Lord Dunmore's War

, including Kentucke country (west of Kanawha River and including land west of the Kentucke River, lower left). Virginia claimed Kentucke lands to the Mississippi River. The area south of the Ohio River and west of the Kanawha River (long referred to as Kentucke country after a region around the namesake river in what is today eastern Kentucky) had been claimed by the Iroquois Confederacy since their conquest in the 17th-century Beaver Wars. Although they were the most powerful Indian nation in the Northern Colonies, other tribes also made claims to the area and often hunted the region. When, in accordance with the Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1768), British officials acquired the land south of the Ohio River from the Iroquois, many other Ohio Indians who had hunted in these lands refused to accede to the treaty and prepared to defend their hunting rights. At the forefront of this resistance were the Shawnee, the most powerful among the allied Algonquin tribes of the Ohio Valley. They soon organized a large confederacy of Shawnee-Ohio Confederated Indians who were opposed to the British and the Iroquois in order to enforce their claims. British officials worked to isolate the Shawnee diplomatically from other Indian nations. When full-blown hostilities broke out within a few years, the Shawnee would find that they faced the Virginia militia with few allies. Following the 1768 treaty, colonial explorers, surveyors, and settlers began pouring into the region. This immediately brought them into direct contact with Native Americans of the upper Ohio Valley, especially the Allegheny River. George Washington wrote in his journal for November 17, 1770, "The Indians who are very dexterous, even their women, in the Management of Canoes, have there Hunting Camps & Cabins all along the River for the convenience of Transporting their Skins by Water to Market." The Boone incident In September 1773, noted frontiersman Daniel Boone led a group of about 50 emigrants up the Powell River valley in Tennessee in the first attempt by white colonists to establish a settlement in Kentucke. On October 9, 1773, just south of the Cumberland Gap, Boone's oldest son James, age 16, and a small group of men and boys who were retrieving supplies were attacked by a band of Delawares, Shawnees, and Cherokees. They had decided "to send a message of their opposition to settlement..." James Boone and Henry Russell, a teenage son of future Revolutionary War officer William Russell, were captured and tortured to death. The brutality of the killings shocked the settlers along the frontier, and Boone's party abandoned their expedition. By December, the incident had been reported in Baltimore and Philadelphia newspapers. The deaths among Boone's party were among the seminal events that culminated in Lord Dunmore's War. For the next several years, Indian nations opposed to the treaty continued to attack settlers, ritually mutilated and tortured to death the surviving men, and took the women and children into slavery. Boone's expedition was the first of several as part of a scheme with land speculator Richard Henderson to establish the Transylvania Colony in Kentucke. Early Allegheny settlements Starting in 1769, Ebenezer Zane, afterwards a famed "Indian fighter" and guide, known for Zane's trace, had established a settlement on Wheeling Creek just over the Pennsylvania border on the Allegheny he named "Zanesburg" (now Wheeling, West Virginia). Later, Fort Fincastle was sited there. Among the early settlers of the Allegheny valley beyond Pennsylvania was Captain Michael Cresap, the owner of a trading post at Redstone Old Fort (now Brownsville, Pennsylvania) on the Monongahela River. Under authority of the colonial government of Virginia, Cresap had taken control of extensive tracts of land at and below the mouth of Middle Island Creek (now St. Marys, West Virginia.) He went there in the early spring of 1774 with a party of men to settle his holdings. The Clark Expedition to Kentucky In spring of 1774, a group that included George Rogers Clark, who later became a general during the Revolutionary War, had gathered at the mouth of the Little Kanawha River (now Parkersburg, West Virginia). They were waiting there for the arrival of other Virginians expected to join them before they moved downriver to settle lands in Kentucky. Clark's group began to hear reports that hostile Indians were robbing and occasionally killing traders, surveyors and others traveling down the Ohio. So they invited another settler, Captain Michael Cresap, who also intended to go to Kentucky, and who had combat experience, to join the group. Cresap understood that any provocations might result in war, so he