Red Eagle

“ Red Eagle was too shrewd and too well informed to believe the predictions of his prophets Sinquista and Francis, who told the Creeks that if they would completely abandon those things which they had learned of the whites and become utter savages, not one of them should be killed in the war; that the Great Spirit would rain down fire upon the whites, create quagmires in their path, cause the earth to open and swallow them, and draw charmed circles around the camps of the Creeks, into which no white man could come without immediately falling down dead. ”

“ A bluff about one hundred feet high at the Holy Ground is shown to travellers, who are told that Red Eagle, seeing no other way of escape, boldly dashed spurs into his horse and forced him to make the fearful leap to the river below! As the story is usually told in print it is somewhat less marvellous, but is still sufficiently so to serve the purposes of a popular legend. It is that a ravine passed through the upper part of the bluff, reducing its height to about fifty feet, and that Red Eagle made a leap on his horse from that height. ”

“ When two men so brave as these meet there is fellowship between them, because there is brotherhood between their souls. When Red Eagle thus faced Jackson and offered to accept death at his hands in return for peace for the now helpless Creeks there was peace between the two great-souled men, who knew each other by the free-masonry of a common heroism, a common courage, and a common spirit of self-sacrifice. ”

“ All these things added to Red Eagle's popularity with the old and young of his nation, and the daring and enthusiasm which he showed in the sports of his people were exercised frequently in their service. ”

“ Red Eagle, Blackstaffe and Wyatt themselves came up and directed the chase, but they were mystified when their runners, completing the entire circling movement, reported that there was no sign of the trail’s reappearance. Red Eagle, after taking thought, refused to believe it. The fugitive had surpassing skill, as all of them knew, but a human being could not take a flight through the air, like an eagle or a wild duck, and leave no trail behind him. They must have overlooked the traces in the moonlight, and he sent out the warriors anew, to right and to left. ”

“ It is not merely in the military sense that the word enemies is here used, but in the literal one as well; for very nearly all the information we have about Red Eagle and his performances is drawn from the writings and the spoken testimony of men who hated him with a degree of violence of which one can scarcely conceive in our time. ”

“ Seeing how impossible it was to convert the savage Creeks into a cohesive body of civilized troops, and to use them as an aggressive army, Red Eagle sought to do the next best thing—namely, to establish strong posts at certain strategic points, collect his warriors around them, and moving out from them, as occasion should offer, strike sudden blows at advancing columns of whites. ”

“ Red Eagle, having more faith in defensive works than in supernatural interferences at the behest of his prophets, whose characters he probably understood pretty accurately, added to the natural strength of the place by picket and log fortifications, making it as difficult to assault successfully as he could. ”

“ But Red Eagle, his warriors and the renegades remained by the fire, still resting, because they were weary, very weary, no fugitive before ever having led them such a troublesome chase.
Red Eagle, the Shawnee chief, was a statesman as well as a warrior. While it was true that young Ware was helped by evil spirits, he felt that the pursuit must be maintained nevertheless. Ware was the great champion [Pg 212] of the white people, who far to the south were cutting down the forest and building houses. ”

“ That, certainly, is as pretty a bit of angry vituperation as one hears from the lips of the worst of scolds, and so wholly did the distinguished author of the book from which it is taken lose his temper, that he lost his discretion with it, and forgot that so coarse and brutal a fellow as he here declares Red Eagle to have been—a man so wholly given over to debauchery—is sure to show in his face, his person, and his intellectual operations the effects of his character, impulses, and habits. ”

“ When Red Eagle established his camp at the Holy Ground, from which Claiborne drove him, his purpose was to provide for resistance by concentrating the warriors of the nation after the manner of civilized armies. The Indian practice of breaking into small, roving bands and concentrating only when some special occasion arose, was in favor among the Creek chiefs, but Red Eagle was too capable a soldier not to see how fatal this practice must be in the end. ”

