Plucky Crosses the Ohio
Ohio, the word itself, is a Mingo word,
meaning “good river”.
Around Christmas in 1776, in the
Eastern theater of the American Revolutionary War, GW was moving
north, crossing the icy Delaware River.
Meanwhile, in the Western theater of
the American Revolutionary War, Mingo General Plucky-menotee was
moving south, crossing the icy Ohio River.
xxxXXXXXXXXXX
PLUCKY
On December 22, 1776, Pluggy and 30
Warriors are on the tail of GR Clark and his small handful of men,
who are carrying 500 pounds of gunpowder.
GR Clark passes the Mingo Indians at
nightime. GR Clark knows that they're there, but he's just not sure
exactly where. The next day, they're in “Limestone” (present-day
Maysville), and they hide the gunpowder in 5 different places. GR
Clark lets his “vessel” go adrift, and carry on by foot, on land.
While at Hinkston's cabin on the west
fork of the Licking River, while GR Clark was resting, GR clark is
told by 4 men that very few acts of violence by Indians had happened,
and that Colonel John Todd was in Kentucky somewhere.
GR Clark and two others go on to
Harrod's Town, while John Gabriel Jones and the rest of GR Clark's
men are ordered to stay. GR Clark left Gabriel Jones there to protect
the gunpowder while GR Clark went to Harrod's Town to get some more
men to help haul the 500 lbs of gunpowder to the settler's forts.
xxx
While Plucky is doing his war dance,
voice overs speaks about the facts of the Mingo.
[[action scenes; Plucky brought
prisoners and scalps to Detroit, to Henry Hamilton, the hair-buyer.
They also brought with them an English Bible, which they gave to a
Dutch woman who was a prisoner; but as she could not read English,
she made a present of it to (some guy), which was very acceptable to
him.
Plucky's Mingo War Dance:
The war dance and their war songs. At
their war dance they had both vocal and instrumental music. They had
a short hollow gum closed in one end, with water in it and parchment
stretched over the open end thereof, which they beat with one stick
and made a sound nearly like a muffled drum; all those who were going
on this expedition collected together and formed. An old Indian then
began to sing, and timed the music by beating on this drum, as the
ancients formerly timed their music by beating the tabor. On this the
warriors began to advance or move forward in concert, like well
disciplined troops would march to the file and drum. Each warrior
had a tomahawk, spear or war-mallet in his hand, and they all moved
regularly towards the east, or the way they intended to go to
war. In performing this only one sung at a time, in a moving
posture, with a tomahawk in his hand, while all the other warriors
were engaged in calling aloud “he uh, he uh,” which they
constantly repeated while the war song was going on. When the
warrior that was singing had ended his song he struck a war-post with
his tomahawk, and with a loud voice told what warlike exploits he had
done and what he now intended to do; which was answered by the other
warriors with loud shouts of applause. Some who had not before
intended to go to war, at this time were so animated by this
performance that they took up the tomahawk and sung the war song,
which was answered with shouts of joy, as they were then initiated
into the present marching company. The next morning this company all
collected at one place, with their heads and faces painted with
various colors and packs upon their backs; they marched off all
silent except the commander, who in the front sung the travelling
song, which began in this manner: “hoo caughtainteheegana.” Just
as the rear passed the end of the town they began to fire in their
slow manner, from the front to the rear, which was accompanied with
shouts and yells from all quarters.]]
Plucky's story (voice over):
Chief Plucky's name is sometimes
spelled Pluggy, with 2 g's, instead of “ck”. Chief Plucky's full
name is Tecanyaterighto, and/or Plukkemehnotee. Both are Mohawk
names. One could be Plucky's war name. Chief Plucky was an
18th-century Mingo chieftain and ally of the Mingo Warchief Johnny
Logan, who was famous for his retaliation after the Yellow Creek
Massacre, during Lord Dunmore's War, and for his final testament
about the whole matter, Logan's Lament.
The
word “Mingo” itself is not a Mingo word; it's an insulting exonym
which stems from the Delaware word (minqua or minque) which they used
for the Susquehannock or any other Iroquoian people, meaning
“treacherous”. The Mingos were
noted for having a bad reputation and were sometimes referred to as
Blue Mingos or Black Mingos for their misdeeds. Some say that the
Mingo were made up of Seneca and Cayuga nations. Others say the Mingo
are a unique group unto themselves. The Mingo were groups of
independent Iroquois - mixed Seneca and Cayuga hunters with a heavy
percentage of descendents of Neutrals, Huron, and Erie who had been
adopted by the Iroquois during the 1650s. They settled in Ohio and
western Pennsylvania in the early 1700s and formed mixed villages
with the Delaware and Shawnee who arrived later. Sometimes Mingo are
identified with Seneca in old records but they were possibly remnants
of the Erie and Conestoga people.
