When Mr. Jefferson wrote his Notes on Virginia in the years 1781 and 1782, he was anxious to disprove the theory of Buffon, Raynal and others, that animal nature-whether in man or beast, native or adoptive, physical or moral-degenerated in America. Whilst treating of the aborigines, he desired to present a by Mr. Lyman C. Draper, who received it from Dah-ganon-do or Captain Decker, as it was related to him by Todkah-dohs, who killed Logan. "Decker," says Mr. Draper, 66 was a venerable Seneca Indian, and the best Indian chronicler I have met with. His narratives are generally sustained by other evidence, and never seem confused or improbable." A different version of Logan's death is given, also, in Howe's Ohio Hist. Coll., p. 409, upon the authority of Good Hunter, an aged Mingo, who is said to have been his familiar acquaintance. In this account he is represented to have been sitting before a camp fire near Detroit in Michigan, with his blanket drawn over his head, his elbows resting on his knees and his head upon his hands, buried perhaps in liquor, sleep or maudlin meditation, when an Indian, whom he had offended, stole behind him and buried a tomahawk in his brains! See also Vigne's Six Months in America, Philadelphia, edition 1833, p. 30, for another and very romantic version of his death from the hand of the same relative. Capt. Decker-Dah-gan-on-do-had lived all his eventful life of over one hundred years on the Alleghany, and knew Logan personally.- Draper MSS. See, also, Appendix No. 3 of this work. specimen of their intellectual powers; and, finding in a pocket book a memorandum, made in the year 1774, of the alleged speech of Logan, as taken down by him at that time from the lips of some one whom he did not recollect, he inserted it in his Notes, accompanied by a slender narrative of the events that called it forth.1 He spoke of Cresap as "a man infamous for the many murders he had committed on those much injured people," and charged the cold-blooded murder of Logan's family upon the Marylander and his allies. In a future edition he modified but did not entirely withdraw this charge; and careless writers and historians down to the present day have continued to regard the Indian's talk, as remembered and related by Gibson, as a genuine speech solemnly delivered in council, and reiterate its cruel assertions as to the innocent Cresap. Poetry, even, has dwelt sweetly on the theme. Logan seems to have been the original whence Campbell 1 Jeff. Notes on Va., appendix iv, p. 30. 2 Ibid. Stone's Life of Brant, vol. I, p. 39. derived his conception of Outalissi,1 and he has paraphrased, in rhyme, the passionate outburst: "Gainst Brant himself I went to battle forth:- Nor man, nor child, nor thing of living birth! No! not a kindred drop that runs in human veins!" Mr. Jefferson's illustration of aboriginal eloquence obtained probably greater currency than he expected. It has become incorporated with 1 Graham's Hist. United States, vol. IV, p. 341. Stone's Life of Brant, vol. II, p. 525. Gertrude of Wyoming, part 3d, stanza XVII. In his notes, Campbell repeats the old Logan and Cresap story; but in late editions, he retracted the errors of this passage- - as against Brant. Brant's son when in London, pointed out to the poet the slanders of his verses, yet he left those slanders in the text of his poem, though he qualified them in his notes. "The name of Brant, therefore," says Campbell, “remains in my poem, a pure and declared character of fiction." Yet, a thousand read the poem while only one will find the antidote in the note. The bad fame of the dishonored Brant will go to posterity with the taint of crime imputed by the poet, as the name of Cresap was maligned from year to year by a morsel of mendacious eloquence. English literature. Indian error converted Cresap into a monster, but I have striven to restore to his memory its true and meritorious manhood. Fancy transformed the savage Logan into a romantic myth; and it has been my task not only to reduce this myth to a man, but to paint him as he really was-bright, generous and gentle, in youth, but degraded by cruelty and intemperance beneath the scale of aboriginal birthright. Indian instincts, kindled, it is true, by personal wrongs and by the flame of the fire-water, blighted a nature, which, at its dawn, promised a noble career. He murdered white men for revenge-not as a chief in open battle, but on the secret war path— and he nearly murdered his wife, under the less plausible delirium of drunkenness. In his intercourse with our race Logan lost nothing but the few virtues of a savage, while he gained from civilization very little but its vices. |