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Archiver > WADE > 1999-06 > 0929118216
From: Edward Smith <>
Subject: [WADE-L] Saltmakers Ordeal
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 1999 12:23:36 -0400
To Wade List:
After checking with the most gracious hostess of the Wade page, I will
be posting a short book over the next several days. The book mainly
concerns Richard Wade, but it has other folks in it as well. The book is
not copyrighted. Where I have excerpted information from other material,
such as published books and The Draper files, I have given them credit
in the body of the text. If you use this material, I ask that you do the
same. I will furnish source and page information for any statement, name
or date in the book, but I cant give the exact quotes due to the length
of the sources. Ill tell you where to look, and you can look it up! If
youre not interested in this, just use your delete button ?.
CHAPTER FOUR
On Sunday morning, February 8, 1778 Daniel Boone and his captors
returned to the salt lick springs. They marched directly into camp.
Blackfish had told Boone that if there was the slightest resistance, he
would be the first to die. The men at the spring were not working
because the river water was high and covering the spring, but were lying
about on their blankets, taking a day of rest, and enjoying the
sunshine, even though there was 5 or 6 inches of snow on the ground.
They at first mistook Daniel and the Indians for Capt. Watkins and the
relief party that they had been expecting, but soon recognized the
Indians and scrambled for their guns. Daniel shouted, Dont fire!if
you do, all will be massacred! They obeyed, with some reluctance.
William and Samuel Brooks, the brothers of Boones scout, Thomas Brooks,
were the last to give up their weapons, but they finally added their
rifles to the others. When all the arms were stacked the Indians came in
from every side, encircled the men and ordered them to sit down
together. The Indians were elated. They had captured 27 white men
without firing a shot! Some of the warriors wanted to kill the
saltmakers immediately in revenge for the death of their Chief
Cornstalk. Cornstalk had been killed while on a peaceful mission, and
could not be avenged without the spilling of blood, they argued. They
wanted to kill the saltmakers and then go on to Boonesborough!
The Indian chiefs had the power to rule only through the consent of
their followers. Since so many of the warriors wanted to kill the
saltmakers in opposition to the chiefs desires, a meeting was called to
hear arguments, pro and con. Blackfish invited Boone to join the circle
while the warriors in the council presented their arguments to the
chiefs. Pompey sat close to Boone and whispered the translations into
his ear. One after the other, in a process that lasted several hours,
the warriors presented their arguments, both for and against. The
saltmakers did not understand the Algonquian language and could not hear
what Pompey was saying to Daniel Boone. Finally, Blackfish offered Boone
the opportunity to make the closing argument. He spoke in English, with
pauses for translations, and the saltmakers realized for the first time
that it was their very lives that hung in balance.
Here is Daniels speech as remembered by those who were present and who
reconstructed it in later years:
Brothers! What I have promised you, I can much better fulfill in the
spring than now. Then the weather will be warm, and the women and
children can travel from Boonesborough to the Indian towns, and all live
with you as one people. You have got all the young men. To kill them, as
has been suggested, would displease the Great Spirit, and you could not
then expect future success in hunting nor war. If you spare them, they
will make you fine warriors, and excellent hunters to kill game for your
squaws and children. These young men have done you no harm. They
unresistingly surrendered upon my assurance that such a step was the
only safe one. I consented to their capitulation on the express
condition that they should be made prisoners of war and treated well.
Spare them, and the Great Spirit will smile upon you.
The vote was taken. Fifty-nine warriors voted for killing the captives.
Sixty-one voted to let them live. Boone said later that he thought the
chiefs had let him speak because they wanted to keep their promise to
him.
They made preparations for the march to the Indians towns. They took
some of the salt, and destroyed the rest. One of the braves handed Boone
a kettle to carry, and Boone shoved it back at him so violently that the
brave fell down, and then jumped up and came at Boone with an upraised
tomahawk. Blackfish stepped in between them, and the warrior slunk off.
They set off, and traveled to early evening, when they stopped for the
night. Boone noticed some of the Indians clearing ground for what looked
like a gauntlet, and grabbing Pompey, made a protest to Blackfish that
he had said he would not make his men run a gauntlet. Blackfish replied
that the gauntlet was not for the men, but it was for Boone, since he
had made no provision for himself. Blackfish gave him the option of
running the gauntlet here or waiting until they arrived at Chillicothe,
Blackfishs town on the Little Miami River. Boone chose to run the
gauntlet here, since, he said I am a man, and no squaw, and not afraid
to run. I prefer to do it here in the presence of men and warriors and
not before mere squaws and children. (They were a little sexist in
those days.)
He ran the gauntlet at full speed, running close to one side where the
Indians could not get a good blow at him, and then swerving to the other
side. Near the end of the line a warrior stepped out into the center and
was prepared to deliver a hard blow, when Boone bowed his head and
butted the Indian in the chest while running at full speed, knocking the
Indian down. This greatly amused the other Indians. They shook Boones
hand and said Velly good sojer! and looked askance at the brave,
saying Damned squaw! Daniel suffered only minor injuries.
The next morning as they were preparing to leave, the Indians loaded the
captives down with salt, kettles and other goods. Ansel Goodman would
later remember that it was a very heavy load, William Brooks, when
given a kettle to carry, threw it to the ground and would not pick it up
until Daniel persuaded him that he would be killed if he did not. Daniel
took some of his load. James Callaway was given a kettle to carry, but
refused to pick it up. The Indian trying to get him to carry it
threatened him with a tomahawk. James took off his hat, bent forward and
said, Here, strike! I would as lief (soon) lie here as go along, and I
wont tote your kettle! The warrior gave a wry smile, turned away and
found someone else to carry the kettle. James was later given some other
items to carry, but managed to accidentally lose them in a deep, cold
stream!
