Captain John “Indian Wars” McDowell

John McDowell (born 1714), youngest son of American McDowell patriarch Ephraim and surveyor of Borden’s Grant in Virginia, married Magdalen Woods in 1734 while the family was still in Pennsylvania. Like so many of the McDowells, she had made the crossing to America from Ireland with her parents and siblings. John and “Magdalena” had three children together before John’s untimely death at age 28 on 14 December 1742. 

John received his Captain’s commission in the Virginia militia after numerous Augusta County landholders made a direct plea (in desperate need of spellcheck):

"To the Honorable, William Gooch Esqr His Majestys’ Lieut: Governor &c &c—

Sr

We your pittionours humbly sheweth that we your Honours Loly and Dutifull Subganckes hath ventred our Lives & all that we have In settling ye back parts of Virginia which was a veri Great Hassirt & Dengrous, for it is the Hathins [heathens] Road to ware, which has proved hortfull to severil of ous that were ye first settlers of these back woods & wee your Honibill pittionors some time a goo pittioned your Honnour for to have Commissioned men amungst ous which we your Honnours most Duttifull subjects thought properist men & men that had Hart and Curidg to hed us yn mind of — & to defend your Contray and your poor Sobgacks Intrist from ye voilince of ye Haithen—But yet agine we Humbly perfume to poot your Honnour yn mind of our Great want of them in hopes that your Honner will Grant a Captins’ Commission to John McDowell, with follring ofishers, and your Honnours’ Complyence in this will be Great settisfiction to your most Duttifull and Humbil pittioners—and we as in Duty bond shall Ever pray—

Andrew Moore, David Moore, James Eikins, Geroge Marfit, John Goof, James Sutherland, James Milo, James McDowell, John Anderson, Joabe Anderson, James Anderson, Mathew Lyel, John Gray and many others."*

Captain McDowell assembled a Company of thirty-three men, including his father Ephraim and brother James. In early December 1742, a similar number of Delaware Indians entered the McDowell settlement in Borden’s Grant, “saying that they were on their way to assail the Catawba tribe with which they were at war.” John McDowell met with the Indians, who professed their friendship for the whites. He, in turn, entertained them for a day and “treated them with whiskey.” The Delawares then traveled down the south branch of the North River and camped for about a week. Besides hunting, they proceeded to terrorize local settlers and shoot loose horses at random. In response to grievous complaints, Captain McDowell’s Company was ordered by Colonel James Patton of the Virginia militia to conduct the Delaware Indians beyond the white settlements. On 14 December 1742 they caught up with the suspect Indians at the junction of the James and North rivers. The Company proceeded to gather the group together and initiate the escort. About half of the Indians were on horseback, the rest on foot. One was said to have been lame, not keeping pace with the company, and had walked off into the woods. A soldier at the back of the line fired into the trees at him, and the Indians immediately began a full-fledged attack upon McDowell’s entire Company.** John and eight of his men were killed. At least seventeen Indians also died. In the battle’s aftermath, to avoid all-out war with the multiple nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, Lieutenant Governor George Thomas of Pennsylvania negotiated the Treaty of Lancaster in 1744. Agreement was reached that Virginia’s Lieutenant Governor William Gooch would pay the Iroquois a reparation of 100 pounds sterling. 

After what came to be called the “Massacre at Balcony Downs,” many referred to the Captain as John “Indian Wars” McDowell. By this time there were numerous McDowells up and down the Great Wagon Road, so it became a way to distinguish him from others in the retelling. 

*Petition to Lt. Governor William Gooch of Virginia, dated 30 July 1742, Calendar of Virginia State Papers, i, p. 235

**Joseph Addison Waddell, Annals of Augusta County, Virginia, from 1726 to 1871, 1902, C.R. Caldwell, Augusta County, Virginia. Specifics of the account are from an 1808 letter sent from Judge Samuel McDowell, son of Captain John McDowell, to Colonel Arthur Campbell.

Quaker Meadows is "Beshaged"

By 1776 Quaker Meadows, the Burke County estate of Colonel Charles McDowell, became a direct target of Cherokee raids, as General Griffith Rutherford of the North Carolina militia indicated in his letter to the new “Rebel” government in Hillsborough. 

