAild succeed now ? Instead of the scattered super- 
 stitious barbarians, herded into the x^riestly fold by 
 the Catholic missionaries, and with but little more 
 consciousness of why it was done than so many cat- 
 tle would have had, they must now encounter a 
 population ten thousand fold greater, intelligent, 
 acute, trained in beliefs and — what is much more — 
 in feelings, instincts and modes of thought and action 
 expressly opposed or utterly foreign to them ; large, 
 broad modes of mental action which their little hier- 
 archic formulas can neither contain nor cope with ; 
 the vivid force of that shrewd circumspect self-relf- 
 ance which has been nurtured by the strong youth 
 and toilsome adventurous manhood of the West ; the 
 
454 PIONEERS, PREACHEES AITD PEOPLE 
 
 unwearied, incessant, increasing flow of knowledge^ 
 of goodness, of pnritj, of intellectual force, supplied 
 from so many thousands of fountains, in school-house, 
 college, and church. Is it to be feared that such 
 men as the Romanists will reduce the "West beneath 
 the sway of the Papacy? Shall we not rather 
 ingulf and assimilate them, priests, churches, com- 
 municants and all ? Can the Homan Bishop rule the 
 huge and rapid waves of this great ocean of human 
 life? It was only Christ whose word made the 
 winds to cease and the sea to be calm ; — even the 
 apostle, essaying to j)ass to his Master, would have 
 sunk for lack of faith; — and surely, surely these 
 deceived apostles of a mistaken faith will quickly 
 disa]3pear beneath the swelling flood. 
 
 For my own part, I have no fear. It is true that 
 once I spoke in the usual glowing terms, of the great 
 battle of Armageddon that was to be fought in the 
 Yalley of the Mississippi, and of the dangers to 
 which freedom "was then to be exposed from the on- 
 slaughts and invasions of foreigners and Eomanists. 
 But study and observation have convinced me to the 
 contrary. How frequent is the remark, even among 
 Romanists themselves, that their church only keeps 
 the immigrating generation ! The first comers may 
 themselves ever remain faithful and subservient sons 
 of the church. But the attachment of their children 
 is feeble and wavering; the grandchildren almost 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 455 
 
 always lapse from their connection with it, and the 
 fourth generation are commonly embosomed within 
 some Protestant organization. Iso ; Eomanists will 
 never change ns. We shall assimilate them, and 
 shall do good both to them and to ourselves in the 
 process. The religions formulas of Europe can no 
 more be established upon the soil of this country 
 than could the structure of one of its mediaeval des- 
 potisms be transported hither and maintained among 
 us. Facts forbid such a belief; reason, forbids it; 
 Faith, Hope, and Charity, all three, forbid it. 
 
 Let them come, therefore ; there is room for them 
 all, and we need them all. They will not defile or 
 lower us ; we shall purify and elevate them. They 
 come into a purer atmosphere, upon a higher plane of 
 life ; their necessary and unavoidable movement will 
 be upward. Even Mormonism, which occupies one 
 of the outlying suburbs of the Yalley of the Miss- 
 issippi — Mormonism, one of the greatest if not the 
 most important fact of our age and country — dark, 
 debasing and fearful as its politics and morality may 
 be — I believe to be a real step in advance for most of 
 those who remove to its desert home. And it seems 
 to me that few will fail to reach the same conclusion, 
 who shall carefully consider whence these people 
 come, what their characteristics'and qualities are, what 
 the new circumstances are in which they find them- 
 selves placed, and the fact that for the first time in 
 
466 PIONEEES, PEEACHEES AND PEOPLE 
 
 tlieir history or that of their ancestors, they arc here 
 brought into ai^proximately true, healthy and legi- 
 timate relations with the earth and labor. For God's 
 great earthly instrument for elevating man in the 
 scale of social being is labor. Men must set out 
 from earth, to reach heaven. He is the true son of 
 Earth — the true Antseus ; he gains new and ever 
 greater strength by being dashed into rude forcible 
 contact with her rugged bosom, and every rebound 
 carries him fm-ther upward. And these Mormons, 
 ho-svever isolated from our institutions, from the aids 
 of our social, intellectual, religious influences, are at 
 least starting from the right point. They are with 
 few exceptions an industrious and even laborious peo- 
 ple, frugal and honest and honorable within the 
 important range of the minor practical ethics. ITow 
 God leaves none of his children alone ; and thus we 
 are in duty bound to hope and believe that in pro- 
 cess of time old mother Earth, and their labor and 
 industry and economy in dealing with her, will little 
 by little lift them upw^ard until at last they will 
 come to the full and perfect stature of American 
 Christian citizens. Therefore it is that I have not the 
 least objection to have hundreds, thousands, and 
 tens of thousands, flocking to the Great Salt Lake. 
 Through whatever ill-favored or perilous phases, the 
 movement must and will result in good. 
 