That same evening, Thomas Brooks and Flanders Callaway, the
hunter-scouts, returned to the Blue Licks and discovered the saltmakers
missing. They at first thought the men had grown tired of waiting for
Capt. Watkins and the relief party, and had left for Boonesborough. They
soon discovered a bow and some arrows, then moccasin tracks and then the
destroyed salt. They realized that the saltmakers had been captured.
They quickly set out on a trip back to Boonesborough, but came across
Capt. Watkins relief party, who were camped for the night. The salt
making expedition was abandoned. Several men set out to track the
captured saltmakers, while the rest returned to Boonesborough with the
disastrous news. The trackers followed the trail as far as the Ohio
River, then returned to Boonesborough.
The Ohio River was the natural dividing line between the unexplored
Indian Country of several major tribes, and the sparsely settled
Kentucky Country. This natural barrier was the northern part of the
Cherokee Nations territory and the southern part of the Shawnee, Mingo.
Miami and other tribes. The river was never formally recognized as a
dividing line, even between the various tribes It just created a natural
dividing place in their nomadic wanderings within the vast, loosely
defined areas that the tribes claimed as their own.
The trip of more than a hundred miles to Chillicothe, through the snow
and cold took ten days. They ferried the Ohio River in a boat made of
buffalo hides that held twenty men. They had little to eat. The warriors
killed and ate their dogs. They offered to share the dog meat with the
saltmakers, but many refused. Most of the saltmakers were young men
fresh from Virginia and had little or no woods experience, and
consequently they suffered a great deal. Others, like Boone, were
experienced woodsmen, and accustomed to living on short rations and
using their skills to provide for themselves. Ansel Goodman later said
that the night after he was taken, his arms were tied behind him, a
rope or buffalo tug was tied first around his middle, and then made fast
to an Indian on each side of him, and the one around his arms, was made
to go around his neck, and tied fast to a tree, and in that position he
had to sleep upon the snow.
The warriors at last killed a deer and brought it into camp, but before
they would share it with the captives, they made a jelly of the
entrails, and insisted that the captives must eat some of it before they
could eat venison. Boone tried it and threw up, much to the amusement of
his captives. However, the Indians kept insisting, and the men finally
got some of the repugnant stuff to stay down. The Indians said that the
venison would have killed them if they had eaten before keeping the
jelly down. Obviously, this was a belief with little basis in fact. This
one deer provided very little meat to feed over 100 warriors and 27
captives.
The prisoners were brought into the Indian town of Little Chillicothe on
the Little Miami. It was called this to distinguish it from Old
Chillicothe on the Scioto. It is located just a little north of the
present day Xenia, Ohio.
This was the greatest victory for the Indians since the defeat of
Braddock, several years before, and it was cause for a huge celebration.
The victory dance was preceded by making the captives run a gauntlet,
notwithstanding the promises made by the chiefs to Boone. Boone was not
required to run the gauntlet again. James Callaway, whose undisguised
contempt for the Indians was evident, knocked two or three Indians down
a bank. This greatly amused the children and squaws, and so surprised
the other Indians braves that he got through the gauntlet relatively
unscathed. William Hancock was the last to run the gauntlet, and he used
the same strategy that Boone had used; running first on one side then
the other of the line. Just as in Boones ordeal, an Indian stepped in
front of William at the end of the gauntlet, and like Boone, William
sent him flying with a head butt to the chest. This also provided
amusement for the children and squaws, but it did not set easily for the
embarrassed warriors who were the recipients of the blows.
The next day two Indians who had not traveled as fast as the others
brought in Ansel Goodman. They had taken a detour to recover some Indian
goods that had been cached, and were fortunate enough to kill a bear.
Ansel was loaded down with the bear meat and he could not make good
time. Before coming into the Indian town, Ansel was forced to strip
naked and sing at the top of his voice to announce their arrival. He
also was required to run the gauntlet, while loaded with the bear meat,
and he was severely beaten in the process.. He and some of the other
captives were then forced to dance like the whites for the amusement
of the Indians.
>From this time on the captives were split into different groups. Some
were never heard of again. At least sixteen of the salt makers were
adopted into different Indian families. The adoption process started
almost immediately after the running of the gauntlet. The adoption
process was taken very seriously by the Indians. The adopted members
were expected to become full fledged members of the family with all the
rights of the clan bestowed on them after the white had been washed out
of their blood. Some, like Boone, were adopted to replace a favorite
son who had fallen in battle.
Some, like Micajah Callaway, turned renegade after their adoption and
lived for long periods of time in the nomadic world of the red man, only
to return to the white mans ways in later times and become valuable
scouts and interpreters. Others may have lived out the remainder of
their lives with the Indians.
Among the saltmakers known to have been adopted were Daniel Boone, who
was adopted by Blackfish and given the Indian name Sheltowee, Joseph
Jackson, Micajah Callaway, William Hancock, who was adopted by Will
Emery (Capt. Will), John Dunn, George Hendricks, Benjamin Kelly, Ansel
Goodman, John Holley, Andrew Johnson, John Brown and Richard Wade.
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