Читать книгу Life of Daniel Boone, the Great Western Hunter and Pioneer - Cecil B. Hartley - Страница 7

Table of Contents

The Seven Years' War—Cherokee War—Period of Boone's first long Excursion to the West—Extract from Wheeler's History of Tennessee—Indian accounts of the Western country—Indian traders—Their Reports—Western travelers—Doherty—Adair—Proceedings of the traders—Hunters—Scotch traders—Hunters accompany the traders to the West—Their reports concerning the country—Other adventurers—Dr. Walker's expedition—Settlements in South-western Virginia—Indian hostilities—Pendleton purchase—Dr. Walker's second expedition—Hunting company of Walker and others—Boone travels with them—Curious monument left by him.

The reader will recollect that the period referred to in the last chapter, comprehended the latter years of the celebrated Seven Years' War. During the chief portion of this period, the neighboring Colony of Virginia suffered all the horrors of Indian war on its western frontier—horrors from which even the ability, courage, and patriotism of Washington were for a long time unable to protect them. The war was virtually terminated by the campaign of 1759, when Quebec was taken. The next year Canada was ceded to England; and a Cherokee war, which had disturbed the border setters of North Carolina, was terminated. Daniel Boone's biographers all agree that it was about this time when he first began to make long excursions toward the West; but it is difficult to fix exactly the date of his first long journey through the woods in this direction. It is generally dated in 1771 or 1772, We now make a quotation from Ramsay's Annals of Tennessee, which shows, beyond the possibility of a doubt, that he hunted on the Wataga River in 1760, and renders it probable that he was in the West at an earlier date. Our readers will excuse the length of this quotation, as the first part of it gives so graphic a picture of the hunter and pioneer life of the times of Daniel Boone, and also shows what had been done by others in western explorations before Boone's expeditions commenced.

"The Colonists of the Carolinas and of Virginia had been steadily advancing to the West, and we have traced their approaches in the direction of our eastern boundary,^[8] to the base of the great Appalachian range."

Of the country beyond it, little was positively known or accurately understood. A wandering Indian would imperfectly delineate upon the sand, a feeble outline of its more prominent physical features—its magnificent rivers, with their numerous tributaries—its lofty mountains, its dark forests, its extended plains and its vast extent. A voyage in a canoe, from the source of the Hogohegee^[9] to the Wabash,^[10] required for its performance, in their figurative language, 'two paddles, two warriors, three moons.' The Ohio itself was but a tributary of a still larger river, of whose source, size and direction, no intelligible account could be communicated or understood. The Muscle Shoals and the obstructions in the river above them, were represented as mighty cataracts and fearful whirlpools, and the Suck, as an awful vortex. The wild beasts with which the illimitable forests abounded, were numbered by pointing to the leaves upon the trees, or the stars in a cloudless sky.

"These glowing descriptions of the West seemed rather to stimulate than to satisfy the intense curiosity of the approaching settlers. Information more reliable, and more minute, was, from time to time, furnished from other sources. In the Atlantic cities, accounts had been received from French and Spanish traders, of the unparalleled beauty and fertility of the western interior. These reports, highly colored and amplified, were soon received and known upon the frontier. Besides, persons engaged in the interior traffic with the south-western Indian tribes had, in times of peace, penetrated their territories—traded with and resided amongst the natives—and upon their return to the white settlements, confirmed what had been previously reported in favor of the distant countries they had seen. As early as 1690, Doherty, a trader from Virginia, had visited the Cherokees and afterward lived among them a number of years. In 1730, Adair, from South Carolina, had traveled, not only through the towns of this tribe, but had extended his tour to most of the nations south and west of them. He was not only an enterprising trader but an intelligent tourist. To his observations upon the several tribes which he visited, we are indebted for most that is known of their earlier history. They were published in London in 1775.