Honourable Gentlemen,

I am under the nessety of sending you by express, the Allarming Condition this country is in, the Indins is making great prograce in Distroying and Murdering in the frontiers of this county. 37, I am informed was killed last Wedensday & Thursday on the Cuttaba [Catawba] River. I am also informed that Col. McDowel with 10 men and 126 women and children is Beshaged, in some kind of a fort, with Indins all round them, no help to them before yesterday and they were surrounded Wedensday. I expect the nex account to here that they are all destroyed. … Pray Gentlemen Consider our distress, send us plenty of Powder & I Hope under God we of Salsbury District is able to stand them, but, if you will allow us to go to the Nation, I expect you will order Hillsbourgh District to join Salisbury. Three of our Capitans is killed and one wounded. This day I set out with what men I can Raise for the relief of the Distrest. 

Your Humble Servant, 

Griffith Rutherford*

The government at Hillsborough called out the western militia. Help was received.

[I]n the spring of the year 1776 the Indians broke in upon the frontier settlements on the Catawba when there was a call for men to guard the inhabitants and bring them down to the Quaker Meadows when [Arthur McFalls] volunteered as a private and marched to their relief. And on their march back with the women and children, the Indians attacted [sic] them at the North Fork of the Catawba and pretty sharp action ensued but the Indians give way at last. The whites lost two men killed Captain Reuben White and Sabe Shelton a private & wounded captain Thomas Whitson. The Indians lost eight killed the number wounded not known – this battle was fought in the spring of 1776 he was under Captain John Harden after the Battle they took the women & children down to the Quaker Meadows where he was discharged after being out two weeks.

—Pension application of Arthur McFalls, excerpt**

*Dispatch from North Carolina militia’s General Griffith Rutherford to the Council of Safety, dated 14 July 1776

**Pension application of Arthur McFalls W91871, State of North Carolina, Yancey County: Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions June Court 1836, excerpt

Frontier Forts

There were eight frontier forts in Scott County, Virginia territory built to provide protection against Indian raids and for use as stopping places for hunters and settlers:

Blackmore’s Fort, overlooking the Clinch River, was built by Capt. John Blackmore in 1772. It was attacked by Indians many times and several people were killed or captured near the fort. Daniel Boone was in command of Fort Blackmore and other forts on the Clinch in 1774 while the militia was engaged in the battle of Point Pleasant during Dunmore’s war.

Huston’s [Houston's] Fort was built in 1774 on the waters of Big Moccasin Creek by William Huston [Houston] on land assigned to him by Thomas McCulloch. McCulloch had established the first Scott County territory settlement there in 1769, but was forced out by Indians. In 1776 Fort Huston was attacked by an Indian force estimated to be near 300.

Porter’s Fort was built by Patrick Porter in 1775 on Falling Creek near present-day Dungannon. He built a grist mill there which was most likely the first mill in Scott County territory.

Other forts were Carter’s Fort located in Rye Cove, Duncan’s Fort on the Clinch River, Dorton’s Fort east of present Nickelsville, the Anderson Blockhouse located near the North Fork of the Holston River and Moccasin Gap, and Kilgore’s Fort built on the waters of Copper Creek west of Nickelsville.

(Source: Wilderness Road: Virginia's Heritage Migration Route)

The Paxton Boys

(click image to enlarge)

