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Source:
History of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, Ohio
their past and present
Illustrated.
Published Cincinnati, Ohio; S. B. Nelson & Co., Publishers;
S. B. NELSON. J. M. RUNK
1894
CHAPTER XXI.
INDIAN WARFARE - WAR OF 1812.
[BY COL. D. W. McCLUNG]
-
The "Miami Slaughter House"
- Indian Warfare and
Treaties
- Cincinnati a Strategic Point in War,
Commerce and Trade
- Fort Washington
-
Expeditions Against the Indians
- Final
Destruction of the Indian Confederacy
-
Cincinnati in the Indian Wars
- War of 1812-13
-
Warlike Feeling in Cincinnati
- Recruiting
-
Military Sent to the Front
- Conclusion.
pgs 332-343
CINCINNATI owed its
beginning to military considerations, and its first
history is of garrisons and campaigns. Even before
the title to the fertile and beautiful hills and valleys
lying about her had been transferred to the United
States, the region had acquired among the aborigines the
designation of the "Miami Slaughter House." The
Northern tribes whose village were in the uplands of
central Ohio and Indiana and around the lakes, and the
Southern tribes, whose abiding place was along the upper
waters of the Tennessee and Cumberland, knew nothing of
peace, and only enjoyed a truce, when separated by the
whole diameter of the "Miami Slaughter House" and the
"dark and bloody ground."
After the early settlers had occupied the region about
Lexington and Harrodsburg, and immigrants were floating
to Louisville and other points on the lower river - for
twenty years before Cincinnati was occupied - the
"Slaughter House" increased its distinction. Many
of the expeditions and raids made into Kentucky followed
the Miami and the Licking, others from the Miami passed
down the Ohio and up the Kentucky river. The
vengeful expeditions of the Kentucky pioneers, in
retaliation for the plundering and murders of the
Northern marauders, followed the same routes.
Unwittingly the government of the confederation
prepared the way for a continuance of the bloody
experiences that have given the Slaughter House its
suggestive name. The Indians of the North and
Northwest had, during the struggle for independence,
been the cheap and efficient allies of the Mother
country. Their murderous forays were a constant
menace. Their hostile attitude compelled many of
the most intrepid and courageous of the frontiersmen to
keep watch over their own homes. In this way the
Indians had kept from the Continental forces a large
number of men who were the finest material for soldiers.
They were compelled to do frontier duty, while others
fought the armies of the great enemy. Indeed the
warfare with the Indians continued without cessation
after the Mother country had ceased efforts to subdue
the rebellious colonists.
The savage allies of the British were not mentioned
either in the provisional or definitive treaty that
announced a new nation. Their territory was given
over to their enemies, and they were abandoned to their
fate. Enmity and suspicion, the memory of
appalling wrongs, would not allow the storm of war to
settle to the calm level of peace. Hatred and
jealousy were to do their perfect work. The
government of the confederation, as a means of breaking
the Indian power, disregarded the Indian confederacy,
and proceeded to make treaties with tribes in detail.
At Fort Stanwix (Rome, N. Y.) a treaty was made with the
famous Six Nations. At Fort McIntosh (Beaver,
Penn.), and at Fort Harmar (Marietta), separate treaties
were made with other tribes. Last of all a treaty
was made at Fort Finney, situated less than a mile above
the mouth of the great Miami, and about 150 yards from
the bank of the Ohio. This treaty was supposed to
complete satisfactory arrangements with the last of the
Indians that menaced the frontier.
The most sagacious and experienced participants in
these negotiations had no expectation that they would
result favorably, except as they might be enforced by
military power. It soon developed that Gen.
Harmar, George Rogers Clarke and their associates
were wiser than the committees or the Congress that
directed their actions. But as soon as these
abortive treaties had been concluded, by which it was
supposed that the Indians had forever abandoned all
eastern and southern Ohio, the Ohio Company and Symmes
and his associates made their purchases, and eagerly
pushed forward their colonies. The true condition
as soon made manifest. The treaties had been made
with irresponsible detachments, whose authority was
repudiated by the great Confederacy. Gifts,
largesses, provisions and blankets had been bestowed in
vain. Not for these things, nor by such methods,
were the Indians to abandon the most beautiful and
inviting region in the world. We can not wonder at
their tenacity. Savages though they were, they
rebelled against being dispossessed of the heritage of
their fathers by bargains made as they believed under
the influence of bribes and threats.
Just before the coming of Symmes and his colony,
a flood in the Ohio had submerged the site of Columbia,
and also of Fort Finney. The little garrison at
the
CONTINUE ON PAGE 334
[portrait of D. W. McClung]
WAR OF 1812 - 14
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