 Of all the various races whose blood minofles in the 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 457 
 
 Great Yalley, or whose members inhabit it, one only 
 remains hopelesly mitamed, imtamable, savage. -Tlie 
 Indian alone defies the operation of the great princi- 
 ciple of interfusion of bloods. Amidst the comitless 
 thousands of whites, or rather, just before their 
 advancing, line, he remains an isolated, solitary being. 
 He stalks across the stage of thought or of history 
 alone. " Indian file," we say ; and it is singly, as we 
 thns describe single physical movements, that we ever 
 think of him, either in jom-neying, in character, or 
 action. The Indian can never be civilized. He has 
 not the faculties by which civilization lays hold npon 
 a man to modify and to cultivate him. For w^e im- 
 prove, through persistent patient labor, and through 
 the affections. Were it not for the power and the 
 habit of constant industry,' were it not for the sweet 
 fetters of love and duty to parents, family, children, 
 friends, what would make you and me stronger or 
 wiser, or better, or more useful — if we are so — from 
 year to year? Scarcely would the united strength of 
 religious obligation and of self-love avail to accom- 
 plish it without these balancing encircling forces. 
 These supply us with the quiet incessant stimulus 
 which holds us steadily, though with unperceived 
 strength, to our destined line of labor. But these 
 the solitary Indian scarcely feels at all ; and, there- 
 fore, the Indian must perish. We cannot absorb him, 
 cannot render him an integral part of our own 
 20 
 
458 PIONEERS, PREACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 society. We drive him further westward, fight him, 
 murder him with whisky. Our missionaries labor 
 amongst his decreasing bands with praiseworthy per- 
 severance, but with an utterly hopeless prospect. 
 God's law is against him. He cannot enter into our 
 laborious civilization, he cannot live amongst it ; and 
 he must needs disappear. 
 
 I need scarcely refer to the outlandish barbarism 
 and self-sufficient binitality of the strange incursion 
 of Chinamen - into California. That distant State is 
 no part nor outgrowth of the Yalley of the Missis- 
 sippi, except in a very indirect and distant sense ; and 
 if it were otherwise I could only say that perhaps 
 this Chinese race has the least good and the most 
 evil in it of any which might endeavor to unite with 
 our own. But it is entirely improbable, and scarce 
 possible that such a union should happen, in any mea- 
 sure whatever. 
 
 In thus recapitulating the admixture of races in the 
 West, I must not omit to refer to the mingling of the 
 eastern and southern Anglo-Americans with each 
 other there, and with those of the northern half of 
 the West. A quarter, almost, of the whole popula- 
 tion of ]^ew England, has been drained out of it into 
 new settlements. Her sons and daughters are ever 
 moving westward, insomuch that whole villages may 
 be found left with a strange over-proportion of elderly 
 people in them. Over the mountains they go, 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 459 
 
 teaching or trading, farming or preaching. The 
 joiing maidens intermarry with the southerners or 
 westerners, and the young men take to themselves 
 wives of the daughters of the land. And thus 
 are fused together the comparatively stiff and formal, 
 though strong, practical, straightforward, acute and 
 resolute qualities of the I^ew Englander, with the 
 fiery, impulsive generosity, the passionate fervor, the 
 indolence, the semi-tropical ease, of the far South, 
 or the broad, strong, open, hearty geniality, some- 
 times coarse, but always kind, of the more northern 
 part of the "West. 
 
 To speculate on future numerical totals would be 
 lost time. There is no arithmetic of the future. Let 
 us glance at data of a sort from which we can reason 
 forward. Observe the material and physiological 
 conditions for an improvable race, which are possessed 
 by the people of the Yalley. 
 
