Fearing “an indian War,” many fled, but a large group, led by michael cresap,
resolved to “fall on and kill every indian they met on the river.” They brushed
aside warnings that randomly killing indians “might involve the country in a
war”: these aspiring speculators cared less about preserving frontier peace
than ensuring access to Kentucky lands. cresap’s party promptly ambushed a
trader’s canoe on the Ohio, killing two indians on board. The next day they
attacked the hardman’s party. a day or two later, thirty miles upriver, another
band of colonists followed cresap’s example. like Wheeling, yellow creek lay
far upstream from the Kanawha boundary. no indians had objected when
Joshua Baker and other colonists built homesteads there. Baker and his
neighbors sometimes “insulted and abused” passing indian diplomats, but
the Beaver river senecas nonetheless camped for a week or so on the oppo-
site shore, living “peaceably and neighbourly” and sometimes visiting Baker’s
tavern. But on receiving word of cresap’s attacks, daniel greathouse
patronage, 1773–74
55
organized a gang to ambush them. most hid in Baker’s back room while oth-
ers invited the senecas across to drink. Four men and three women came
over. after they got drunk, greathouse’s men leapt out and killed them, spar-
ing only the infant daughter of John gibson, a colonial trader. On hearing the
gunshots, the victims’ companions tried to canoe across the river to save
them. The murderers lined up on the riverbank and shot the would- be rescu-
ers as they paddled. all told, the murderers killed nine senecas and wounded
two more. They then gathered their families, fled eastward, and sent the baby
girl to her white father.18
dunmore did not intentional y provoke these atrocities— cresap, great-
house, and their followers acted on their own initiative— but his decisions
nonetheless brought them about. By authorizing surveys and issuing land
grants beyond the Kanawha, he defied imperial policy and triggered a land
rush. shawnees, determined to enforce the recognized boundary, seized
small groups of surveyors, took their equipment, and released them with
warnings of more severe punishment in the future. The land jobbers, con-
vinced the governor would support them, responded with a killing spree.
Both the shawnees and cresap’s gang could argue that they were abiding by
imperial policy. to be sure, neither group gave much credence to govern-
ment dictates they disliked, but both eagerly exploited interpretations that
favored their interests. dunmore’s and croghan’s contradictory promises
gave both groups reason to think they could use force— even deadly force—
without losing the favor of the imperial state.
Within days of the yellow creek massacre, thousands of upper Ohio colo-
nists fled eastward, convinced of what one recent account cal s the “inevita-
bility of indian reprisals.” But for weeks afterward no such attacks took place.
immediately after the attacks, the hardman and other survivors fled to his
muskingum Valley town of Wakatomica and began talking of vengeance. The
most outspoken, logan, was an unlikely militant: he was the son of a promi-
nent Oneida diplomat, bore the name of a colonial official, spoke english
wel , and was known as “a friend to the white people.” now, after losing his
family at yellow creek, he and other survivors resolved to avenge their losses.
They threatened the dozens of white traders living in nearby towns, declaring
“that wherever they might meet a white they would shoot him.” nonetheless,
for over two weeks they harmed no one. The hardman took charge of his
fellow survivors, insisting that they “begin no war with the english.” he pri-
vately told visiting delawares that “his heart [could not] be good, untill he
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ha[d] sent one party at least, against the Virginians,” but made clear that he
aimed to retaliate only against the killers and others who had occupied in-
dian land. meanwhile, he and other Ohio indians helped protect colonial
pittsburgh with an armed guard.19
guyasuta, meanwhile, denounced the shawnees and encouraged Virgin-
ians to blame the murders on the victims. When connol y and mcKee called
Ohio indian leaders to pittsburgh to condole for their losses, guyasuta
showed up first. he had spent the winter persuading William Johnson and
the six nations of the shawnees’ ill wil , and now he repeated the perfor-
mance. rather than criticize the Kentucky land rush, he blamed the violence
on the hardman’s people, claiming that “all other nations [we]re displeased
with” them. if the shawnees “would not listen to reason,” he argued, “they
ought to be chastised.” This interpretation delighted connol y, as it exoner-
ated him and dunmore while affirming Virginia’s claim to Kentucky. after
their meeting, connol y issued a new proclamation warning of “immediate
danger from the indians and particularly the shawanese.” guyasuta then
took his campaign on the road, with a guard of fifty men, to press the Wyan-
dots and other nations to ignore shawnee pleas for help. in Williamsburg,
dunmore, too, seized on guyasuta’s argument, insisting that “the indians
have been the aggressors” and bore responsibility for “the fatal consequences.”