“ Beasley was as brave a man as Red Eagle, but Red Eagle had the other qualities of a soldier—sagacity, caution, tireless watchfulness—which Beasley lacked; in a contest between the two as commanders, Red Eagle was Beasley's master. One day, while Red Eagle was thus hovering about the fort, watching it as a cat watches its prey, two negroes, who had been guarding some cattle, ran in great terror to the fort, and reported that they had seen Indians in the immediate neighborhood. Major Beasley at once sent a body of horsemen under command of Captain Middleton to ascertain the facts of the case. ”

“ In the wars of the Creeks with neighboring nations, the Choctaws and the Chickasaws, and in their campaigns on the borders of Tennessee, Red Eagle distinguished himself for courage, tireless activity, and great skill in warfare, even before he had reached manhood, so that when his growth was fully gained he was already a man of the widest and most controlling influence among the Creeks, by reason both of his birth and of his achievements. ”

“ Besides his prejudice, Red Eagle's judgment taught him to fear the encroachments of the Americans, and men are always quick to hate those whom they fear. Red Eagle saw with genuine alarm that the white men were rapidly multiplying in the Tombigbee country, and he knew that the Americans had made acquisitions of new territory which would still further invite American emigration into the neighborhood of the Creek Nation. ”

“ The assault of the savages was fierce and determined. They always fought better under Red Eagle's eye than at other times. Even when Captain Thomas brought his artillery to the front, supported by Captain Adams's riflemen, and opened that fire of grapeshot which Indians have everywhere found it most difficult to stand against, the Red Sticks not only held their ground, but gallantly advanced their line until it was not more than thirty yards distant from the guns, and there, at short pistol range, endured the murderous discharges from the cannon. ”

“ Here Red Eagle had gathered his forces in considerable strength, and hither had fled the remnants of various defeated bodies of Creeks, with their women and children. The prophets Sinquista and Josiah Francis, who were present, declared the soil to be sacred, and assured their comrades that no white troops would be permitted by the Great Spirit to cross the swamps and ravines which surrounded it. ”

“ Especially in the great Creek game of throwing the ball—a game which closely resembled a battle between hundreds of men on each side, and one in which success was achieved only by great personal daring and endurance added to skill, bones being broken frequently in the rude collisions of the opposing forces, and men being killed and trampled under foot not infrequently—the young Red Eagle was an enthusiastic and successful player. ”

“ Meantime Red Eagle lay within a few hundred yards of the fort, at the head of a thousand warriors. While Major Beasley was using his authority to compel the negro's master to consent to the infliction of the penalty, Red Eagle and his men were quietly watching the fort, looking in at the open gate and making ready to destroy the garrison. The negro who had been whipped again saw the Indians, he being where a picket-guard ought to have been ”

“ Gray Eagle talks brave! He forgets that he is the prisoner of Red Pine."
"No, Gray Eagle does not forget. He is ready to die; he does not care as long as his daughter is safe."
"Before the sun goes down Snowdrop will be a prisoner like her father. Sioux warriors are on her trail, and she rides alone. The pale-face has left her to take care of herself, and she shall yet sit in the lodge of Red Pine!" ”

“ Day after day came the people, eager to see the young chieftain and his squaw, who were to rule the people when the great Red Eagle was no longer able to rule. Songs to the sun began to rise from the great rock-ribbed mountains, and the royal family, with Red Arrow and the beautiful Aggretta, took their places on the great stone spokes of the wheel, facing the east. They began their worship by moving along until they came to the rim, when the men turned to the right and the squaws to the left, singing [Pg 71] their chants to the sun. ”

“ Only those who have received the Order of the Red Eagle are eligible. An illustration of the badge of the order with ribbon is given on Plate IV. fig. 3. The star of silver bears the black eagle on an orange ground surrounded by a silver fillet on which is the motto of the order Suum Cuique. The collar is formed of alternate black eagles and a circular medallion with the motto on a white centre surrounded by the initials F.R. repeated in green, the whole in a circle of blue with four gold crowns on the exterior rim. ”

