For the preservation of peace, and the administration of justice, a court of civil and criminal jurisdiction was organized, at Vincennes, in the month of June, 1779. The court was composed of several magistrates. Colonel J. M. P. Legras, who had received the appointment of "commandant at Post Vincennes," acted as president of this new court; and, in some instances, exercised a controlling influence over its proceedings. Adopting, in some measure, the usages and customs of the early commandants of French posts in the west, the magistrates of the court of Post Vincennes began to grant tracts of land to the French and American inhabitants of the town, and to different officers, civil and military, of the country. It seems, indeed, that the court assumed the power of granting lands to every applicant; and, before the year 1783, about twenty-six thousand acres of land were granted to individual applicants. From the year 1783 to the time when, in 1787, the practice was prohibited by General Harmar, the quantity of land granted to individuals, by the court of Vincennes, amounted to twenty-two thousand acres. These lands were granted in tracts "varying in quantities from four hundred acres to the size of a house-lot." But, besides the granting of these small tracts, the court of Post Vincennes attempted to dispose of a large district of country. The commandant, and the magistrates over whom he presided, after having, for some time, exercised the power of giving away the lands in that quarter, finally adopted the opinion that they were invested with authority to dispose of the whole of that large region which had, it seems, in 1742, been granted, by the Piankeshaw Indians, to the French inhabitants of Post Vincennes, for their use. "Accordingly, an arrangement was made, by which the whole country, to which the Indian title was supposed to be extinguished, was divided between the members of the court, and orders to that effect entered on their journal - each member absenting himself from the court on the day that the order was to be made in his favor, so that it might appear to be the act of his fellows only."†

In the month of July, 1779, two Piankeshaw chiefs, who were called Tabac, (or Tobacco's son,) and Grand Cornet,

*Letter, written in 1790, from Winthrop Sargent to George Washington. Letter from Gov. Harrison to James Madison, Jan. 19, 1802

granted and conveyed, by deed, to George Rogers Clark, a tract of land two and a half leagues square, lying on the right bank of the Ohio, opposite the falls of that river. Virginia never confirmed this grant, or purchase, because the constitution of that State, which was formed in May, 1776, declared that no purchase of lands should be made of the Indian natives but on behalf of the public, by the authority of the General Assembly.

CHAPTER XVI.

INDIAN WARFARE.

NOTWITHSTANDING the various prudential measures which were carried into effect by the American Congress, for the purpose of subduing the hostility that existed between the principal northwestern Indian tribes and the white settlers on the borders of the river Ohio, the irregular and merciless border warfare which was carried on by these parties against each other, was not brought to a close until the confederated forces of the tribes hostile to the United States were overpowered and defeated, in 1794, by the army under the command of General Anthony Wayne.

In tracing the progress of the conflict between civilization and barbarism, in the country northwest of the river Ohio, from 1779 to 1787, I find that the white population and the Indian tribes of this region were, during that period, kept in a state of agitation by a succession of events, the most memorable of which are here briefly related:

I. In June, 1779,* Colonel John Bowman led a force of three hundred men from Kentucky against an Indian town on the Little Miami river. In this expedition, Benjamin Logan, John Holder, James Harrod, and John Bulger were captains

* Jefferson's Correspondence, i, 163.

The expedition "arrived within a short distance of the town, near night, and halted. It was then determined to make the attack by daybreak. For this purpose, Captain Logan was detached to encircle the town on one side, while Bowman was to surround it on the other, and to give the signal of assault. Logan immediately executed his part of the plan, and waited for his superior officers. Day began to break, and still there was no appearance of the detachment in front. Logan, in the mean time, ordered his men to conceal themselves in the grass and the weeds. The men, in shifting about for hiding-places, alarmed one of the enemy's dogs, whose barking soon brought out an Indian to discover the cause of the alarm. At this moment, one of Logan's men discharged his gun; the Indian, aware that it proceeded from an enemy, gave an instantaneous and loud whoop, and ran immediately to his cabin. The alarm was now spread; but still the time was not too late for an energetic attack. Logan could see the women and children escaping to the woods by a ridge between his party and the other detachment."* The Indians made a vigorous defense; and the party under Colonel Bowman was forced to retreat to Kentucky, with a loss of eight or nine men killed. The loss of the Indians has not been recorded.

