and then placed him on board a vessel bound for Rochelle. Here he arrived on the fifteenth of November; and in the following spring, maimed and disfigured, but with health restored, embarked to dare again the knives and firebrands of the Iroquois." 6h

The chronicler, however, sets down that "In justice to the Iroquois, that, ferocious and cruel as past all denial they were, they were not so bereft of the instincts of humanity as at first sight might appear. An inexorable severity towards enemies was a very essential element, in their savage conception, of the character of the warrior. Pity was a cowardly weakness, at which their pride revolted. This, joined to their thirst for applause and their dread of ridicule, made them smother every movement of compassion, and conspired with their native fierceness to form a character of unrelenting cruelty rarely equalled." 7

The object of these quotations is to show the ordinary reader the ferocity with which the Iroquois made war and the great range of territory over which they extended their conquests. And, too, they are to impress the fact that these fierce warriors had no regard for kindred nations. The Hurons, whom they destroyed by the year 1649, were closely related. The Neutral Nation and the Eries were related by blood and of near degree. But the Iroquois had determined on a complete . conquest of the Ohio Valley and all the country to the Mississippi. This could not be accomplished with the Neutrals and the Eries left living between them and the vast territory they coveted and had determined to take. So, between 1650 and 1655 the Neutral Nation and the Eries were completely destroyed. Memory of even the Indian held nothing concerning the Eries, and the extermination of the Neutrals was almost as complete. These tribes out of the way, the Ohio Valley lay at the mercy of the Iroquois. There were no Jesuits there to make a record of what transpired nor to preserve the date. But knowing the ferocious character of Iroquoian wars, what actually took place can be easily imagined. And that the conquest was made soon after the destruction of the Neutrals and the Eries there can be but little doubt.

What tribes were then living in what is now Kentucky, it would be difficult to say. Some of the Cherokees may have lingered there. The Shawnees have traditions that they lived along the Cumberland and the upper waters of the Kentucky and Big Sandy rivers. Some of the disappearing Siouans may yet have tarried about the falls of the Ohio. Tribes of the Algonquin stock lived in what are now Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin, and some of them may have had villages on the south side of the Ohio. The Chickasaws had a tradition that they once owned the southern part of Illinois and lived there. It is known that they successfully maintained their claim to that part of Kentucky west of the Tennessee River and sold it in a treaty concluded by General Jackson and Isaac Shelby. The people warred on by the Iroquois were these or some of them. The particulars of the sanguinary conflict are lost, but that it was so bloody that both memory and horror of it remained in the Indian mind until long after the white settlers began to arrive. No Indian ever again dared set foot on Kentucky soil with the design of establishing a tribal home. He might cross over it in his

6h Immediately on his return to Canada he was ordered to set out again for the Hurons. More fortunate than on his first attempt, he arrived safely, early in the autumn of 1645.-Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1646, 73.

On Bressani, besides the authorities cited, see Du Creux, Historia Canadensis, 399-403; Juchereau, Histoire de Hotel-Dieu, 53; and Martin, Biographie du P. Francois-Joseph Bressani, prefixed to the Relation Abregee.

He made no converts while a prisoner, but he baptized a Huron catechumen at the stake, to the great fury of the surrounding Iroquois. He has left, besides his letters, some interesting notes on his captivity, preserved in the Relation Abregee. The Jesuits in North America, Parkman, 256.

wanderings or by stealth skulk in its forests and brakes to hunt game, but for a home-nevermore.

The first settlers heard much of this conquest. Sandy Island was pointed out to them as the last stand of the native tribes, and the heaps of bones disclosed there by receding waters confirmed the tales told by Indians, horror-stricken even to think of that battle more than a century later. So Kentucky was made a solitude by the ferocious Iroquois about 1660 to 1670. Even the rivers were associated with the bloody scene. The Ohio was itself spoken of among Indians as the bloody river. And this appellation attached to other streams. And the pioneers, not knowing what had transpired in the former ages, misunderstood the vague allusions of the Indians and called Kentucky the Dark and Bloody Ground.