“ Captain Bailey seeing no chance for its cessation by the failure of savage determination, resolved to abandon the defences, and marching boldly out, attempt to cut a way through Red Eagle's hosts to Fort Pierce, a few miles distant. From this attempt he was restrained only by force.
The savages were now steadily gaining ground. One point after another was abandoned by the whites, whose numbers were rapidly diminishing. The savages fell as fast as the whites did, or even faster, but as they greatly outnumbered their entrenched foes they could afford this. ”

“ She has turned the trail of truth. She shall find a home in the wigwam of the red-man. The Black Eagle has said it.”
“Never! I will die first.”
“The angel with wings like the thunder-cloud that stands by the dark river comes not when the children of earth call. Many years yet the moccasin of the wife of Black Eagle will press the prairie.”
“Your wife—the White Hawk—yes.”
“Waupee will wait upon the new wife of Black Eagle. She is put away from the breast of the warrior.” ”

“ Now, that’s the kind o’ a leader Red Eagle is. I give him credit fur doin’ a [Pg 142] power o’ thinking an’ holdin’ on. Braxton Wyatt and Blackstaffe will say to him: ‘Come, chief, let’s go away. They slipped through our lines in the night, an’ they’re somewhar up on the shore o’ one o’ the big lakes, a-laffin’ an’ a-laffin’ at us. We’ll go up thar, trail ’em down an’ make ’em laff if they kin, a-settin’ among the live coals.’ But that Red Eagle, wise old chief that he is, will up an’ say: ‘They haven’t got through. They couldn’t without bein’ seen by our scouts an’ watchers. ”

“ Instantly my mind grasped the reverse side of the problem. I took for the title of my story these words: White Eagle, the Red Pioneer, and presented the point of view of a nomad who turns his back on the wilderness which he loves, and sets himself the task of leading his band in settlement among the plowmen. In a collection of tales, some of which have not been published even in magazines, I have grouped studies of red individuals with intent to show that a village of Cheyennes has many kinds of people just like any other village. ”

“ In the first place the big sea-eagle had to be released from the turkey coop. The quartermaster called him Red Eye. And truly his eye was very red and angry all the time. And he clashed his great beak whenever anybody came near him.
"I guess you couldn't tame him in a hundred years," Russ said thoughtfully. "He can't be tamed. That is why we have an eagle for a symbol, I guess. We can't be tamed."
It was decided to let Red Eye out of the cage when the ship entered Savannah Harbor.
[108] "He's come a long way with us. He has come away down here to Georgia," said Rose thoughtfully. ”

“ For many years, however, it had been well understood that this was the chosen home of Wambelee, the eagle, whom it is not well to molest.
Doubtless there have been tragedies enacted upon this imposing summit. There is even a tradition among the wild Red men that the supremacy upon old Eagle's Nest has cost many lives, and for this reason it is held to be a mysterious and hallowed place. Certainly the tribes of Wild Land had cause to desire and even to fight for its possession. ”

“ He knocked at the stable door and it opened at once. He threw down the three little bits of bread and a hare came out and ate them. He caught the hare. Then the Eagle told him to pluck three feathers out of its tail, and put in the hare, the stone, the splinters of wood and himself instead of them, and then he would be able to carry them all home.
When the Eagle had flown a long way it alighted on a stone.
'Do you see anything?' it asked.
'Yes; I see a flock of crows coming flying after us,' said the man.
'Then we shall do well to fly on a little farther,' said the Eagle, and off it set. ”

“ Eagle’s last words.
Baptiste, shaking his head significantly, replied in a low voice, “I know Mahéga well—at least I have heard much of him; his name signifies ‘Red–hand,’ and, as the young chief says, it tells no lie, for he has killed many: last year he attacked a war–party of the Outagamis [25] near the Great River, and cut them off to a man; he himself killed their chief and [160] several of their warriors: they say he is the strongest and the bravest man in the nation.”
“It seems to me,” said Reginald, “that War–Eagle and he are not very good friends.”
“They are not,” replied Baptiste ”