II. In the spring of 1780, an expedition, commanded by Captain Byrd, set out from Detroit to attack the settlements in Kentucky. This expedition, having some small pieces of artillery, proceeded in boats as far as it could ascend the Maumee river. It moved thence, by land, to the Big Miami, down that river to the Ohio, and up the Ohio to the mouth of Licking river. From this point, with a force amounting to about six hundred men, principally Indians, Captain Byrd moved up the Licking as far as the junction of the south fork of that stream. Being then in the vicinity of Martin's and Ruddle's stations, he appeared before those places about the 22d of June. The settlers, being surprised by an overwhelming force, "surrendered at discretion." The Indians plundered the stations, and took possession of the prisoners, some of whom were massacred, while others were carried into captavity. Immediately after the reduction of these two incon

* Butler's History of Kentucky, 108.

siderable stations, Captain Byrd, although no force appeared to oppose him, commenced a precipitate retreat from Kentucky. Various causes have been assigned for this sudden movement; some writers have attributed it to the weak and vacillating character of Byrd; others say, that "shocked by the irrepressible barbarities of the Indians, he determined to arrest his expedition, and return to Detroit."

III. Soon after the retreat of Captain Byrd, General George Rogers Clark raised, in Kentucky, an army of about one thousand men, for the purpose of carrying an expedition against the Indian villages on the Little Miami and the Big Miami rivers. The army moved from the place of rendezvous, at the mouth of Licking river, about the 2d of August, 1780; and after a march of four days, it reached the principal Chillicothe village, on the banks of the Little Miami. The Indians had deserted the place, and retired to the Piqua town on the Big Miami. The troops under General Clark, after cutting down the growing corn about the Chillicothe village, and destroying several Indian huts, marched for the Piqua town. This town extended along the margin of the river two or three miles; the huts, in some cases, being more than one hundred yards apart. As the Kentuckians advanced upon the town, they were suddenly attacked by a considerable number of Indians; but the latter, after maintaining an obstinate conflict for some time, were at last overpowered by superior numbers, and forced to retreat, leaving seventeen or eighteen of their men dead on the field. The loss of the whites was nineteen or twenty killed. The Piqua town, and a few deserted villages within twenty miles of it, were reduced to ashes; many acres of corn were destroyed; and the Kentucky troops then returned to the mouth of Licking river, where they were disbanded.

IV. In the fall of the year 1780, La Balme, a native of France, made an attempt to lead an expedition from Kaskaskia against the British post at Detroit. Having recruited about thirty men at Kaskaskia, he proceeded from that place to Vincennes, where he was joined by a small reinforcement. From this point he moved up the Wabash river, and directed his course to the British trading post that stood at the head of the river Maumee, where the town of Fort Wayne now stands. After plundering the British traders, and some of the

half-breed Indians, he retired from the post, and encamped, for the night, on the banks of the small river Aboite. The encampment was attacked in the night, by a party of Miami Indians; a few of La Balme's followers were killed; others escaped; and the expedition against Detroit was abandoned.

V.-A war between Great Britain and Spain broke out early in 1779; and on the 2d of January, 1781, Captain Dou Eugenio Pierre, a Spaniard, marched from St. Louis with a detachment of sixty-five men, to attack the British post of St. Joseph. This Spanish expedition was joined by sixty Indians. The united forces reached St. Joseph without opposition, and captured a few British traders at that place. Don Eugenio Pierre formally took possession of the post, its dependencies, and the river Illinois, in the name of the king of Spain. The Spaniards, however, soon retired from St. Joseph, and returned to St. Louis. Spain made an attempt to found, on this circumstance, a claim to a large territory on the eastern side of the river Mississippi.

VI.—In the summer of the year 1781, Colonel Archibald Loughrey,* of Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, raised a corps of about one hundred men, who volunteered to accompany Gen. George Rogers Clark on an expedition against the British post at Detroit. These volunteers embarked in boats, at Wheeling, and moved down the river, in order to join the troops under the command of General Clark, at the Falls of the Ohio. On the morning of the 24th of August, Colonel Loughrey and his party passed the mouth of the Great Miami river; and, soon afterward, one of the boats was taken to the Kentucky side of the river, and a number of men, under the command of Captain William Campbell, went on shore, for the purpose of cooking and eating some buffalo meat. The Ohio river was low; and near the point at which the boat was fastened to the shore, there was a sandbar that extended from the Indiana side a considerable distance in the direction of the opposite side of the river. When the men on shore were engaged in making fires, and while the other part of Loughrey's small force was approaching the land, a large body of Indians suddenly made their appearance on the Kentucky side of the

* Reports Com. 2d Ses. 29th Congress, No. 30.