The 1763 uprising of the "Paxton Boys" was triggered by the Quaker government's perceived indifference to Indian attacks on the Pennsylvania frontier, and by the western district's underrepresentation in the colonial assembly.
The Paxton Boys were Scots-Irish Presbyterian farmers from the area near Paxton Church, Paxtang, who formed a vigilante group in response to the Indian uprising known as Pontiac's Rebellion. The Paxton Boys felt that the government of colonial Pennsylvania was negligent in providing them with protection, and so decided to take matters into their own hands.
As the nearest belligerent Indians were some 200 miles west of Paxton, the men turned their anger towards the local Conestoga (or Susquehannock) Indians—many of them Christians—who lived peacefully in small enclaves in the midst of white Pennsylvania settlements. (The Paxton Boys believed or claimed to believe that these Indians secretly provided aid and intelligence to the hostile Indians.) On December 14, 1763 a group of more than fifty Paxton Boys marched on an Indian village near Millersville, Pennsylvania, murdered the six Indians they found there, and burned the bloody cabin in which the killings were done. Later, colonists looking through the ashes of the cabin, found a bag containing the Conestoga's 1701 treaty signed by William Penn, which pledged that the colonists and the Indians "shall forever hereafter be as one Head & One Heart, & live in true Friendship & Amity as one People."
The remaining fourteen Susquehannocks were placed in protective custody by Governor John Penn in Lancaster. But on December 27, Paxton Boys broke into the workhouse at Lancaster and brutally killed and mutilated all fourteen. These two actions, which resulted in the deaths of all but two of the last of the Susquehannocks, are sometimes known as the "Conestoga Massacre." The Governor issued bounties for the arrest of the murderers, but no one came forward to identify them.

"Gone to Carolina"

It is probable that some families left Virginia due to increasing conflict between settlers and Indians. In 1755 attacks by the Shawnee along the frontier increased significantly. In October 1755 Colonel Adam Stephen, one of George Washington's officers, wrote from Winchester, Virginia that the Indians "... go about and Commit their Outrages at all hours of the Day and nothing is to be seen or heard of, but Desolation and murder heightened with all Barbarous Circumstances and unheard of Instances of Cruelty.... The Smoke of the Burning Plantations darken the day, and hide the neighboring mountains from our sight...".
These events were part of the struggle now known as the French and Indian War. During this struggle England and France strove for control of the lands west of the Alleghenies between New Orleans and Quebec. In order to forestall French intent, Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia sent a military expedition under General Edward Braddock to the Valley of the Ohio. Braddock and his men, however, were ambushed as they moved into the Ohio Valley; Braddock was killed, and only a few of his men (including George Washington) survived to make their way back to Virginia. This defeat left frontier settlements in the Shenandoah Valley virtually defenseless, and set off a panic among settlers. Many of the settlers fled to North Carolina at this time. County records of this period frequently identify settlers with the phrase "gone to Carolina."

The "Shawanoes" & A Motive for War

From a speech delivered by a Shawnee chief (possibly Laulewasikaw, brother of Tecumseh) at Fort Wayne in 1803:

"The Master of Life, who was himself an Indian, made the Shawanoes before any other of the human race; and they sprang from his brain; he gave them all the knowledge he himself possessed, and placed them upon the great island, and all the other red people descended from the Shawanoes. He made the French and English out of his breast, the Dutch out of his feet, and the Long-knives [Virginians] out of his hands. All these inferior races of men he made white and placed them beyond the stinking lake [Atlantic Ocean]. The Shawanoes continued for many ages to be masters of the continent, using the knowledge they had received from the Great Spirit in such a manner as to be pleasing to Him, and to secure their own happiness. In a great length of time, however, they became corrupt, and the Master of Life told them he would take away from them the knowledge which they possessed, and give it to the white people, to be restored when, by a return to good principles they should deserve it. Many ages after that, they saw something white approaching their shores; at first they took it for a great bird, but they soon found it to be a monstrous canoe, filled with those who had got the knowledge which belonged to the Shawanoes. After these white people landed, they were not content with having the knowledge which belonged to the Shawanoes, but they usurped their lands also: they pretended indeed to have purchased these lands; but the very goods they gave for them, were more the property of the Indians than the white people, because the knowledge which enabled them to manufacture these goods, actually belonged to the Shawanoes: but these things will soon have an end. The Master of Life is about to restore to the Shawanoes both their knowledge and their rights, and he will trample the Long-knives under his feet."

