by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, 1793-1864.

See previous entry: Logan, Part 6 -- Sparks's Narrative of Logan's Tragedy.

The atrocities committed by Cresap's men against Logan's family and unwary followers, had the effect of kindling the war into a blaze. All ties between the white man and Indians had been broken. Virginia had been the particular concern of the Indians, and now the Indians had experienced a double vengeance from this source -- loosing first their land and now their loved ones. According to several authorities, the massacre of Logan's family occurred on 1 May 1774. During the ensuing spring, summer, and autumn, until Lord Dunmore arrived with troops and concluded the treaty of Camp Charlotte on the Scioto River, the most "sanguinary and heart-rending murders were perpetrated by the Indians." [The author of this entry noted that between 1777 and 1779, fourteen of his relatives in western Virginia, were murdered on that frontier by the Indians.]

Logan was a major participant in these scenes. He led many war parties against an enemy, who appeared to him to have committed the utmost cruelty and injustice against the Indians. Assuming that these acts had been specially directed against him and his family, and not knowing they "were the blind and indiscriminating acts of a popular frontier prejudice and fury, ... no boundaries seem to have been put to his vengeance. A demoniacal spirit appears, indeed, to have guided his steps, as he himself once confessed; and he did not recover himself, to a sense of calmness, until the Dunmore treaty. His vengeance was now glutted. It was enough."

It was in the autumn of 1774. Ten years had elapsed since Col. Bouquet had marched, with a powerful and well-equipped army, to the West. The American men and weapons now directed by Lord Dunmore, once again reached into the heart of the Indian country. And the Indians, recognizing that they could not contend with that strength, capitulated.

Logan did not attend the treaty councils. He sat a silent and moody listener to the related reports that were brought him from day to day. The memories of years crushed in upon him. He remembered the days of his youth, on the banks of the Susquehannah and in the Juniata Valley, and pictured the bright scenes of his entry into the exuberant valley of the Ohio. The two contending races, who warred for supremacy in America, had both been part of his world and life. The teaching of his youth, the struggles and trials of his manhood, the philosophy of his age, were so many themes of rolling thought in his memory. The humanity of his native Indian teachings and the teachings of the missionaries in his fathers wigwam pressed upon him and prevailed. He could no longer endure this conflict. He could no longer oppose the offers of peace.

He shared his thoughts with a friend in his retreat -- a friend who was well-versed in the Indian language. [Col. Gibson, I believe, was his brother-in-law, having married Logan's sister that was killed at Yellow Creek.] It was by Col. Gibson that Logan sent the address which has made the world acquainted with his name. Tradition says that when Logan made these remarks he was seated beside the venerable Shawnee chief, Cornstalk, who had capably commanded the Indians against the Virginia forces in the battle of the Great Kenawha. Logan had allied himself by blood and fortune to this tribe. This chief sympathized deeply with Logan. He had been witness to Logan's injuries, his daring, his revenge; and he felt the desolation of heart which had befallen a great man.

Some insight is thrown on the misfortunes of Logan, in a brief note he dictated to be left at the house of a Mr. Robinson, which corroborates allusions in his speech. It shows that he had lost family members in the atrocious massacre of Conestoga, while he was only a youth on the Susquehannah. It further notes the extent of his personal calamities by revealing the fact, that the "prisoner" taken -- "a little girl" -- at the massacre at Baker's cabin, in the spring of 1774, had been his cousin.

These disclosures testify to, and enlarge, the grounds of his complaints against the white man. Logan may be seen as a typical example among the Indians, and his complaint, though confined to a personal recital of wrongs, is a symbolic indication of their general experience "before the energetic races of Europe."

Of all the celebrated Indian men of America, Logan expressed to the greatest degree, the sentiments and sensitivity of the Indian. M'Clure noted that sometimes Logan's memories and emotions overpowered him, causing him to burst into tears -- an aboriginal sage, weeping over the woes of his nation, and of himself! Authorities also concur that he had burst into floods of tears before the delivery of his celebrated speech.

At an earlier time, Garrangula, the Onondaga chief, had astonished the French officers who surrounded De la Barre, the governor-general of Canada, with the simplicity, force, and power of his speech. But that had been a dignified speech filled with eloquent irony. Skenandoah, also at an earlier period in our history, had depicted with touching force his destruction, as an example of his tribe and of humanity, through the illusion of a lofty tree that tottered and fell. Pontiac, when Great Britain came to take possession of Canada, after the loss of Quebec, exclaimed to the military officer, "I stand in the path." But it was reserved for Logan to lament, in tones that touched men's hearts, the wrongs inflicted on a noble soul.

Logan has been described by a Judge Brown as "one of the best specimens of humanity, white or red, he had ever known." Left without family, heartbroken by their deaths, and without hope for himself or his fellow Indian, "he lingered a few years around the camp-fires of his wayfaring people." He saw the white man steadily approaching. But the march of the white man's civilization, which came rapidly to their ancient seats, bore no note of promise to his race. The voice of Christianity and letters was still heard, indeed, in the retreats to which its golden whispers followed them. But they were mingled often with the sounds of war, the scenes of blood and cruelty, and more disheartening than all, with the wild drunken shouts of his own infatuated tribes, who fell freely before the pervasive availability of alcohol. He himself could not, if some accounts of his life are to be believed, personally stand up against this subtle enemy of his race -- which caused him great remorse.

He wandered about from station to station, west of the Allegheny Mountains, the victim of disappointments that sapped his strength and will to live. The precise time and place of his death are variously stated. Heckewelder says, in the statement given to Thomas Jefferson, that his death was in 1781 (but probably was in 1780); and that the rural spot of his death had been pointed out to him in the vast panorama of the western forests, while he was himself led a captive between Gnadenhutten and Detroit.

See next entry: Logan, Part 8 -- Appendix: J. Martin's Account of Meeting James Magoffin and Discovering Col. Sparks Narrative on Logan.

See the first entry in this series: Logan, Part 1 -- Table of Contents and Introduction: The Effects of a Great Speech.

This entry is adapted from Henry R. Schoolcraft's massive six-volume work, INDIAN TRIBES OF THE UNITED STATES...., which was published during the 1850s and 1860s. This entry has been reedited extensively for inclusion in the Pierian Press Fulltext eBooks database, and is included on the Stratton House Inn Web site by special permission. This entry is licensed for use ONLY on this Web site. It may not be copied or downloaded, but may be used for educational purposes and personal pleasure under fair-use provisions via this Web site. Please note that this Stratton House Inn iteration of this entry does NOT include the subject headings assigned each chapter for use in the Fulltext eBooks database.

DATABASE: Fulltext eBooks: Copyright (c) 1998 The Pierian Press, Inc. All Rights Reserved
ENTRY NUMBER: EBK30000841

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