The Loyalists of Massachusetts Part 9

"The expense of the war of the Revolution was as much, if not more, to France, than to the United States, and it is a matter of historical truth that the expenses incurred in this war by France bankrupted the nation and hurried on the terrible events which convulsed the world from the commencement of the French Revolution until the battle of Waterloo.

During all this distress and disaster, the Americans were chuckling in their sleeves, and wasting the treasures of the old world to embellish the half-fledged cities of the new world. Grat.i.tude is a virtue often spoken of with apparent sincerity, but not so frequently exhibited in practice." This is the language of a well-known Revolutionary officer.[73] Therefore, the United States acted in a most shameful and disgraceful manner in violating the first treaty she ever entered into, through which she secured her independence; she did not give the French that a.s.sistance she had agreed to give by treaty, but remained neutral and indifferent, while England seized upon the larger part of the French colonies in the West Indies. The base ingrat.i.tude of the United States exasperated the French, so they issued orders to seize and destroy American property wherever found. Several naval engagements between the late allies ensued, and 898 vessels were seized by the French government or were destroyed by its cruisers, prior to the year 1800. Hence, when Ellsworth, Van Murray and Davie, the commissioners appointed by the United States to negotiate with France, and to settle the dispute, asked for damages for the seizure and destruction of American vessels, the French foreign minister turned upon them with the a.s.sertion that in performing her part of the Franklin treaty of 1778, France had spent $28,000,000, and had sacrificed the lives of thousands of her people, simply for the purpose of gaining the independence for the United States. All it had asked had been the friends.h.i.+p and a.s.sistance of the United States in the manner provided in this treaty. Instead of meeting these claims and requiting the generosity of France in the way such conduct deserved, the United States had ignored its obligations, and now came forward and advanced a petty claim for money, utterly forgetful of how much France had sacrificed in its behalf.

[73] "Letter of Major Caleb Stark in Memoir of General John Stark," p.

364.

As might be supposed, there was no answer that could be made to this a.s.sertion, and hence the new treaty then drawn up, in which the two states agreed to renounce respectively whatever pretensions they might have had to claims one against the other, was ratified by the Senate, and promulgated by President Jefferson December 21, 1801, thus relieving France of all responsibility for damages caused by her cruisers prior to 1800, and throwing the responsibility of liquidating these demands upon the United States government--a responsibility it succeeded in avoiding for a hundred years, as it succeeded in avoiding the demands which the French government could and did make upon it to defend French West India possessions. These were the "entangling foreign alliances" referred to by Was.h.i.+ngton.

Bills granting payment of these claims, which originally amounted to $12,676,000, pa.s.sed Congress twice, and were vetoed first by President Polk and then by President Pierce. If ever there was a just claim brought before Congress, these French spoliation claims deserve the t.i.tle, and it is a historical disgrace to the government of the United States that the payment of them was delayed for nearly a hundred years.[74]

[74] During Cleveland's administrations a bill was pa.s.sed allowing claimants to present claims for adjudication to the amount of their face value. If interest was added, they would exceed $100,000,000. The owners of the 898 vessels destroyed, who were called upon to make this sacrifice as a means of relieving the government from a great responsibility, in many cases were reduced to poverty by the duplicity of the government, and even now with this scant justice, there are many that find it very difficult to prove their claim, so long a time has elapsed, and many are dead without legal representation.

CHAPTER VII.

_INDIANS IN THE REVOLUTION._

The writers of American histories severely condemn the British government for employing Indians in the war of the Revolution as well as in 1812, and give unstinted praise to the Americans for humanity in refusing to make use of the warlike but undisciplined and cruel Indian as an ally in the activities of a military campaign. Either an attempt is made to suppress the whole truth of this matter, or the writers have failed in their duty to thoroughly investigate sources of history easily accessible to the honest historian.

The fact is, that in the incipient stage of the Revolutionary war, overtures were made by the political disturbers and leading instigators of trouble to win over to the side of the American party the fiercest, if not the most numerous Indian nation on the North American continent.

From Concord, on the fourth of April, 1775, the Provincial Congress thought fit, with cunning prudence, to address the sachem of the Mohawks, with the rest of the Iroquois tribes, in the following words:

"Brother, they have made a law to establish the religion of the pope in Canada, which lies near you. We much fear some of your children may be induced, instead of wors.h.i.+pping the only true G.o.d, to pay his due to images, made with their own hands."[75]

[75] American Archives, series I, p. 1350.

Here, then, a religious reason was advanced, in lieu of the real one, why the Indians should oppose the British, by whom they had always been generously treated. The response to the insinuating address was not encouraging. May it not be a.s.sumed that these Indians had already experienced some of the same kind of love, generosity and good faith, as later every tribe has received from every government at Was.h.i.+ngton, from the days of the first president to the latest, through the past "century of dishonor."