So, in
short... Mingos could be part Seneca, Cayuga, Neutral, Huron, Erie,
Conestoga, and Susquehannock
people... and/or their own people.
The
Mingo Language helps to find out the Mingo's origins; The
Mingo language belongs to the Western sub-group of the North
Iroquoian languages, together with Seneca,
Cayuga, and Onondaga.
These languages are mutually understandable. Linguistically, Mingo is
practically identical to Seneca,
with only some dialectical differences (they are less different from
eachother than American English is from Brittish English). However,
ethnically, historically and culturally,
the Mingo and the Seneca are distinctly different tribes.
The Mingo's Family Life was
Matrilineal, which means that the family line (names, tribal
affiliation, and land) came from the mother and would be carried on
by sisters and daughters.
Xxx
GEORGIE
George Washington in 1753
had allied himself with a Mingo warrior, when they killed a bunch of
French troops in the backwoods of Pennsylvania, which started the
French and Indian World War.
At that massacre, ten were
found dead, 21 were captured, and one missing, a man named Monceau
who had wandered off to relieve himself that morning.
GW met Tanacharison, the
so-called Half-King of the Six Nations, a Mingo, at Logstown, a
settlement along the Ohio River only a few miles west of the fork.
After a hurried war
council, the English and Tanacharison's eight or nine warriors set
off to surround and attack the French, who quickly surrendered. The
French commander, Ensign Joseph Coulon de Jumonville, was among
the wounded. With the French words, "Tu n'es pas encore mort,
mon père!" (Thou art not yet dead, my father), Tancharison sank
his tomahawk in Jumonville's skull, washed his hands with the brains,
"and scalped him" but not before eating a portion of
Jumonvilles brain.
Why did Tanacharisson tomahawk
Jumonville, and eat his brains? Because the French had killed and
boiled and ate his father. For eye for an eye revenge.
xxx
Even tho George Washington sent
Christopher Gist to scout land for him, and GW would later on acquire
5,000 acres of Kentucky land, GW never once set foot in Kentucky. Not
once.
Originally from a Mohawk band, Pluggy
gathered a number of Mingo and Iroquois followers and moved westward
eventually setting on the site of present-day Delaware, Ohio
in 1772. The town that Chief Plucky settled on was known as Chief
Plucky's town. The residents included Chippewa, Wyandot and Ottawa
warriors as well as Mingos and Senecas and a French blacksmith.
Pluggy's Town aka Upper Chillicothe and Old Chillicothe, was 4 miles
below Circleville, where the celebrated chief Logan lived. Pluggy was
the son of a Mingo headman, and Pluggy's Town quickly became infamous
as a staging ground for attacks against the Kentucky towns.
xxx
July 2, 1776. Declaration of
Independence is issued, and the American Revolutionary War officially
begins.
In the midst of the American
Revolution, on December 7, 1776, the Virginia Legislature takes
Kentucky over, designating Kentucky as “Kentucky county”, a
county of Virginia, and fucking Richard Henderson and Daniel Boone
over on their Transylvania land purchase from the Cherokee natives.
This left Kentucky settlers in doubt as to their legal status and the
validity of their land titles.
GR Clark in 1774 served as a Captain in
the Virginia militia in Lord Dunmore's War. Both GR Clark and Chief
Plucky was at the Battle of Point Pleasant, the first battle of the
American Revolutionary War, as were Chief Cornstalk, Blue Jacket, and
Puckshinwah, Tecumseh's father, who was killed at the battle of Point
Pleasant. Simon Kenton was wounded, and James Harrod, the founder of
the first white settlement west of the Appalachian mountains, just
missed the battle by a day or two.
The Kentucky settlers were having
issues with the native Americans killing everybody, so GR Clark
petitioned the Virginia legislature to give him some gunpowder, which
Virginia Governor Patrick Henry, and well known land speculator and
Indian killer, was hesitant to do.
GR Clark said to Patrick Henry and the
Virginia legislature: “If a country were not worth protecting, it
was not worth claiming.” That argument got Patrick Henry thinking
about his wealthy land speculator friends who had paid for Virginia
land titles in Kentucky, and eventually, GR Clark won and secured his
gunpowder.
John Gabriel Jones and George Rogers
Clark acquired the 500 pounds of gunpowder, and stored it at
Limestone, present-day Maysville.
Xxx
December 19, 1776:
But the morale of the Patriot forces
was boosted on December 19 when a new pamphlet titled The American
Crisis written by Thomas Paine, the author of Common Sense, was
published.
“These are the times that try
men's souls; the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in
this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that
stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this
consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious
the triumph.”
Within a day of its publication in
Philadelphia, General Washington ordered it to be read to all of his
troops. It encouraged the soldiers and improved their tolerance of
their difficult conditions.
xxx
GEORGIE
December 24, 1776.