Early Burke County, North Carolina, according to Judge Avery

Extract from an address on the "Early History of Burke County," by Judge Alphonso Calhoun Avery (1835-1913):

During the year 1776 the Cherokee Indians as allies of England, crossed the Blue Ridge and invaded the upper part of Burke and what is now McDowell County. They scalped the people, burned the houses and appropriated the live stock along their line of march. It is to be regretted that more of the history of that fearful raid has not been preserved.
With very short notice of their danger, the people living along the foot of the Blue Ridge in McDowell and also in Burke rushed to the different forts for protection, and those who without warning, remained at their homes, were killed, after being subjected, in some instances, to cruel torture. Very few women, even, were spared and taken as prisoners.
The white men then claimed the country to the top of the Blue Ridge, and had occupied it to the foot, while the Watauga settlement west of the mountains extended South of Jonesboro for some distance. The treaty of the next year was concluded at the Long Island of Holston, and contained a formal recognition of the claims of the whites. There was a fort at the present town of Old Fort, which was built for the Catawbas, as we have mentioned, but was used in 1776 by the whites. Another had been erected in the Turkey Cove, a third where the town of Lenoir now stands, and we suppose that many others were scattered along in the exposed settlements of Burke and Tryon.
Old Mrs Hunter, the mother of James Hunter (who formerly lived on Linville where his son Joseph now lives), and grandmother of the late Swan Burnett and Mrs J. Sewell Brown of McDowell county, was scalped by the savages, who appeared at her house without warning. She was left senseless, but recovered, however, lived many years after and raised a large family.
The wife of a man named McFalls, who lived in the North or Turkey Cove, was also scalped and terribly disfigured, but recovered to find herself disowned and deserted by her unfeeling husband because her beauty had been marred by her terrible wounds. This same man McFalls was a Tory, and when captured at King's Mountain was led up to a tree with a rope around his neck, but was released at the earnest request of one of McDowell's men who promised to be responsible for his good behavior thereafter, on taking the oath of allegiance to the colonial government. The Cherokees came down Roaring Creek to Toe River and crossed, we believe, into the North Cove settlement first. Colonel Waightstill Avery passed up Roaring Creek, and hearing the war-whoop behind, spurred his horse and galloped across from the head of the creek to the Watauga settlement on Doe River. When he returned with Col. Sharp and others, who, with him, made the treaty of 1777, on Holston, he ascertained from a woman, who had been a prisoner, that several braves followed him for some distance, and desisted only because they suspected that he was trying to lead them into an ambuscade. Gen. Rutherford raised near the close of the summer of 1776 an army of 2,400 men.
He probably passed up the old Island Ford road a few miles south of Morganton. He was joined in Burke county by both Joseph McDowell, Sr., and Joseph McDowell, Jr., as well as Col. Armstrong's regiment from Wilkes and Surry. He crossed the Blue Ridge at Swannanoa Gap, went down that river to the French Broad, then, after passing up Hominy, crossed the Pigeon just below the mouth of East Fork, and entered the valley of Richland a few miles above Waynesville. He then marched up that creek, crossed Balsam to Scott's Creek, and passed down Scott's Creek to the Tuckaseegee, which he crossed at an Indian town called Stekoeh, located on the farm of Col. W. H. Thomas, in Jackson county, a mile from Whittier Station. After an engagement with the Indians on Cowee Mountains, he went down the Tennessee river to Middletown, then on the 14th of September he met Gen. Williamson, from South Carolina. He returned by the same route, afterwards known as “Rutherford's Trace,” having completely subdued the Indians and paved the way for the treaty of the next year.
Gen. Rutherford, we suppose, followed an old Indian trail, but it is curious to observe how nearly he marked out also the line on which the great highways of the country, first the turnpike and then the railroad were located.
Nearly all of the men of the Piedmont section, who afterwards led in the last campaign of 1780-'81 in Western North Carolina, saw their first service under Rutherford in this expedition.

