ed resistance from the savages.
Brigadier-General Tupper, of Massachusetts, who went to Pittsburgh to
run some lines, was enabled to proceed no farther west than that
station. Captain John Doughty, writing to the secretary of war from Fort
McIntosh, on the 21st of October, 1785, says "They (the Indians) are
told by the British, and they are full in the persuasion, that the
territory in question was never ceded to us by Britain, further than
respects the jurisdiction or putting the Indians under the protection of
the United States. From this reasoning they draw a conclusion that our
claim in consequence of that cession ought not to deprive them of their
lands without purchase. I believe you may depend upon it that this is
the reasoning of their chiefs. I am so informed by several persons who
have been among them. Our acting upon the late treaty made at this place
last winter, in beginning to survey their country, is certainly one
great cause of their present uneasiness." Everywhere the British
partizans of Miamitown and Detroit, in order to keep the tribes in firm
alliance with England, and thus preserve the valuable fur trade, were
pointing to the treaties of Fort Stanwix and Fort McIntosh and telling
the Indians that the Americans were laying claim to their whole country,
and would drive them beyond the lakes. The British agents went further.
According to Captain Doughty, certain emissaries of the British, who
were acquainted with the Indian language and manners, were constantly
circulating among the Indian towns in the Miami and Wyandot country,
making presents to the savages, and appealing to their fears. From the
information of one Alexander McCormick, communicated to Captain Doughty,
it appears that some time during the season of 1785, a grand council of
the tribes was held at Coshocton, on the Muskingum. Tribes were present
from a considerable distance beyond the Mississippi. The object of this
council seems to have been to unite all the tribes and oppose the
American advance. "Two large belts of wampum were sent from the council
to the different nations, holding that they should unite and be at peace
with each other." This looked like a threat of war. Matthew Elliott, an
Indian agent of the British, said in the Shawnee town in the presence of
forty warriors, "that the Indians had better fight like men than give up
their lands and starve like dogs." Simon Girty and Caldwell were among
the Delawares and Wyandots advi