There were roughly 1,380 Hessian
soldiers in and around Trenton. (Hessians were Germans soldiers hired
by the British Empire). The British hired the Hessians to fight for
them. They hired them through the German government. Around 30,000
German soldiers fought in the American Revolutionary War. They were
called Hessians because a lot of them came from the area of
Hesse-Kassel. Many of the Hessians stayed in America and settled
there after the war was over.
On Dec 24, Johann Rall, the commander
under the British in Trenton, had received two American deserters who
had crossed the river and told the Hessians that the American army
was ready to move.
With typical Hessian bravado, Rall
dismissed or even welcomed the threat stating “Let them come… Why
defenses? We will go at them with the bayonet.”
xxx
GEORGIE
After a string of losses, and low
American soldier morale, GW needed to score a victory.
On the morning of December 25,
Washington ordered his army to prepare three days' food, and issued
orders that every soldier be outfitted with fresh flints for their
muskets. He was also somewhat worried by intelligence reports that
the British were planning their own crossing once the Delaware was
frozen over.
Even though GW didn't father any
children of his own, so therefore, he wasn't a true authentic father,
GW would eventually become the father of America.
xxx
PLUCKY
On the morning of December 25, 1776,
Mingo Chief Plucky-menotee led a band of thirty warriors down the
Ohio and Licking Rivers.
GR Clark and John Todd had met at
Harrod's Town, and John Todd assured GR Clark that he could get the
gunpowder to Harrod's Town safely, so GR Clark had assigned John Todd
10 men to go along with John Todd to get the gunpowder that GR Clark
and his men had buried just outside of Limestone in between the Blue
Licks and the Ohio River.
Plucky was able to scout out John
Todd's trail and ambushed the 10 man team while they were marching
along in a valley near the Lower Blue Lick.
John
Gabriel Jones was killed at the onset of the shooting, and William
Graydon was also killed in the fusillade (or, a series
of shots in short succession).
Plucky captured 4 of GR Clark's men,
and the other 4, including Colonel John Todd, were able to escape,
the story later being told by one of the survivors, pioneer and
hunter David Cooper.
xxx
GEORGIE
December 25, 1776. 4pm.
At 4 pm George Washington's army turned
out for its evening parade, where the troops were issued
ammunition, and even the officers and musicians were ordered to carry
muskets. They were told that they were departing on a secret mission.
Marching eight abreast in close formations, and ordered to be as
quiet as possible, they left the camp for McKonkey's Ferry.
Washington's plan required the crossing to begin as soon as it was
dark enough to conceal their movements on the river, but most of the
troops did not reach the crossing point until about 6 pm, about
ninety minutes after sunset. The weather got progressively worse,
turning from drizzle to rain to sleet and snow.
"It blew a hurricane,"
recalled one soldier.
Xxx
GEORGIE
12-25-1776, 11pm.
On Christmas Day, at 11pm at night,
Washington’s army commenced its crossing of the half-frozen river
at three locations.
Washington, along with commanders John
Sullivan, Nathaneal Green, John Glover and Henry Knox crossed the
Delaware River with 2,400 troops, 18 cannons, baggage, and about
50-75 horses. They crossed at McKonkey's Ferry Inn. They used Durham
boats, ferry boats, and other crafts they rounded up quickly.
At the time of the crossing,
Washington's army included future 5th President James
Monroe, future 1st Chief Justice of the United States
Supreme Court John Marshall, future Secretary of the Treasury
Alexander Hamilton, and Arthur St. Clair, who later served as
President of the Continental Congress and Governor of the Northwest
Territory, and is known for a major native American battle fought in
Ohio that he lost.
The 2,400 soldiers led by 44 year old
George Washington successfully braved the icy and freezing river and
reached the New Jersey side of the Delaware just before dawn.
Under the overall command of Col. Henry
Knox, the Continentals brought 18 cannon over the river –
3-Pounders, 4-Pounders, some 6-Pounders, horses to pull the
carriages, and enough ammunition for the coming battle. The
6-Pounders, weighing as much as 1,750 pounds were the most difficult
to transport to the far side of the river.
It took the American army roughly 4
hours to march from the river crossing site to the outskirts of
Trenton.
Temperatures for the crossing ranged
from 29 degrees to 33 degrees, with brisk winds coming out of the
north east.
The other two divisions, made up of
some 3,000 men and crucial artillery, failed to reach the meeting
point at the appointed time.
xxx
GEORGIE
Dec 26, 1776, 8am.
George Washington, whenever he could
get a free moment when he wasn't raping his slaves, put his dentures
(made from the teeth of his dead slaves) into his mouth, and on the
morning of December 26, at 8am, led his men into the battle of
Trenton.