 A territory all but boundless ; a climate and a soil 
 exuberant beyond all measure, in geniality and rich- 
 ness ; a means of internal communication unprece- 
 dented and unequalled in human history ; resources 
 for material wealth utterly incalculable ; a freedom 
 almost ideal, of thought, expression and action ; a 
 predominant hereditary blood the best in the world ; 
 a national training adapted to develop all the strong- 
 est and best powers of humanity ; a gradual afflux of 
 other races, so ordered and adjusted that the genial 
 
160 PIONEERS, PEEACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 cheerfulness of one, the stern morality and strength 
 of principle and shrewd practical energy of another, 
 the gaiety and tireless industry of another, the lofty 
 honor and daring bravery of another, shall all mingle 
 together in the formation of one vast homogeneous 
 race, a compound of many various human qualities — ■ 
 and thus form the truest representative man on 
 earth. Look, lastly, at the various instrumentalities 
 and institutions which human experience has elabo- 
 rated or Divine wisdom has ordained, as best for 
 communicating and increasing and diffusing know- 
 ledge, and goodness, and culture. Observe all this, 
 and then say whether the nation of the great valley 
 is not destined — so far as human foresight can deter- 
 mine — to become a controlling force in our own great 
 commonwealth, a wise, and just, and strong, and 
 good community, happy at home, honored by all, 
 sanctified and blessed by God — the foremost and high- 
 est.among the sons of men, the latest, noblest expo- 
 sition of the magnificent symmetry and beauty and 
 strength of a rightly cultured humanity? 
 
 No doubt the careful searcher may discern faults 
 in the western character ; eccentricity, extravagance, 
 materialism, recklessness, insubordination. But 
 these errors may be shown to be the necessary logical 
 conclusions of the long series of actual premises ; of 
 the wild and dangerous training of this people, 
 received while, as a people, yet in their early youth. 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 461 
 
 They are faults very like those of a great, overgrown 
 boy ; a creature often awkward, uncomfortable, even 
 ridiculous, but who will speedily spread and harden 
 into a stately and powerful man ; faults of strongly 
 growing and vigorous youth, such as will often, by a 
 singularly small modification, become the main vir- 
 tues of manhood. They need not discourage the 
 admirer of the western character, any more thau 
 , should the dust of the race-course on the garment of 
 the victor distress his congratulating friends. It is 
 not on this earth, it is true, that anything can be per- 
 fect, or can escape the small objections of the dilet- 
 tante traveller, or come up to the rigid unpractical 
 standard of that peculiarly ignorant man the theo- 
 retical moralist. Nor can the Great Yalley nor its 
 people. But when the circumstances are considered 
 which have attended the growth of that people, and 
 the results which it has achieved within these few 
 years, the philanthropist, the statesman, the patriot 
 will find very much greater cause to rejoice and be 
 glad, than to lament and to fear. 
 
 So far as human foresight can discern, a future of 
 marvellous grandeur and power awaits the iN'ation of 
 the Yalley. Its thronging, busy millions, masters of 
 a wealth beyond counting, a nation well and w^isely 
 trained, pouring abroad, over all the world, by many 
 channels, fabulous masses of rich products, and 
 gathering in the various wealth of all the world in 
 
4:62 PIONEERS, PKEACHERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 return, may well look forward to tlie day wlien tliey 
 shall rule the destinies of all the nation — nay, it may 
 be, of all the continent. And while it is thus the 
 seat of a vast political dominion, it may likewise, 
 with no less reason, aspire to stand among the nations, 
 a beautiful and noble monument of richly-cultured 
 intellect — of strong, deep love — of true and lovely 
 Christian goodness. It may justly and hopefully 
 aspire to become the first, loftiest, grandest example' 
 in all the long panorama of human history, of that 
 grand and shapely thing which God would have 
 every nation become: a fabric of beauty, strength 
 and grace, far beyond any of the fanciful Utopias of 
 philosophic schemers, or heathen or unchristian legis- 
 lators ; in truth and soberness, the crown and glory 
 of the whole earth. 
 
