Natives versus Settlers: the Siege of Boonesborough, September 7-18, 1778

The more important a person becomes in history the more controversy they can attract.  Or, put another way, sometimes the road to perdition is paved with good intentions.  Daniel Boone would find this out the hard way in September of 1778 when a well-meant plan to save his beloved Kentucky settlement backfired into a court-martial that would cause him a lifetime of embarrassment.

The settlement at Boonesborough was the result of many years work by Daniel and his brother Squire.  Situated on land leased and later purchased from the Cherokee (1775) in what is now Madison County, Kentucky, the Boones and other members of the Watauga Association had built a sturdy fortification of cabins joined together by a palisade.  There were a number of such settlements on the Kentucky frontier.  Because of the fortifications, Native raiders had taken to killing or driving off livestock and burning crops in an effort to force the Settlers to leave.  In this effort they had the tacit and sometimes explicit background of the British commanders at the garrison of Fort Detroit, most notably General Henry Hamilton.  After several raids by Shawnee leader Blackfish, the Settlers at Boonesborough were reduced to salting what meat they had left to make it last.

To that end, in January, 1778, Daniel led a group of men to the salt deposits on the Licking River.  While there, they were attacked by Blackfish's war party on February 7, 1778.  Daniel believed that it was futile to fight, that his small force would be overwhelmed and Blackfish would push on to Boonesborough.  He convinced his men to surrender, placating Blackfish with promises that, come spring, he would convince the Settlers at Boonesborough to surrender as well.  Daniel and his men were taken to the Shawnee town of Chillicothe in what is now Ohio, and several of them were adopted into the tribe through the traditional running of the gauntlet.  Daniel was placed with Blackfish's family and given the name Shaltowee, meaning Big Turtle.  He either was unable, or unwilling, to tell the other men exactly what was on his mind, leaving many of them to believe he'd sold them out.  Those men who weren't adopted by the Shawnee were taken to Fort Detroit and held as prisoner until their families could ransom them, they could be exchanged, or they simply escaped.

Daniel and the survivors lived with the Shawnee until June 6, 1778, when Daniel heard word that Blackfish planned to attack Boonesborough.  Escaping, Daniel hiked 160 miles in five days to warn the Settlers.  By now, many of them suspected him of having secretly switched sides to the British.  To prove his continued loyalty to the Patriot cause and the settlement he'd helped create, Daniel led a raid on the Shawnee village of Paint Lick Town, which had to be aborted when he found out that Blackfish was headed to Boonesborough.  On September 7, 1778, Blackfish's force arrived outside Boonesborough.  He knew it would be pointless to attack the fortification, but demanded that Daniel make good his promise to surrender the settlement.  Knowing that the Shawnee intended to destroy what little crops and livestock they had, Daniel thought it best to parley with the Shawnee and buy time for reinforcements from Virginia to arrive.

Negotiations wore on over several days as the Settlers inside the fort prepared to defend themselves.  There were 40 men available inside the stockade, though Blackfish had been led to believe there were almost 200.  Some women volunteered to don men's clothes and shoulder muskets in an effort to keep up the ruse.  Finally, on September 8, 1778, Daniel told Blackfish that the fort was not about to surrender.  Blackfish postponed the parley until September 9.  At the council on the 9th, he demanded to know why the Settlers were living there.  Daniel answered that they had purchased the land from the Cherokee (in direct violation of British law).  A Cherokee leader in Blackfish's party confirmed this.  Blackfish relented, stating that if the Settlers would swear allegiance to the Crown, he would leave them alone.  A writing to this effect was drawn up and signed.  As both sides approached each other to shake on the deal, a scuffle ensued and men on both sides opened fire.  Some claimed that the Shawnee attempted to grab Daniel and other Settlers.  More likely, it was a case of wound up nerves and itchy trigger fingers.

Daniel and the other men were able to head back into the fort, except for one settler who had to escape later that night.  The Shawnee surrounded and besieged the fort.  Most of the men were still willing to look to Daniel for leadership, though he was outranked by two other officers present.  At night, Shawnee warriors attempted to throw burning torches onto the roofs of the cabins, but were shot away by marksmen stationed on the walls.  On September 11, 1778, the Natives attempted to dig a tunnel under the walls of the fort.  Defenders inside the fort began digging their own tunnel to thwart any attempts to plant gunpowder and blow down the walls of the fort.  Squire got into the act, fastening a crude cannon made of wood and iron bands, which fired once or twice before cracking.  Not to be outdone, he fashioned squirt pistols out of old musket barrels to put out any fires. 