The Iroquois permitted the depleted tribes dwelling on the north side of the Ohio to remain, but they were in a state of subjection as long as their masters found it to their interest to assert their authority. By the changes which gradually came with the advance and importance of white settlement the Iroquois slowly relinquished interest there and these tribes came to exercise anew their independence. The broken fragments of the Hurons had fled westward along the Great Lakes when ruin fell on their country. They wandered near a century in these wastes before taking form as a nation, then emerged as the Wyandots. These gathered strength and power as they moved southward by way of Detroit. They were recognized by the Iroquois and came to represent, in a way, their ancient antagonists so far as western interests were concerned. They were placed at the head of the Western League against the advancing whites, known as the Northwestern Confederacy, and which always acted, as a body, in favor of the British. The Delawares were forced westward, and they settled in Ohio along the Muskingum by consent of the Wyandots. The Shawnees were driven from place to place and finally by consent of the Wyandots began to assemble on the north bank of the Upper Ohio. The tribes of the Iroquois began to disintegrate to some extent, and members of all of them-but more of the Cayugas-formed settlements on the Ohio below Fort Pitt. These assumed the generic name of their people-Mengwe-as one which would embrace them all. This name was corrupted by the whites into "Mingo," and these people became the Mingos of history.s

So, it is seen how, naturally, in the changing conditions, and in the course of time the Indian tribes which so much troubled the Pioneer Kentuckians, came to be seated in and about what became the State of Ohio. Under the sinister influence of the British and from an inherent inclination, they descended from their recently acquired homes to war on the Kentuckians.

9

In early Indian history of Kentucky there is encountered the Welsh tradition. Capt. John Smith, the hero of early Virginia, in his history of that colony mentions the Welsh colony, as follows:

"The Chronicles of Wales report, that Madock, sonne to Owne Quineth, Prince of Wales, seeing his two brethren at debate who should

8 There was copyrighted in 1921, by William H. Cobb, a book entitled Monument to and History of the Mingo Indians. It is made up of some addresses, all of which labor under the delusion that the Mingos were a tribe separate and distinct. They must have exercised the functions of a tribe for their local self-government. But they were a mongrel band of Iroquois and were later known as a band of Senecas, though why Senecas is hard to understand, as there was scarcely a Seneca among them. Logan, the orator, was a Mingo-though he was in fact a Cayuga.

9 A considerable volume was written and compiled by Col. R. T. Durrett, President of the Filson Club, Louisville, entitled Traditions of the Earliest Visits of Foreigners to North America. It was printed as Filson Club Publication No. 23, and has been frequently consulted in treating this subject.

inherit prepared certaine Ships, with men and munition; and left his Country to seeke adventures by Sea; leaving Ireland north he sayled west till he came to a land unknowne. Returning home and relating what pleasant and fruitful countries he had seen without inhabitants and for what barren ground his brethren and kindred did murther one another, he provided a number of Ships, and got with him such men and women as were desirous to live in quietnesse that arrived with him in this new land in the yeare 1170; Left many of his people there and returned for more. But where this place was no History can show."

Captain Smith was evidently familiar with the account of Caradoc, which is set out here:

"Prince Owen Gwynedd being dead the succession was of right to descend to his eldest legitimate son, Iorwerth Drwydwn, otherwise called Edward with the Broken Nose; but by reason of that blemish upon his face, he was laid aside as unfit to take upon him the government of North Wales. Therefore his younger brothers began every one to aspire, in hopes of succeeding their father; but Howell, who was of all the eldest, but base born begotten of an Irish woman, finding they could not agree, stept in himself and took upon him the government. But David, who was legitimately born could not brook that a bastard should ascend his father's throne, and therefore he made all preparations possible to pull him down. Howell, on the other hand, was as resolute to maintain his ground, and was not willing so quickly to deliver up, what he had not very long got possession of; and so both brothers meeting together in the field, were resolved to try their title by the point of the sword. The battle had not lasted long, but Howell was slain; and then David was unanimously proclaimed and saluted Prince of North Wales, which principality he enjoyed without molestation, till Llewlyn, Iorwerth Drwydwn's son came of age, as will hereafter appear. But Madoc, another of Owen. Gwynedd's sons, finding how his brothers contended for the principality, and that his native country was like to be turmoiled in a civil war, did think it his better prudence to try his fortune abroad; and therefore leaving North Wales in a very unsettled condition, sailed with a small fleet of ships which he had rigged and manned for that purpose, to the westward; and leaving Ireland on the north, he came at length to an unknown. country, where most things appeared to him new and uncustomary, and the manner of the natives far different from what he had seen in Europe. This country, says the learned H. Lloyd, must of necessity be some part of that vast tract of ground, of which the Spaniards, since Hanno's time, boast themselves to be the first discoverers, and which by order of Cosmography, seems to be some part of Nova Hispania, or Florida; where by it is manifested, that this country was discovered by the Britains, long before either Columbus or America Vesputius sailed thither. But concerning Madoc's voyage to this country, and afterwards his return from thence, there are many fabulous stories and idle tales invented by the vulgar, who are sure never to diminish from what they hear, but will add to and increase any fable as far as their invention will prompt them. However, says the same author, it is certain that Madoc arrived in this country, and after he had viewed the fertility and pleasantness of it, he thought it expedient to invite more of his countrymen out of Britain; and therefore leaving most of those he had brought with him already behind, he returned for Wales. Being arrived there, he began to acquaint his friends with what a fair and extensive land he had met with, void of any inhabitants, whilst they employed all their skill to supplant one another, only for a ragged portion of rocks and mountains; and therefore he would persuade them to change their present state of danger and continual clashings for a more quiet being of ease and enjoyment. And so having got a considerable number of Welsh together, he bid adieu to his native country, and sailed with ten ships back to them he had left behind.