A Prevalent Fear

From Our Savage Neighbors, by Peter Silver, published by W.W. Norton & Company, 2007, pp. 58-59:

Rather surprisingly, the right of at least eventual burial was a basic assumption of the laws of war. As the great Spanish theorist Vitoria had observed, it had been considered a clear right under natural law, even for the corpses of executed criminals, since at least the time of the Israelites: and since "piety is a natural thing, even for the dead . . . [it] is unlawful to abuse their corpses." Unlike those people today who sign up happily for posthumous donations and dissections, early Americans were very far from indifferent about what happened to their bodies after death. When blended with Indians' supposed propensity for mutilating their dead or dying opponents, this dread of posthumous abuse (especially of decaying visibly, or becoming food for animals) accounted for an enormous part of the fear that provincial Americans felt when considering Indian attacks. Their evident fascination with the burning up after death of Indians victims in flaming barns or houses probably sprang, too, from the idea of the dead's being disposed of in horribly unconventional ways.
Body-burying expeditions had a central place in newspaper reporting–a place that makes sense when we understand the special power the damaged or unburied dead had to shock and depress colonists. The parties of men who trudged off to find victims and "[Bury them] in a Christian Manner" became vessels for terror. In late October 1755, after William Parsons heard reports of an attack near Easton and went out "to assist in burying the Dead," he wrote two letters unburdening himself of the horror of the trip. His little party, doubling in numbers as it went, heard of another attack nearer by and decided "to go . . . to these dead Bodies" first, which they soon found "lying dead just in the Road" with "all the Skin of their Heads . . . scalpt off." As darkness fell, the members of the party worried that "their Bodies might be torn to pieces" before morning. So they borrowed a grubbing hoe and shovel from the nearest farm and dug the deepest grave they could in the stony ground, putting them both in one grave . . . as we found them with all their Cloaths on."

The Crawford Expedition

During the Revolutionary War, William Crawford (1732-1782) was commissioned colonel of the 7th Virginia and served with the distinction at the battles of Trenton, Princeton, Brandywine, and Germantown. In late 1777, he took command of the continental troops and militia in western Pennsylvania. After the War, Crawford retired from the military, but his reputation as an Indian fighter soon made him the commander of an ill-fated expedition against the Delaware Indians of Sandusky, Ohio in the spring of 1782. Unfamiliar with the terrain and unable to replenish his troops, Crawford’s army of experienced frontiersman was defeated. Angered by the massacre of neutral and unarmed Indians in the Muskingham Valley by Pennsylvania militia, Indian warriors stripped off Crawford’s clothes, tied his arms around a thick wooden post, and tortured him. Dr. John Knight, a military surgeon who traveled with the Sandusky expedition, witnessed the atrocity:

"Seventy shots of powder were fired at his body. Indians then cut off his ears, prodded him with burning sticks, and tossed hot embers at him. Colonel Crawford continued in the extremities of pain for an hour and three quarters or two hours longer, as near as I can judge, when at last, being almost totally exhausted, he laid down on his belly; they then scalped him and repeatedly threw the scalp in my face, telling me, 'That was your great captain.' An old squaw got a board, took a parcel of coals and ashes and laid them on his back and head, after he had been scalped. Colonel Crawford then raised himself upon his feet and began to walk around the post; they next put a burning stick to him as usual, but he seemed more insensible of pain than before."

After learning of Crawford’s brutal fate on June 11, 1782, the Pennsylvania Packet reported that the state militia was “greatly enraged and determined to have ample satisfaction."

(Source: Beyond Philadelphia: The American Revolution in the Pennsylvania Hinterland, by Gregory T. Knouff, John B. Frantz ed., William Pencak ed., Park, Pa: Penn State Press, 1998)

"The Quaker Unmask'd"

From The Quaker Unmask'd, or, Plain Truth, by David James Dove, Philadelphia: Andrew Steuart, 1764:

"Friend . . . It is true, we [Quakers] profess to have an Aversion to War: but . . . we secretly rejoice when we hear of whole Settlements murdered and destroyed. . . . And tho' our Malice at present is openly pointed only at the Presbyterians; yet to be plain with thee, we are as much in our Hearts against all who differ from us in Opinion . . . . thee knows it would be impolitic to discover our Resentment to too many Sects at once . . . ."