On September 17, 1778, the Shawnee launched a final effort to take the fort, but were driven back.  A lucky rainstorm put out any fires they attempted to set.  They finally gave up and left on the following day.  There were two fatalities from the siege, a slave and a Settler, but there was still the matter of the men from the salt lick expedition who had been surrendered to the Shawnee by Daniel and some of whom were still in British hands.  There was also the matter of Colonel Richard Callaway's personal jealousy toward Daniel.  As his senior officer, he brought four charges against Daniel Boone.  He had surrendered the salt lick party without a fight.  He had promised to surrender Boonesborough to the British.  He had led the expedition to Paint Lick, weakening the fighting strength at Boonesborough in the face of a potential Shawnee/British onslaught.  And, he had exposed fellow officers to ambush by the protracted treaty parley.

Daniel was found not guilty and, in fact, promoted from captain to major, but the whole episode was deeply embarrassing and galling.  Boonesborough had been his life's work.  He'd attempted to save it the best way he knew how, and he'd been repaid with the anger and jealousy of men he'd helped defend and protect.  It was time to move on.   He soon left for North Carolina to retrieve his family and returned to Kentucky to start another settlement at Boone's Station.  He never brought up Boonesborough again.  Settlers from Boonesborough launched a retaliatory raid on Chillicothe in the spring of 1779.  Blackfish led a successful defense, but was shot in the leg and died soon after from a gangrenous wound.  And karma caught up with Richard Callaway in the form of a Shawnee raid on March 8, 1780, which saw Calloway killed, scalped and mutilated. 

Places: Fort Recovery, Ohio

What to do when morale is still at a low ebb following one of the worst defeats of an American army at the hands of Natives?  To Mad Anthony Wayne, the answer was simple.  Build a fort on that very spot and give it an appropriate name, Fort Recovery.

And that's just what he did.  In November, 1791, a force under Little Turtle of the Miami and Blue Jacket of the Shawnee laid a devastating defeat on the forces of General Arthur St. Clair, which saw 933 soldiers and militia either killed, wounded or captured.  President George Washington was furious, and looked around for the right man to put the desire to fight back into a demoralized United States Army.  General Anthony Wayne was a Revolutionary War veteran who wasn't called mad for nothing.  In addition to strict training and discipline to get his men ready for the next battle, Wayne needed a staging area.  He decided to build a new fort on the site of the Battle of the Wabash and named it Fort Recovery. 

In June, 1794, Fort Recovery would weather its first attack.  On June 30, 1794, a supply column left Fort Recovery headed to Fort Greenville.  It was attacked by Blue Jacket's Shawnee, including a young warrior named Tecumseh.  The column returned to Fort Recovery.  That night, a scouting party under William Wells, who we've run across before, found out what the Shawnee had been up to.  British officers had been present with the Natives, though they took no part in the fighting.  They had brought cannon balls and powder but no cannon.  The Natives thought they would be able to salvage St. Clair's cannon, which the Natives had buried after the battle.  Little did they know that Wells, a son-in-law of Little Turtle, had tipped Wayne off to where the buried guns were located.  They were now dug up and safely inside the Fort.  The next day, July 1, 1794, the Shawnee attempted an assault on the Fort itself, but soon gave it up.

Fort Recovery was a reference point in the boundaries established by the Treaty of Greenville, in 1795.  In 1800, when Indiana Territory was separated from Ohio Territory, the Fort was again used as a reference, since it was then directly on the boundary.  However, when Ohio was admitted as a state, the boundary had been adjusted by two miles and the reference point was no longer needed.  This Fort, like others of the area, crumbled into disrepair and was ultimately abandoned.  In 1891, excavation began on the battle sites, recovering the remains of 1200 people.  They were reinterred in a memorial park in the town of Fort Recovery, Ohio.  In 1908, President Taft appropriated money for the building of a monument to those killed at the Wabash and in the attack on Fort Recovery.  An obelisk was erected and dedicated to their memory in 1913.  A reconstruction of the Fort exists today, administered by the Ohio State Historical Society, along with a visitor's center that shows dioramas and explanations of the battles.