 What dispensations the mysterious Governor of 
 nations may have reserved for it, we know not. 
 "We must wait for, and submit to the decrees of 
 God; even should he have determined that the 
 whole vast Yalley, like that dimly-fabled island 
 of Atlantis, of which ancient geographers seem to 
 speak, shall sink suddenly away, and give place to 
 the dreary, barren fields of the ocean. Of this we 
 know not ; of such things we cannot reason. There 
 seems to be but one single event whose form we can 
 imagine to see within the dim shadows of the com- 
 ing years; but one single occurrence of which we 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 463 
 
 may speak in anticipation, and to which we need to 
 look with any fears, either for its own ngly linea- 
 ments, or the baleful blight which it may possibly be 
 fated to cast over the future fortunes of the multitudes 
 in the Yalley. 
 
 This is that hateful thing, whose name is to-day 
 unfilially and impiously heard ever and anon, mut- 
 tered in secret treason, or howled in the frenzy of 
 public treason, by fools or traitors, North and South 
 — the vile name of disunion. Let this Union be dis- 
 solved, and farewell to all those fair dreams which 
 my feeble words have so imperfectly and briefly 
 striven to paint. If the Union is dissolved, no human 
 power will ever reconstruct it; farewell to these 
 United States, and, with them, to our grand pos- 
 sessions of patriotic memories ; to the hard-fought 
 Revolution ; to the wise counsels of Washington ; the 
 inspiring oratory of so many heaven-gifted speakers ; 
 to the warlike fame of so many glorious soldiers ; to 
 the undying wisdom of Jefferson and of Hamilton, 
 and so many more statesmen and legislators ; to all 
 the historic treasures of the nation. For, I pray you, 
 which of the mobs of little, feeble, squabbling States 
 — "Sovereign States," forsooth! — would own them 
 all ? Or by what rule should a dividend of them be 
 made? or what distribution would be consented to? 
 
 Is it indeed true that our nation cannot last one 
 century ? Is our cohesive power already destroyed 'i 
 
464 PIONEERS, PEEACUERS AND PEOPLE 
 
 Are we already rotten? Are our forbearance, our 
 kindness, our brotherly love, so soon exhausted? 
 Have we so quickly squandered our inheritance of 
 traditions, of common blood, of common suffering 
 and labor, of common interest, of common glory and 
 prosperity, and must we so soon be scattered into a 
 contemptible cliaos of amorphous, disintegrated, 
 strengthless, political atoms ? 
 
 I cannot believe it. I have heard — I still hear — 
 all the miserable outcries of the villain horde that 
 would do this devil's work. 1 have not patience, 
 nor is it necessary to recite them here. But I still 
 have faith unshaken in the trustworthiness of tlie 
 American people — in their ability, with God's hel}), 
 to govern themselves. I still believe that they sec 
 and feel the unimaginable grandeur and beauty of 
 the great and holy office which God has set them to 
 fill — the office of demonstrating the excellency of 
 intelligent and sanctified freedom in a nation ; that 
 they recognize and contemn the paltry selfishness of 
 the dogs that yelp against the fair edifice of our 
 republic; and that they will speedily send them 
 howling to their dens, or disappointed to their 
 graves. 
 
 There may be many perils along our path — much 
 suffering in store for us. Perhaps the seal must be 
 dipped in blood that is still to be set to the record of 
 our final and assured prosperity as a nation. But 
 
OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 465 
 
 even though it be thus, shall we for that turn shame- 
 fully back from the great work that is set before us 
 to do ? Shall we ignobly refuse to do the office to 
 which God has set us apart, in the sight of all the 
 world ? I say, no. I am yet to be forced to believe 
 that our people are so fallen backward toward a dark 
 barbarism as to acquiesce in such an abject abnega- 
 tion ; and I am yet to be forced to believe that the God 
 of our fathers has so utterly rejected us that in his hot 
 anger he will thus cast us out and leave us a jest and 
 a scoff among the crowned tyrants of the earth. I 
 believe better things. I believe that he will still 
 lead us, as he has thus far led us, along the path 
 toward the glorious object of our natural life; I 
 believe that better days will come ; and that in the 
 sunshine of prosperity, and our good God still leading 
 us, we shall in future years rise still higher and 
 more gloriously in the scale of being ; that the voice 
 of our glory and our rejoicing shall, in louder and 
 still louder tones, announce its wondrous lesson to 
 the nations, proclaiming liberty throughout all the 
 land, even unto all the inhabitants thereof. 
 
 THE END,