John Murray & Lord Dunmore's War

From "John M. Dunmore," Ohio History Central, 2005:

John Murray, Lord Dunmore was a royal governor of Virginia in the years before the American Revolution. He was born in Scotland in 1732. He came from a noble family and was descended from royalty. In 1761, at the young age of twenty-nine years, he was elected to the House of Commons in the English Parliament. He served for the remainder of the 1760s. In 1770, the Earl of Hillsborough selected him to be the royal governor of New York. Such an appointment was viewed as a great honor and would allow the recipient to garner wealth in England's New World colonies. Dunmore accepted the appointment and arrived in New York in October 1770.

In late 1771, Dunmore was promoted to governor of Virginia, England's largest and wealthiest colony in North America. He became an instant celebrity and well-respected leader of the colony. The Virginia elites, including George Washington, welcomed him and viewed him as a capable politician. The Virginians' view of Dunmore would change in 1773. In that year, the governor disbanded the Virginia legislature, the House of Burgesses, for supporting persons opposed to the Mother Country. He dissolved the legislature again in 1774. Opposition arose to the governor as he limited Virginians' ability to govern themselves.

Hoping to regain the support he once enjoyed, Dunmore sought to help the colonists against Native American threats in the Ohio Country. Beginning in 1774, Mingo Indians and Shawnee Indians rose up against white settlers—mainly from Virginia—who hoped to settle in the area. Dunmore also feared that Pennsylvania coveted land claimed by Virginia. To prevent Pennsylvania's expansion into modern-day West Virginia, southeastern Ohio, and Kentucky, Dunmore wished to place Virginia militiamen in these regions. He also hoped to open these lands to white settlement.

In August 1774, Pennsylvania and Virginia militias decided to end the Native American threat. Pennsylvania soldiers entered the Ohio Country and quickly destroyed seven Mingo villages, which the Indians had abandoned as the soldiers approached. At the same time, Lord Dunmore sent one thousand men to the Little Kanawha River in modern-day West Virginia to build a fort and attack the Shawnees. Cornstalk, a Shawnee leader, sent nearly one thousand warriors to drive Dunmore's army from the region. The forces met on October 10, 1774, at what became known as the Battle of Point Pleasant. After several hours of intense fighting, the English drove Cornstalk's followers north of the Ohio River. Dunmore, with a large force of his own, quickly followed the Shawnees across the river into the Ohio Country. Upon nearing the Shawnee villages on the Pickaway Plains near what is now Circleville, Ohio, Dunmore stopped. From his encampment named Camp Charlotte, Dunmore requested that the Shawnees come to him and discuss a peace treaty. The Shawnees agreed, but while negotiations were under way, Colonel Andrew Lewis and a detachment of Virginia militia that Dunmore had left behind at Point Pleasant crossed the Ohio River and destroyed several Shawnee villages. Fearing that Dunmore intended to destroy them, the Shawnees agreed to terms before more blood was shed. This military campaign came to be known as Lord Dunmore's War.

As a result of this war, some Shawnee Indians agreed to the terms of the Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1768) and promised to give up some of their lands east and south of the Ohio River. This was the first time that some of the natives who actually lived in the Ohio Country agreed to relinquish some of their land. In addition, these Shawnees also promised to return their white captives and to no longer attack English colonists traveling down the Ohio River.

Dunmore returned to Virginia a hero, but he quickly alienated the colonists once again by removing all of the gunpowder in the Williamsburg arsenal to a British warship. Dunmore feared that the colonists intended to use the gunpowder to overthrow royal authority in the New World. By July 1776, patriots had forced Dunmore to flee from Virginia. He spent the remainder of the American Revolution in England, where he again served in Parliament. From 1787 to 1796, he served as the royal governor of the Bahamas. He then retired to England and died in 1809.

