CHAPTER III.

INDIAN HOSTILITIES-CONFLICTS, BATTLES AND TREATIES WITH THE INDIANS FROM 1764 тo 1788-MORAVIAN MISSIONARIES AND INDIANS.

In 1764, General Bradstreet passed from Detroit into the Wyandot country, ascending the Sandusky bay in boats, where a treaty of peace was effected with the Indians. The Shawnees, of the Scioto river, and the Delawares, of the Muskingum river, however, continued their hostilities. Col. Bouquet, however, shortly afterward succeeded in entering into a treaty of peace with the hostile Indians, who restored the prisoners they had captured.

Prior to the war of the Revolution, the Moravian missionaries had a number of missionary stations within the present limits of Ohio. In March, 1782, a party of Americans, under Col. Williamson, murdered 94 of the Moravian Indians within the present limits of Tuscarawas county. In the June following, Col. Crawford at head of about five hundred men, was defeated by the Indians, three miles north of the site of Upper Sandusky. The The Colonel was taken prisoner and burnt at the stake, with horrible tortures.

During the war of the Revolution, the Indians of the Northwestern Territory were induced to make war upon the American settlements in New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

Early in 1774, the Indians again became troublesome

and committed depredations upon the white settlements. The settlers built block houses, or forts, of logs, in

which they were

frequently compelled to take refuge to defend themselves against the savages. During this year (1774) an expedition under Col.McDonald attacked the Indians and destroyed the Indian town of Wapatomica. This town was situated a few miles above the present site of Zanesville.

In the following fall the Indians were de

feated at Point

Pleasant, on the Virginia side of the Ohio river. Soon after this, Lord Dunmore met the Indians at Camp Charlotte, in what is now Pickaway county, and made peace with them.

In 1779, Col. Bowman marched against the Shawnees, but was forced to retreat.

In 1780, General Broadhead marched against the In

dian towns in the forks of the Muskingum. This expedition was called the Coshocton Campaign. During the same year, General Clark, with a body of Kentuckians, marched against the Shawnees and defeated them at Piqua, on Mad river, six miles below the present site of Springfield.

In 1782, Gen. Clark led a second expedition against the Shawnees and destroyed their towns, Upper and Lower Piqua, on the Miami.

In 1786, Col. Logan fought the Indians successfully in what is now Logan county.

In 1787, Col. Edwards led an expedition to the headwaters of the Big Miami, and in 1788 Tod led one into the Scioto Valley.*

Questions-What is said in the first paragraph of this lesson in relation to treaties of peace? Of the Moravian missionaries and Indians? Of Col. Crawford? What is said of the conduct of the Indians during the Revolutionary war? What occurred early in 1774? What occurred in the fall of that year? What occurred in 1779? In 1780 ? In 1782? In 1786? In 1787? In 1788?

In the early history of the country, questions involv

*Hist. Col. of Ohio, by Howe, p 8.

ing the title to the territory were not always adjusted without difficulty. The different European powers claimed large portions of the territory on the ground of the first discoveries made by their subjects.

In 1609 the English monarch granted to the London Company all the territory extending along the coast for two hundred miles, north and south, from Point Comfort, and "up into the land, throughout, from sea to sea, west and northwest." This company was dissolved by a decree of the court, in 1624, and the grant was resumed by the government.

In 1662, Charles II. granted to certain settlers upon the Connecticut, all the territory between the parallels of latitude, which include the present State of Connecticut, from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean. The pretensions which Massachusetts advanced, during the Revolutionary war, to to an interest in the western country were founded upon a similar charter granted thirty years afterwards.*

In the treaty of peace of 1783, at the close of the Revolutionary war, there was no express stipulation for the surrender of the northwestern posts, although the territory embracing them was clearly embraced within the treaty. Notwithstanding this, the British government continued in possession of them until 1796.

Included in the grants of territory to the various companies, by England, were certain powers of government; and out of these grants colonies were organized with charters specifying what governmental powers might be exercised.

*Holmes' Annals, i., 436.

After the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the new States claimed the right of soil and jurisdiction over the district of country embraced in their colonial charters, notwithstanding the British Government had assumed to revoke these grants.

Some of these charters embraced large portions of western lands, and the States which had no such charters, claimed that these lands ought by right to be disposed of for the common benefit of all the States, according to their population, inasmuch as the title to them would be secured, if at all, by the united efforts and sacrifices of all the States.

The State of Virginia, in March, 1784, ceded the right of soil and jurisdiction to the district of country embraced in her charter, situated to the northwest of the river Ohio.

In September, 1786, the State of Connecticut also ceded her claim of soil and jurisdiction to the district of country within the limits of her charter, situated west of a line beginning at the completion of the forty-first point degree of north latitude, one hundred and twenty miles west of the western boundary of Pennsylvania; and from thence by a line drawn north parallel to, and one hundred and twenty miles west of said line of Pennsylvania, and to continue north until it comes to forty-two degrees and two minutes north latitude. The State of Connecticut on the 30th of May, 1801, also ceded her jurisdictional claims to all that territory called the "Western Reserve of Connecticut."*

The States of New York and Massachusetts had

*Howe's His. Col., 9. See also Chase's sketch of the History of Ohio, 14.