_Before the 19th of April_, the Provincial Congress had authorized the enlistment of a company of Stockbridge (Ma.s.sachusetts) Indians. These Indians were used by the Americans during the siege of Boston. A letter, dated July 9, 1775, says: "Yesterday afternoon some barges were sounding the Charles River near its mouth, but were soon obliged to row off by our Indians, fifty in number, who are encamped near that place."

[Ill.u.s.tration: COLONEL MIFFLEN'S INTERVIEW WITH THE CAUGINAWAGA INDIANS.

At Watertown during the seige of Boston, the Revolutionists endeavored to obtain their a.s.sistance.]

On the 21st of June, two of the Indians killed four of the regulars with their bows and arrows, and plundered them. Frothingham says the British complained, and with reason, of their mode of warfare.

Lieut. Carter, writes July 2, 1775: "Never had the British army so ungenerous an enemy to oppose. They send their riflemen, five or six at a time, who conceal themselves behind trees, etc., till an opportunity presents itself of taking a shot at our advanced sentries, which done, they immediately retreat."[76]

[76] American Archives. Series I, p. 1350.

During the siege of Boston, John Adams visited Was.h.i.+ngton's camp at Watertown, and wrote the following letter to his wife, which goes to prove the efforts made by the Americans to enlist the Canadian Indians in their cause, and which they afterwards complained so bitterly of the British for doing:

"Watertown, 24 January, 1776.

"I dined at Colonel Mifflin's with the general and lady, and a vast collection of other company, among whom were six or seven sachems and warriors of the French Caughnawaga Indians, with several of their wives and children. A savage feast they made of it, yet were very polite in the Indian style. One of the sachems is an Englishman, a native of this colony, whose name was Williams, captivated in infancy, with his mother, and adopted by some kind squaw."[77]

[77] Frothingham Siege of Boston, p. 212. Letters of John Adams to his Wife Vol. I., p. 79.

Many attempts were made by the Americans to use the Indians. Montgomery made use of them in his Canadian expedition.

In April, 1776, Was.h.i.+ngton wrote to Congress, urging their employment in the army, and reported on July 13th that, without special authority, he had directed General Schuyler to engage the Six Nations on the best terms he and his colleagues could procure, and again submitting the propriety of engaging the Eastern Indians. John Adams thought "we need not be so delicate as to refuse the a.s.sistance of Indians, provided we cannot keep them neutral." A treaty was exchanged with the Eastern Indians on July 17, 1776, whereby they agreed to furnish six hundred for a regiment, which was to be officered by the whites. As a result of this, the Ma.s.sachusetts Council subsequently reported that seven Pen.o.bscot Indians--all that could be procured--were enlisted in October for one year.[78] It is interesting to remember, in this connection, that the courteous and chivalrous Lafayette raised a troop of Indians to fight the British and the Tories, though his reputation has been saved by the utter and almost ludicrous failure of his attempt.[79]

[78] Windsor Nar. and Crit. His. Vol. VI., 655, 657.

[79] Essays in American History, 178.

When all this had been done, it needed the forgetfulness and the blind hypocrisy of pa.s.sion to denounce the king to the world for having "endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savage." Yet Americans have never had the self-respect to erase this charge from a doc.u.ment generally printed in the fore-front of the Const.i.tution and Laws, and with which every schoolboy is sedulously made familiar.

The Revolutionists failed to enlist the Indians in their cause, for the Indian and the Colonist were bitter and irreconcilable foes. The Indian had long scores to pay, not upon the English nation or the English army, but upon the American settler who had stolen his lands, shot his sons, and debauched his daughters. It is well here to remember the speech of Logan, the Cayuga chief, on the occasion of the signing of the treaty of peace in 1764, at the close of the Pontiac Conspiracy. Logan said: "I appeal to any white man to say if ever he entered Logan's cabin hungry and he gave him not meat; if ever he came cold and naked and he clothed him not. Such was my love of the white man that my countrymen in pa.s.sing my cabin said: 'Logan is the friend of the white man.' I have even thought to have lived with you but for the injuries you did me last spring, when in cold blood and unprovoked, you murdered all the relations of Logan, not sparing even my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called for revenge. I have sought it. I have killed many. I have fully glutted my vengeance." Logan's family, being on a visit to a family of the name of Greathouse, was murdered by them and their a.s.sociates under circ.u.mstances of great brutality and cowardice. It is known that in revenge, Logan took over 30 scalps with his own hand. And others than Indians had old scores to wipe out. Many loyalists who desired to be left alone in peace had been tarred and feathered by their former friends and fellow-townsmen; were driven from their homes and hunted like wild beasts; imprisoned, maimed, and compelled to suffer every kind of indignity. In many cases fathers, brothers and sons were hanged, because they insisted on remaining loyal to their country. Therefore it is not to be wondered at that many of these loyalists sought a terrible revenge against those who had maltreated them. If the loyalists of New York, Georgia and the Carolinas resolved to join the Indians and wreak vengeance on their fellow countrymen at Wyoming and Cherry Valley, and to take part in the raids of Tyron and Arnold, there was a rude cause for their retaliating. Their actions have been held up to the execration of posterity as being exceptionally barbarous, and as far surpa.s.sing in cruelty the provocative actions of the revolutionists, Sullivan's campaign through the Indian country being conveniently forgotten. There was not much to choose between a cowboy and a skinner, and very little difference between Major Ferguson's command and that of Marion and Sumpter. There were no more orderly or better behaved troops in either army than Simcoe's Queen's Rangers. There can be no doubt that the action of the loyalists have been grossly exaggerated, or at least dwelt upon as dreadful scenes of depravity, to form a background for the heroism and fort.i.tude of the "patriotic" party whose misdeeds are pa.s.sed lightly over. The methods of the growth of popular mythology have been the same in America as in Greece or Rome. The G.o.ds of one party have become the devils of the other. The haze of distance has thrown a halo around the American leaders--softening outlines, obscuring faults, while those of the British and the loyalists have grown with the advanced years.[80]