The Moffetts & the Piqua

From Annals of Augusta County, by Joseph Addison Waddell, pub. 1902, C.R. Caldwell, pp. 177-178:

Col. George Moffett, son of John and Mary Christian Moffett, was born in 1735.—His wife was a sister of Colonel Samuel McDowell. He lived on the Middle River farm, owned for many years past by the Dunlap family, called Mount Pleasant, and built the stone dwelling house still on the place. He was not only prominent during the Indian wars and the Revolution, but was so also in civil affairs, having been a justice of the peace, an elder in the Presbyterian church, and one of the first trustees of Washington College, Lexington. He is said to have been a man of commanding presence, and eminently religious. He died in 1811, aged seventy-six years, and was buried in Augusta church graveyard. His children were John, James McD., Samuel, William, Mrs. General McDowell, of Kentucky, Mrs. Col. Joseph McDowell, of North Carolina, Mrs. Kirk, of Kentucky, and Mrs. James Cochran, of Augusta connty. James McDowell Moffett was the father of the late Mrs. John McCue, and Mrs. Cochran was the mother of Messrs. John, George M., and James A. Cochran.

Two of Col. Moffett's brothers removed to Kentucky in 1783, with their half-brother, James Trimble and many other Augusta people. Robert Moffett, one of the two, settled in Jessamine county. He had two sons, John and George, who were captured by Indians soon after their arrival in Kentucky. The ages of the boys were about six and eight years, respectively. They were taken to the Indian town of Piqua, on the Miami river, in Ohio, and John was adopted into the family of Tecumseh's mother. At Wayne's treaty, in 1794, these prisoners were given up, and their father was present with the Kentucky troops to receive back his long-lost sons. George, the younger of the two, was eager to return home; but John was reluctant to leave his Indian mother and friends. He went back, however, with his father, but was restless and unhappy and finally returned to Piqua. There he remained with the Indians till they sold their reservation and removed west of the Mississippi river.

The late John A. Trimble, of Ohio, in a letter dated March 31, 1881, and addressed to Dr. George B. Moffett, of West Virginia, says that when he was a child, in 1807, he saw John Moffett, who was then on his return from a visit to Kentucky. He was in the vigor of manhood, dressed in Indian costume and traveling on foot. Mr. Trimble saw him again in 1828, at his home near Piqua. He had lived during his boyhood and youth with Tecumseh, the celebrated Indian chief, and seemed much attached to him. At the time of Mr. Trimble's visit, Moffett had recently married an elderly lady and settled down to civilized life. But in his early life he had an Indian wife. Mr. Trimble says:

"I was descending the Mississippi in 1819, and landed at a point below Memphis called Mill's Landing. Mr. Mills, the pioneer settler there, had a trading post with the Mississippi Indians, who were encamped about the post. My brother, Cary Trimble, was with me. Mr. Mills, hearing we were from Kentucky, claimed relationship, his wife being a grand-daughter of Robert Moffett, of Woodford. We were invited to his house and my brother at once recognized Mrs. Mills as a relative whom he had known fifteen years before in Kentucky. She related a strange surprise she had a few evenings before from a very old Indian woman. She had noticed for several days the manners of this woman and her close scrutiny and eager gaze as she would meet her. At last she came up to her, exclaiming : 'Moffett! you are Moffett!' Somewhat startled, she called to Mr. Mills, who understood the Indian language, and he learned that the woman was the repudiated wife of John Moffett, a prisoner among the Indians at Piqua, ' long time ago. The woman said she knew Mrs. Mills from her likeness to her uncle when he was a boy. She said also that she had a son, Wicomichee, a young Indian chief, so called 'because his father left him.'"

John Harris to Owen Biddle, 1776

Paxton, July 29th, 1776. 