George Washington’s force separated
into two columns, reached the outskirts of Trenton, and descended on
the unsuspecting Hessians. Trenton’s 1,400 Hessian defenders were
groggy from the previous evening’s festivities and underestimated
the Patriot threat after months of decisive British victories
throughout New York. Washington’s men quickly overwhelmed the
Germans’ defenses, and by 9:30 a.m., just an hour and a half,
the town was surrounded. Although several hundred Hessians
escaped, nearly 1,000 were captured at the cost of only four American
lives. However, because most of Washington’s army had failed to
cross the Delaware, he was without adequate artillery or men and was
forced to withdraw from the town.
James Monroe, the namesake of the
Monroe Doctrine, was wounded at the Battle of Trenton.
At the Battle of Trenton, 4 Americans
were killed, six wounded, while 22 Hessians were killed and 98
wounded. The Americans captured 1,000 prisoners and seized muskets,
powder, and artillery. The Hessian supplies had been plundered, casks
of captured rum were opened, so some of the celebrating troops got
drunk.
xxxx
PLUCKY
December 29, 1776. McClelland's
Station, where Georgetown now exists, was attacked by Chief Pluggy
and his 40 Mingo warriors.
After John Gabriel Jones and William
Graydon were killed near the Lower Blue Licks, Colonel John Todd and
the other 3 survivors run to McClelland's station, where they find
Simon Kenton and GR Clark.
The Mingo warriors attacked
McClellland's Fort on Elkhorn (near present-day Royal Spring,
Georgetown). McClelland's Station was a settlement of thirty families
located in present-day downtown Georgetown and defended by twenty
settlers including frontiersman Robert Todd, Robert Ford, Robert
Patterson, Edward Worthington, Charles White and founder John B.
McClelland and his family, and some other young men.
Pluggy attacked McClelland's fort and
retreated hours later. Charles White and John McClelland had been
killed and General Robert Todd and Captain Edward Worthington was
seriously wounded.
During the retreat, Pluggy himself was
shot and killed by four of the fort's defenders in retribution for
the death of McClelland.
The rest of the settlers at
McClelland's station run away to Fort Boonesborough.
After Plucky was killed, the Mingo hung
about the area for two days, and then went north to their villages.
Simon Kenton and some men eventually
get to the spot where the gunpowder is, sees that it's safe, and gets
his men to carry it to GR Clark at Fort Boonesborough successfully.
xxx
Conclusion:
Because of Plucky's attacks, and
others, by January 1, 1777, 300 settlers left, 7 of Kentucky forts
were abandoned, and only 300 settlers remained at Fort Boonesborough,
Fort Harrod and Logan's Station on the entire Kentucky frontier.
James Harrod got tired of his wife, so
he took a wilderness divorce: he walked out, alleging that he was
just going out to get some cigarettes, and never came back.
John Todd eventually died in 1782 in
the Battle of Blue Licks in Robertson County, Kentucky, one of the
last battles of the Revolutionary War. Todd County, Kentucky is named
after him.
GR Clark; the Great Conquerer of the
Northwest Territory, in spite of giving US over half of their
territory, lived in poverty for much of his elder life. His youngest
brother was part of the Lewis and Clark western expedition.
GW, since age 11, had been a devout
slave owner when his father died. GW had at one time 300 slaves at
Mount Vernon, which he worked 6 days a week, from sun up to sun down,
and GW even took his slaves to the Executive Mansion when he became
President, to give him their free labor.
George Washington, the 5 generation
slave owning land speculator, who raised hemp and made his own
moonshine whiskey, the member of the FreeMasons, a secret society who
plots against the world, GW, who didn't have a middle name, who used
the teeth of his dead slaves as dentures, who dropped out of school
when he was 15 years old, the man whose murder started the French and
Indian War when he was British general, who lost more battles in the
American Revolution than winning, after genociding the Iroquois in
northern NY, earning himself the nickname “Conoctocarius”, which
means town destroyer, George Washington also wars against the Shawnee
and the Miami in Ohio as President.
At 67 years old, GW came down with a
cold, and because of medicare malpractice, after 4 rounds of blood
letting, GW died.
Chief Plucky had invigorated the
Mingo's zeal, and Pluggy's men regrouped underneath Pluggy's son.
Plucky's son took his father's role as war chief of the Mingo... also
Wapanaws, Mohickons, Munsies, Shawnee, Delaware, and Wyandot
warriors also fought under him.
By Feb 1777, a party of Mingo warriors
from Pluggy's town were conducting a series of raids against Ky
settlements.
The original Chief Plucky-menotee was
later buried by members of his tribe on a bluff overhanging the
nearby Royal Spring and, for a number of years afterwards, a popular
legend claimed that the echo heard in Georgetown was the death cry of
Pluggy.
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