The more experienced croghan assured the governor that only “some few”
shawnees and senecas had interfered with Virginia’s surveys, but he tactful y
avoided mentioning the boundary that dunmore had brushed aside. in a 5
may condolence speech, connol y stressed that people had been “killed on
both sides,” implying that indians shared the blame for the killings. he then
offhandedly mentioned dunmore’s plans for Kentucky, noting that Virginia’s
governing council would soon meet to discuss “their settling in this
country.”20
connol y’s self- serving performance defeated all peacemaking efforts. at
the time, his delaware and seneca audience knew little about what had hap-
pened and had no desire to argue. But a few days later, when the delaware
diplomat White eyes repeated the speech in the muskingum towns, the sur-
vivors and the victims’ friends and relatives could not help but take offense.
soon thereafter, logan’s followers killed and scalped their first victim, a
pennsylvania trader named campbel , near gekelemukpechünk. The hard-
man, meanwhile, issued a blistering reply. he called croghan and mcKee
liars, presumably referring to their previous assurances about the Kanawha
patronage, 1773–74
57
boundary, and he insisted that the conflict stemmed from Virginians “pass-
ing up and down the Ohio, and making settlements upon it.” most dramati-
cal y, he rejected connol y’s plea to forgive and forget. Just as connol y had
asked shawnees to overlook “what your people have done to us,” he asked the
Virginians to disregard “what our young men may now be doing.” in late
may, two shawnee warriors visited gr
ave creek, the site of the attack on the
hardman’s party, and killed a colonist named proctor. They brought his scalp
back to Wakatomica, where ten shawnee and haudenosaunee warriors, led
by logan and the nephew of the dead Othawakeesquo, soon set out to attack
whatever Virginians they could find on the Ohio.21 By mid- June, logan’s
band had killed and scalped thirteen men, women, and children.
But even after this belated vengeance, hope for peace remained. On 10
June, mcKee noted “a cessation” of hostilities, with only a few “refractory”
individuals still hostile. With “some wise interposition of government,” he
argued, peace could be restored. a week later, thirty British traders returned
to pittsburgh from the scioto towns, leading 120 horses laden with goods,
guarded by an armed shawnee escort. They brought a much more concilia-
tory speech from the war leader cornstalk, who had, “with great trouble and
pains,” persuaded “the foolish people amongst us” to keep the peace until
they found out whether “the white people in general” desired war. rather
than threatening violence, he asked connol y to similarly restrain his own
“foolish people” in the future. in mid- June, logan’s band returned to Wak-
atomica and promised to “sit stil ” until they heard from the Virginians. The
hardman admitted that the april attacks “made us like a crazy people,” but
nonetheless he pledged to “keep . . . the roads open for the english.” For over
two weeks, indians attacked no colonists. as tensions cooled, White eyes
tirelessly carried messages back and forth between pittsburgh and the shaw-
nee towns. On 29 June he assured connol y that leaders of all western
nations— including the shawnees— eagerly sought peace. rather than allow-
ing “rash inconsiderate men” to match violence with unending violence, he
urged the Virginians to “take pity of them, That our young people as they
grow up may hereafter enjoy the Blessings of that peace and Friendship es-
tablished betwen us.”22
connol y and dunmore, though, had already taken steps to escalate hos-
tilities. in may, dunmore called for 1,200 men to defend the province’s west-
ern claims, while connol y ordered his militia to treat any indians east of the
Ohio “as enemies.” in early June, dunmore urged militia commanders to pre-
pare for war and to pursue indians even “into their own country and beyond
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the limits prescribed” by law. echoing guyasuta, he suggested building a fort
on point pleasant, at the mouth of the Kanawha. connol y’s militia, mean-
while, largely ignored his distinctions between allied and enemy indians. in-
dian envoys to pittsburgh repeatedly complained of militia harassment. after
shawnee escorts brought thirty British traders safely to pittsburgh, connol y
sent forty men to seize them. They escaped, but during their flight a militia
patrol wounded one of them. in mid- June, one of connol y’s men shot at a
delaware who was helping mcKee; in early July on Beaver river, another pa-
trol briefly arrested and threatened a passing trader and his delaware escorts;
in late august, several militia attacked three delawares who had come to
pittsburgh to trade, killing two. connol y made little effort to stop such vio-
lence. he prohibited trade with shawnees and refused to prosecute the dela-
wares’ killers. adding insult to injury, connol y appointed michael cresap a
militia captain while insisting that indian leaders hand over “your imprudent
young men” to face Virginian justice. if they failed to do so, he warned, they
would have to answer to “a very large Body of Virginians” already marching
toward Ohio.23
But for all this bluster, dunmore’s political and financial problems