suggested the group return upstream to Zane's small settlement at "Zanesburg" (the future Wheeling) and wait to see if Indian hostilities would decline. However, when they arrived, they found the whole area in an uproar. People were panicked by the stories of the survivors of the Indian attacks. They were upset by the Indian brutality towards captured settlers. Fearing for the lives of women and children, colonists living on the frontier flocked to the town for protection. A message from John Connolly, the garrison commander at upstream Fort Pitt, indicated that the local tribes including Shawnee and Delaware, intended war. Cresap called a council on April 26. After he read Connolly's letter aloud, the assembly declared war against the Indians. After spotting some Indian canoes on the river the next day, settlers chased them downriver to Pipe Creek. There settlers engaged them in battle, with a few casualties on each side. The following day, Clark's party abandoned the original idea of proceeding to Kentucky. Expecting retaliation, they broke camp and retreated with Cresap's men to his headquarters at Redstone Old Fort. The Yellow Creek massacre Immediately after the Pipe Creek attack, settlers killed relatives of the Mingo leader Logan. Up until this point, Logan had expressed peaceful intentions toward the settlers. He and his hunting party were camped on the west bank of the Ohio at Yellow Creek, about above Zanesburg (near present day Steubenville, Ohio) and across the river from Baker's Bottom. On April 30 some members of the hunting party (Logan was not among them) crossed the river to the cabin of Joshua Baker, a settler and rum trader. The visiting Mingo included Logan's younger brother, commonly known as John Petty, and two closely related women. The younger woman was pregnant and also had an infant girl with her. The father of both these children was John Gibson, a well-known trader. Once the group was inside Baker's cabin, some 30 frontiersmen, led by Daniel Greathouse, suddenly crowded in and killed all the visitors except the infant. When Logan heard of the massacre, he was led to believe that Cresap, not Greathouse, was the man responsible for the attack. However, many people familiar with the incident (including Clark) knew that Greathouse and his men were the ones who had killed the party. Settlers along the frontiers realized that these killings were likely to provoke the remaining Indian nations of the Ohio Country to attack. Settlers remaining on the frontier immediately sought safety, either in blockhouses or by fleeing eastward across the Monongahela River. Many even traveled back across the Allegheny Mountains. Their fear was well founded. Logan and small parties of Shawnee and Mingo soon began striking at frontier settlers in revenge for the murders at Yellow Creek. Prelude to war The following month, a field surveyor named William Preston sent a letter of report to the head engineer of the frontier fort construction, namely George Washington, which indicates his understanding of circumstances just prior to the outbreak of Dunmore's War: FINCASTLE May 27. 1774. DEAR SIR Agreeable to my Promise I directed Mr. Floyd an Assistant to Survey your Land on Cole River on his Way to the Ohio, which he did and in a few Days afterwards sent me the Plot by Mr. Thomas Hog. Mr. Spotswood Dandridge who left the Surveyors on the Ohio after Hog Parted with them, wrote me that Mr. Hog and two other Men with him had never since been heard of. I have had no Opportunity of writing to Mr. Floyd Since. Tho' I suppose he will send me the Courses by the first Person that comes up, if so I shall make out the Certificate and send it down. This I directed him to do when we parted to prevent Accidents. But I am really afraid the Indians will hinder them from doing any Business of Vallue this Season as the Company being only 33 and dayly decreasing were under the greatest Apprehension of Danger when Mr. Dandridge parted with them. It has been long disputed by our Hunters whether Louisa or Cumberland Rivers was the Boundary between us and the Cherokees. I have taken the Liberty to inclose to you a Report made by some Scouts who were out by my Order; and which Sets that matter beyond a Doubt. It is say'd the Cherrokees claim the Land to the Westward of the Louisa & between Cumberland M [mutilated] and the ohio. If so, and our Government gives it up we loose all the most Valluable part of that Country. The Northern Indians Sold that Land to the English at the Treaty of Lancaster in 1744, by the Treaty of Logs Town in 1752 and by that at Fort Stanwix in 1768. At that Time the Cherrokees laid no Claim to that Land & how the[y] come to do it now I cannot imagine... ==Dunmore's expedition==