Sir,

I was informed by two men that came here last week from Sunbury for some Gun Powder stored with me for No. Thumberland Coty, that Two Seneca Indians came to the Great Island on the West Branch of Susquehannah ab't Two Weeks agoe, & that the next day after sd Indians arrived, the Indians in that neighbourhood moved off with their Familys, Effects, &c., & cut down some if not the whole of their Indian Corn; it appears as if they designed to Join the Canada Indians, or such of the Six Nations or other Indian Nations that may chuse to take an active part in the present warr ag't us; the English Officers that made their escape from Lebanon in Lancaster Coty, no doubt did perswade the Indians on their tour up this River, to take up the Hatchet ag't us, You may depend on it that the Indians cannot be kept Neuter, no Treaty or Presents can Prevent their being concern'd in the warr, therefore if a number of their warriors were engaged in our service, it might perhaps, (if not now too late) prevent them Destroying ourselves, our late success in Carolina may encourage the Southern Indians to join us in that quarter, If timely apply'd to, they would be of the greatest service for to assist us to cut off the Northern or Western Ind's, If a general Indian warr shoud Happen, (may God forbid) that an Indian Warr shoud take place, but we ought to use all the means in our power to prevent it ag't ourselves, & if there is now no preventing it, Let the Warr be pushed on with the Greatest Vigour into their own Country, (they Begining first) Surely their Territory of the best lands in America is a fine prize for our Warriors to fight for; the Frontier Co'tys in this Province is in a Deplorable Situation for want of Powder & lead shoud the Indians Break out soon, w'ch I assure you 
is expected, the present Q'tys of ammunition in sd Co'tys is verry Trifling, proper magazines at Posts of Amunition & provisions ought to be laid up in time for the Publick use (If Wanted) before escorts & a Treble Expence in conveying sd necessary articles to proper places might be expedient. I know the Indians well from my infancy, warr is their delight, & they will be concern'd on some side & 
Likely both for & ag't us; the Greatest Spirit Imaginable Reigns among us, I hope it may continue to the end of the Present unjust & cruel warr undertaken by Great Brittain against us, it's Quite Right now, for the Hon'ble the Continental Congress to Get all the Foreign aid Judg'd necessary to assist us, a good Fleet especially, superior with our assistance to that of our Enemy's, with Engineers, &c., from my love for my bleeding country, my acquaintance with yr self, knowing yr situation & Influence, is the Reason I make free to write you this long Incorrect Epistle; there is two places in this county I have found by Enquiry that it's Likely Good flints may be made. If you'll please to write me a Letter Informing me any news, you'll please to communicate [through] Lancaster post or first safe conveyance shall take it as a favor. I am Sir,
with the 
Greatest Respect, your most obed't, 

& most Humble Servant,
JOHN HARRIS.

Directed, 

To Owen Biddle, Esquire, in Philadelphia

The Yamasee War & The Cherokee Factor

From Jackson's Way, by John Buchanan, New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2001, pp. 18-19:

The Yamasee War came close to destroying South Carolina. Four hundred settlers (6% of the population) were killed. Ninety percent of the traders were killed in the Yamasee and Creek Nations, from South Carolina’s Low Country to central Alabama. Charleston’s defensive perimeter was reduced to a radius of some thirty-five miles and that was not totally secure. In August 1715 several hundred warriors penetrated the outskirts of Charleston before being repulsed. The degree of danger can be measured by the arming of hundreds of black slaves to fight alongside white militiamen. All of the southeastern tribes had risen except two: the Chickasaws on the Mississippi, who stayed loyal and protected their traders; and the Cherokees, who were thinking over Creek overtures. The Chickasaws were too far away and too few to intervene. The Cherokees, however, were quite a different story. They were on the doorsteps of both Carolinas and they could muster 4,000 warriors. If the Cherokees joined the alliance, what could follow? The evacuation of Charleston?
In the late fall of 1715 Colonels James Moore and George Chicken with 300 militiamen were sent up-country to the lower Cherokee towns as a show of force and to negotiate an alliance. At the same time Creek envoys were in the towns seeking their own alliance, and a large force of Creek warriors were concealed in the forests awaiting the signal for a Cherokee-Creek attack on the English force. The Cherokees took their time and negotiated with both sides. Finally, in January 1716, they made their decision. The Creek envoys were murdered by their hosts and a Cherokee-English force did the attacking and sent the waiting Creek warriors fleeing for their lives.
The Cherokee decision saved South Carolina. Historians have given pride of place to the Indian alliances that led to the Pequot War (1636–1638) and King Philip’s War (1675–1676) in New England, and the rising of the northwestern tribes in Pontiac’s Rebellion (1763–1765). This is not unusual, given the general neglect of southern history during the colonial and revolutionary periods. But the alliance that led to the Yamasee War was the “greatest Indian alliance in colonial history with the potential to eradicate not just South Carolina but also North Carolina and Virginia.”