movement the Indians found themselves surrounded, on two sides, by a cordon of forts, and were threatened with an extension of them into the very heart of their country.  They had now to choose whether they would remove to the north and west, negociate with the British government for the possession of their own land, or take up arms for its defence.  They chose the last alternative; and, a war of extermination against the English residents in the western country, and even those on the Susquehanna, was agreed upon and speedily commenced.  Many of the British traders living among the Indians were murdered; the forts of Presque Isle, St. Joseph and Mackinac, were taken, with a general slaughter of their garrisons; while the forts of Bedford, Ligonier, Niagara, Detroit and Pitt, were barely preserved from falling into their hands.  The contest was continued with resolute and daring spirit, and with much destruction of life and property, until December, 1764, when the war was brought to a close by a treaty at the German Flats, made between Sir William Johnston and the hostile Indians.  Soon after the conclusion of this peace the Shawanoes became involved in a war with the Cherokees, which continued until 1768, when, pressed hard by the united force of the former tribe and the Delawares, the southern Indians solicited and obtained a peace.[A] For the ensuing six years, the Shawanoes remained quiet, living on amicable terms with the whites on the frontiers:  in April, 1774, however, hostilities between these parties were renewed.

[Footnote A:  Thatcher’s Indian Biography.]

It is not our purpose in the present sketch of this tribe, to present a detail of all their conflicts with the whites; but the “Dunmore war,” (as it is generally called,) of 1774, having been mainly prosecuted by Shawanoes, one of their distinguished chiefs having commanded in the battle of Point Pleasant, and another, Puckecheno, (the father of Tecumseh,) having fallen in this engagement, would seem to render a full account of the border feuds of this year, not out of place in the present narrative.

In the latter part of April, 1774, a report that the Indians had stolen some horses, from the vicinity of Wheeling, alarmed the whites who were making settlements on the Ohio below that place.  For greater safety they immediately assembled on Wheeling creek, and learning that two Indians were with some traders above the town, they went up the river, and without stopping to enquire as to their guilt, deliberately put them to death.  On the afternoon of the same day, they found a party of Indians on the Ohio, below Wheeling creek, on whom they fired, and killed several.  The Indians returned the fire and wounded one of the assailing party.  It is admitted by all the authorities on this subject, that the two Indians killed above Wheeling, were shot by men under the command of colonel Michael Cresap.  Mr. Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia, states that the second attack, in which one