Kentucke's Frontiers

5. Seeking Security and Stability

5. Seeking Security and ­ Stability In May 1785, many of Kentucke’s self-­ selected leadership followed up their November 1784 gathering that had dissuaded Benjamin Logan from invading the Chickamauga towns with a meeting in Danville to discuss their options when addressing the Indian threat. The conversation turned to grievances against Virginia and concluded with a petition for separation and a “declaration of independence,” written by the recently arrived James Wilkinson : We hold it as a self evident truth that the government is ordered for the ease and protection of the governed: and whatever ends are not attained, by one form of government, it is the right, it is the duty, of the people to seek such other mode, as will be likely to insure to themselves and to their posterity those blessings to which, by nature they are entitled. In the accompanying list of “benefits of government which every citizen had a right to expect,” the foremost complaint was that “we have no power to call out the militia, our sure and only defence , to oppose the wicked machinations of the savages, unless in case of actual invasion.” • Seeking Security and Stability • 135 Neither the petition nor the declaration was sent to Virginia, but news quickly carried over the Appalachians. Frustrated and angered by the state’s apparent inattention to its western citizens, Caleb Wallace complained to James Madison, “We conceive the people of this District do not at present enjoy a greater portion of Liberty than an Ameri­ can Colony might have done a few years ago had she been allowed a Representation in the British Parliament .” For Virginians, the handwriting was on the wall. Jefferson hoped that the Old Dominion would “not leave to the Western country to withdraw themselves by force and become our worst enemies instead of our best friends.” Madison accepted that “no interval whatever should be suffered between the release of our hold on that Country, and its taking on itself the obligations of a member of the Federal body.” Washington wanted to “meet them upon their own ground, draw the best line, and best terms we can of separation and part good friends.” An amicable separation depended upon how Virginia would handle the growing confederation of Indian peoples. Wyandots, Shawnees, Chippewas, Odawas, Potawatomis, Lenni Lenapes, Miamis , Kickapoos, Weas, Piankashaws, and Chickamaugas found a common enemy in the white and black pioneers of Kentucke. By 1785, having resigned themselves to Ameri­ can settlement in the trans-­ Appalachian West, native peoples had formed a West­ ern Confederacy, initiating a new and more intense series of attacks in Kentucke and along the eastern backcountries in order to dissuade Ameri­ cans from crossing the Ohio River. Even moderate Indians who were willing to accommodate Ameri­ can settlement found it increasingly difficult to make their cases to their peoples. The Confederation Congress was fortunate in January 1786, then, to draw some of the more moderate Shawnees, Lenni Lenapes, and Wyandots into a conference with its commissioners George Rogers Clark, Samuel Parsons, and Richard Butler at Fort Finney, at the confluence of the Miami and Ohio Rivers. Two years earlier , in the fall of 1784, the Confederation had met at Fort Stanwix with the Iroquois. Mohawk chief Thayendanegea—­ known to the Ameri­ cans as Joseph Brant—had attended the 1768 Fort Stanwix negotiations with the British. This time, he led the Iroquois dele- Kentucke’s Frontiers 136 • gation, and as they had some eighteen years earlier, they ceded all claims to the Ohio River valley. Several months later, commissioners had convinced Lenni Lenape, Chippewa, Wyandot, and Ottawa representatives at Fort McIntosh to abandon claims to lands in southern and eastern Ohio territory. Again, the Shawnees watched as other nations sacrificed their lands. When the Confederation approached the Shawnees to meet at Fort Finney, then, more radical elements led by Simon Girty discouraged Shawnee leaders from attending. Moderate elements, however, saw this as an opportunity to acquire what they could from an increasingly hopeless situation. Several hundred arrived at Fort Finney with great fanfare: Moluntha, the oldest civil chief and a veteran of the siege of Fort Boone, beat a small drum and sang as he led the contingent into the camp. Immediately behind him were several dancers—as commissioner Butler described, “the whole of the party painted and dressed in the most elegant manner, in their way, which is truly fantastic, but elegant though savage.” Then...