seemed to make war unlikely. On 7 June, connol y found his militia garri-
son debating a recent report that Virginia’s house of Burgesses had dis-
solved without appropriating any money to pay them. connol y set out to
squash the rumor, only to learn that it was true: the governor had dismissed
his legislature for criticizing imperial policies. his pro- pennsylvania rival,
aeneas mackay, gleeful y spread the news around pittsburgh. connolly
hurried to mackay’s home and “abuse[d] him in a most blasphemous and
outrageous manner,” but rage did not change his problem: he and dunmore
had set out to fight a war with no means of paying for it. as one observer
noted, dunmore had “no store either of provisions, amunition, or, what is
worse, money,” and no means of obtaining any without the Burgesses. con-
nol y paid his pittsburgh garrison in goods bought on credit, but he had to
promise the traders 300 percent interest. he tried to bul y the upper Ohio
population into obedience, only to earn, according to William crawford,
“the displeashure of the people.” meanwhile, the need to harvest crops and
guard families deterred potential recruits. Those who did volunteer often
proved unwilling to stay on duty. One officer claimed his garrison would
surely desert “unless i kill part and tye the Other.” Without reinforcements,
he warned, “we will have a war amongst our selves without that of the
indians.”24
patronage, 1773–74
59
nonetheless, by exploiting hopes for land and official patronage, con-
nol y and dunmore patched together a diverse coalition of supporters. to
raise troops and laborers, connol y handed out militia commissions to men
like crawford whose wealth, influence, and patronage ties “cou’d bring in
Volunteers . . . to enter into pay of government.” such brokers tolerated
connol y’s incompetence in hopes of winning the governor’s favor and, with
it, the prospects of land grants and official appointments. crawford had little
use for connol y, but he nonetheless raised a large company at his order.
some of crawford’s men were indentured servants, temporarily released for
militia service. all involved, including the servants’ owners, gambled that
Virginia would eventual y fulfill dunmore’s promises of payment. With the
backing of crawford and other local leaders, connol y called out local militia
units, drafted townspeople to rebuild Fort pitt, and sent out armed patrols.
dunmore similarly won croghan’s allegiance. When he learned that dun-
more planned to wage war, croghan initial y denounced him and reached
out to pro- pennsylvania adversaries. But croghan’s best hope of confirming
his land claims still lay in winning dunmore’s support. after intermediaries
brokered a rapprochement, he regretted having “too incautiously” cast asper-
sions on the governor’s character and policies. dunmore, who needed
croghan’s diplomatic expertise, promised in exchange “a proclamation to
forbid people to incroach upon his property.”25
similar pursuits of dunmore’s favor enabled the governor to raise an
army in backcountry Virginia. militia officers liked dunmore’s proposals be-
cause they coveted Kentucky land. William preston, for example, served as
both militia commander and head surveyor for Fincastle county, which at
&
nbsp; the time included Kentucky. The surveyors who clashed with shawnees in
april worked for preston; he and his friends were eager to see those surveys
completed. But rather than ordering out an unlawful and unfunded expedi-
tion, William christian, a militia officer and speculator, suggested that they
“encourage men to rise and go out without expresly ordering them to do so.”
such an approach, he thought, could attract one hundred men in a few days
“who would find their own provisions (& each man a horse)” and “take their
chance of pay.” christian also urged his colleagues to deceive recruits about
their plans. he warned against saying “any thing publickly of attacking the
[scioto] towns,” guessing that they could more easily persuade men to join a
longer campaign after getting them on the march. They issued officer com-
missions to popular local leaders like daniel Boone, whose charisma brought
at least one recalcitrant company back on duty. They also appealed to greed.
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preston stressed the shawnees’ “great stock of horses” and other opportuni-
ties for plunder, and he assured skeptics that the house of Burgesses would
eventual y “reward every Vol unteer in a handsome manner, over and above
his pay.” lacking the legal authority and funds to draft, feed, or pay militia,
dunmore offered hope of future compensation. a successful campaign, he
reasoned, would “oblige the assembly to indemnify” militia expenses after
the fact.26 left to their own devices, most backcountry Virginians had little
reason, and no means, to band together to wage war against shawnees. But
the incentives that dunmore and his deputies promised, or hinted at, eventu-
al y mobilized more than two thousand men: the largest fighting force the
Ohio Valley had seen since the seven years’ War.
By contrast, many indians remained anxious to avoid conflict. in the
spring of 1774, three cherokees— a woman, her husband, Ketigeestie, and a
man named Will— found a white man half drowned in the tennessee river,
the lone survivor of a capsized canoe. They revived the man and brought