[80] Essays in American History, 176, 177.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CARTOON ILl.u.s.tRATING FRANKLIN'S DIABOLICAL SCALP STORY.

From an old print in the possession of the Bostonian Society.]

The following brief entry in a diary, will show that among the American forces savage customs found place: "On Monday, the 30th, sent out a party for some dead Indians. Toward morning found them, and skinned two of them from their hips down, for boot legs; one pair for the major, the other for myself."[81]

[81] Proceedings, N. J. His. Soc. II, 31.

It has been the policy of American historians and their echoes in England to bring disrepute upon the Indians and the British government who employed them, and not only to magnify actual occurrences, but sometimes, when facts were wanting, to draw upon imagination for such deeds of ferocity and bloodshed as might serve to keep alive the strongest feelings of indignation against the mother country, and thus influence men to take the field for revenge who had not already been driven thither by the impulse of their sense of patriotism. Dr. Franklin himself did not think it unworthy of his antecedents and position to employ these methods to bring disrepute on the British. The "deliberate fiction for political purposes," by Franklin, were written as facts.

Never before was there such diabolical fiction written as his well known scalp story, long believed and recently revived in several books purporting to be "authentic history." The details were so minute and varied as to create a belief that they were entirely true. For a century supposed to be authentic, it has since been ascertained to be a publication from the pen of Dr. Franklin for political purposes. It describes minutely the capture from the Seneca Indians of eight bales of scalps, which were being sent the governor of Canada, to be forwarded by him as a gift to the "Great King." The description of the contents of each bale was given with such an air of plausibility as to preclude a suspicion that it was fict.i.tious. The following are a few brief abstracts from this story: "No. 1 contains forty-three scalps of Congress soldiers, also sixty-two farmers, killed in their houses in the night time. No. 2 contains ninety-eight farmers killed in their houses in the day time. No. 3 contains ninety-seven farmers killed in the fields in the day time. No. 4 contains 102 farmers, mixed, 18 burnt alive, after being scalped; sixty-seven being greyheads, and one clergyman. No. 5 containing eighty-eight scalps of woman's hair, long-braided in Indian fas.h.i.+on. No. 6 containing 193 boys' scalps of various ages. No. 7, 211 girls' scalps, big and little. No. 8, this package is a mixture of all the varieties above mentioned, to the number of 122, with a box of birch bark, containing twenty-nine infants' scalps of various sizes."[82]

[82] Life of Brandt. Appendix No. 1, Vol. I.

With the bales of scalps was a speech addressed to the "Great King."

One of the most cruel and bloodthirsty acts of the Americans was the ma.s.sacre of the Moravian Indians. "From love of peace they had advised those of their own color who were bent on war to desist from it. They were also led from humanity, to inform the white people of their danger, when they knew their settlements were about to be invaded. One hundred and sixty Americans crossed the Ohio and put to death these harmless, inoffensive people, though they made no resistance. In conformity with their religious principles these Moravians submitted to their hard fate without attempting to destroy their murderers. Upward of ninety of these pacific people were killed by men who, while they called themselves Christians, were more deserving of the names of savages than were their unresisting victims."[83]

[83] Dr. Ramsay's His. U. S., Vol. II., Chapter XIX, pp. 330, 332.

CHAPTER VIII.

_THE EXPULSION OF THE LOYALISTS AND THE SETTLEMENT OF CANADA._

The Huguenots and the proscribed of the French Revolution found sanctuary as welcome guests in England and the English colonies.

The Moors were well treated when banished from Spain; the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes was civil death to all Huguenots; the Americans made the treaty of peace of 1783 worse than civil death to all Loyalists.

The Americans, at the inception and birth of their republic, violated every precept of Christianity and of a boasted civilization, even to confiscating the estates of helpless women. For all time it is to be a part of American history that the last decade of the eighteenth century saw the most cruel and vindictive acts of spoliation recorded in modern history.