Vol. I-7

It is therefore to be supposed, says our author, that Madoc and his people inhabited part of that country, since called Florida by reason that it appears from Francis Loves, an author of no small reputation, that in Acusanus and other places, the people honoured and worshipped the cross; whence it may be naturally concluded that christians had been there before the coming of the Spaniards; and who these christians might be, unless it were this colony of Madoc's, it cannot be easily imagined. But by reason that the Welsh who came over, were not many, they intermixed in a few years with the natives of the country and so following their manners and using their language, they became at length undistinguishable from the barbarians. But the country which Madoc landed in, is by the learned Dr. Powell supposed to be part of Mexico for which conjecture he lays down these following reasons:-first as it is recorded in the Spanish chronicles of the conquest of the West Indies the inhabitants and natives of that country affirm by tradition, that their rulers descended from a strange nation, which came thither from a strange country; as it was confessed by King Montezuma, in a speech at his submission to the King of Castile, before Hernando Cortez, the Spanish general. And then the British words and names of places used in that country, even at this day do undoubtedly argue the same; as when they speak and confabulate together, they use this British word, Gwarando, which signifies to hearken, or listen, and a certain bird with a white head, they call Pengwyn, which signifies the same in Welsh. But for a more complete confirmation of this, the island of Corroeso, the cape of Bryton, the river of Gwyndor, and the white rock of Pengwyn, which are all British words, do manifestly shew, that it was that country which Madoc and his people inhabited."

John Filson, the first to write a history of Kentucky, brought the tradition over the Alleghanies and planted in the fertile soil of the Bluegrass. It has flourished apace, and it has been enlarged, buttressed, expanded, until it has a place in the history of the state. Filson visited Louisville in search of information concerning the Welsh Indians, for by that time the Welsh descendants of the original colonists were sudposed to have become a tribe of Indians, seated at the Falls of the Ohio, now Louisville. Gen. George Rogers Clark spoke in a meeting called to consider the matter. He said a Kaskaskia chief had called his attention to large and curiously-shaped earthworks on the Kaskaskia River. This chief was of lighter complexion than the ordinary Indian, and he said this particular earthwork had been erected by his ancestors. Colonel Moore followed General Clark. He said an old Indian had told him that there had been a long war of extermination between the Red Indians and the White Indians. The final battle between them had been fought at the Falls of the Ohio, where the White Indians had been driven upon one island and slaughtered. General Clark then said that Chief Tobacco, of the Piankashaws, had told him the same thing. Major Harrison then called attention to a place on the north side of the Ohio, opposite the Falls, where there were thousands of human bones in such confusion that they must have been those of warriors slain in battle. All of which is only the confirmation of the battle there in which the Iroquois completed the conquest of the Ohio River country. The stories of those Indians were echoes of the fading memory of that awful catastrophe to their people.

At this meeting for the enlightenment of Mr. Filson others were heard, though little real information was forthcoming. Filson spoke last. He occupied much time, and when he was through, the members present were asleep except a Doctor Skinner, who, in compliment to Filson, suggested that his eloquence had put the club to sleep. In the 1794 edition of his History of Kentucke, Filson devoted two pages to the Welsh