"In 1740 other traders went among the Cherokees from Virginia. They employed Mr. Vaughan as a packman, to transport their goods. West of Amelia County, the country was then thinly inhabited; the last hunter's cabin that he saw was on Otter River, a branch of the Staunton, now in Bedford County, Va. The route pursued was along the Great Path to the centre of the Cherokee nation. The traders and pack-men generally confined themselves to this path till it crossed the Little Tennessee River, then spreading themselves out among the several Cherokee villages west of the mountain, continued their traffic as low down the Great Tennessee as the Indian settlements upon Occochappo or Bear Creek, below the Muscle Shoals, and there encountered the competition of other traders, who were supplied from New Orleans and Mobile. They returned heavily laden with peltries, to Charleston, or the more northern markets, where they were sold at highly remunerating prices. A hatchet, a pocket looking-glass, a piece of scarlet cloth, a trinket, and other articles of little value, which at Williamsburg could be bought for a few shillings, would command from an Indian hunter on the Hiwasse or Tennessee peltries amounting in value to double the number of pounds sterling. Exchanges were necessarily slow, but the profits realized from the operation were immensely large. In times of peace this traffic attracted the attention of many adventurous traders. It became mutually advantageous to the Indian not less than to the white man. The trap and the rifle, thus bartered for, procured, in one day, more game to the Cherokee hunter than his bow and arrow and his dead-fall would have secured during a month of toilsome hunting. Other advantages resulted from it to the whites. They became thus acquainted with the great avenues leading through the hunting grounds and to the occupied country of the neighboring tribes—an important circumstance in the condition of either war or peace. Further, the traders were an exact thermometer of the pacific or hostile intention and feelings of the Indians with whom they traded. Generally, they were foreigners, most frequently Scotchmen, who had not been long in the country, or upon the frontier, who, having experienced none of the cruelties, depredation or aggressions of the Indians, cherished none of the resentment and spirit of retaliation born with, and everywhere manifested, by the American settler. Thus, free from animosity against the aborigines, the trader was allowed to remain in the village where he traded unmolested, even when its warriors were singing the war song or brandishing the war club, preparatory to an invasion or massacre of the whites. Timely warning was thus often given by a returning packman to a feeble and unsuspecting settlement, of the perfidy and cruelty meditated against it.

"This gainful commerce was, for a time, engrossed by the traders; but the monopoly was not allowed to continue long. Their rapid accumulations soon excited the cupidity of another class of adventurers; and the hunter, in his turn, became a co-pioneer with the trader, in the march of civilization to the wilds of the West. As the agricultural population approached the eastern base of the Alleghanies, the game became scarce, and was to be found by severe toil in almost inaccessible recesses and coves of the mountain. Packmen, returning from their trading expeditions, carried with them evidences, not only of the abundance of game across the mountains, but of the facility with which it was procured. Hunters began to accompany the traders to the Indian towns; but, unable to brook the tedious delay of procuring peltries by traffic, and impatient of restraint, they struck boldly into the wilderness, and western-like, to use a western phrase, set up for themselves. The reports of their return, and of their successful enterprise, stimulated other adventurers to a similar undertaking. 'As early as 1748 Doctor Thomas Walker, of Virginia, in company with Colonels Wood, Patton and Buchanan, and Captain Charles Campbell, and a number of hunters, made an exploring tour upon the western waters. Passing Powel's valley, he gave the name of 'Cumberland' to the lofty range of mountains on the west. Tracing this range in a south-western direction, he came to a remarkable depression in the chain: through this he passed, calling it 'Cumberland Gap.' On the western side of the range he found a beautiful mountain stream, which he named 'Cumberland River,' all in honor of the Duke of Cumberland, then prime minister of England.^[11] These names have ever since been retained, and, with Loudon, are believed to be the only names in Tennessee of English origin."

"Although Fort Loudon was erected as early as 1756, upon the Tennessee, yet it was in advance of any white settlements nearly one hundred and fifty miles, and was destroyed in 1760. The fort, too, at Long Island, within the boundaries of the present State of Tennessee, were erected in 1758, but no permanent settlements had yet been formed near it. Still occasional settlers had begun to fix their habitations in the south-western section of Virginia, and as early as 1754, six families were residing west of New River. 'On the breaking out of the French war, the Indians, in alliance with the French, made an irruption into these settlements, and massacred Burke and his family. The other families, finding their situation too perilous to be maintained, returned to the eastern side of New River; and the renewal of the attempt to carry the white settlements further west, was not made until after the close of that war.'" ^[12]