While Pennsylvania and Virginia were bickering about which colony Pittsburgh was in, there was even more serious trouble between the colonists and some of the local Native Americans. The tribes involved included the Shawanese (or Shawnees), the Mingoes, the Cherokee, and the Delawares. The Virginia House of Burgesses mentioned the Indian “disturbances” as one of their main concerns when they met in May 1774, and they urged the governor, Lord Dunmore, to take action “to repel the hostile and perfidious attempts of those savage and barbarous enemies.”
Both Virginians and Pennsylvanians were united in their fear of and hostility toward the Indians. Some Virginian colonists petitioned Lord Dunmore to protect them. Other settlers blamed the Virginians for provoking the Indians. At any rate, it was some settlers or traders who evidently started the trouble, or at least helped to start it, by killing some Indians.
In their settlement on the Muskingum River, in present-day Ohio, the members of the United Brethren Mission were especially worried about the Indian troubles. They were there to convert the Indians to Christianity, and they had friends among the Indians, but the different tribes didn’t agree among themselves, and while some were friendly, others were not. The mission’s journal noted:
May 8. In the evening arrived an express from Gekelemuckepuck, with the disagreeable news that the white people on the Ohio had killed nine Mingoes, and wounded two; the messenger arrived, making a terrible noise as it is usual in war time. He had also a message from the Shawanese, which the Chief of Gekelemuck sent to us to take notice of “that their grandfather, the Delaware Nation, should not be concerned, but be easy and quiet; let the traders traffic among them, and not hurt them, or any other white people in that quarter…. This seems to signify as if they intended to keep the road to Pittsburg clear, and not hurt the Pennsylvanians, but only to contend with the Virginians.
A council among the Indians didn’t solve the problem, though some of them urged the others to make peace. David Zeisburger, a missionary at a place called Schonbrunn, wrote to the brethren at Muskingam on May 24:
We then were in hopes that the dark cloud would pass over soon, and peace be re-established, as the Shawanese in the Council at Woaketameka, had given seemingly a pretty favourable answer. But it appears now that they were only afraid of the Delaware party in the Council, for we heard since that a party of twenty warriors were gone to make an incursion [i.e. an attack] where the Mingoes have been killed.
Another of the United Brethren, known as “The COSH, alias JOHN BULL,” wrote at the same time:
We heard that three Cherokee Indians going down the river had killed one trader and wounded another, and plundered the canoe: the traders had imprudently shewn their silver things they had for trading. In the Fort [Fort Pitt] we heard that the Mingoes had stolen that night fifteen horses, and that they were all gone off from below Logtown. The white people began to be much afraid of an Indian war. We hastened to get home again, and after our return received the news that a company of Virginians, under one Cresap, enticed some of the Mingoes, living at the mouth of Yellow Creek, to the other side of the river, and gave them rum to make them drunk, and then they killed five; two others crossing the river to look after their friends were shot down as soon as they came ashore. Five more were going over the river whom they also waylaid, but the Indians perceiving them, turned their canoe to make their escape, but being immediately fired at, two were killed and two wounded. The day following they killed one Shawanese and one Delaware Indian, in a canoe down the river with two traders The same party killed John Gibson’s wife, a Shawanese woman; they further pursued a canoe, killed a Shawanese Chief, and wounded another man. They said they would kill and plunder all that were going up and down the river. But they soon fled and left the poor settlers as victims to the Indians; many are fled and left all their effects [i.e. belongings] behind…
We are in great distress and don’t know what to do; our Indians keep watch about us every night, and will not let us go out of town, even not into our corn fields. If there should be more bad news, we will be forced to move from here, for we are in danger from both sides.
The tension and violence grew worse and eventually led to what became known as Dunmore’s War, as the Virginian governor mobilized a few thousand men to fight the Indians. It was several months before the Indians were conclusively defeated and agreed to peace.
Sources
American Archives, 4th Series, Volume 1, pages 276, 283-7.