James Logan

James Logan (born c. 1725, probably at Shamokin [now Sunbury], Pennsylvania [U.S.]—died 1780, near Lake Erie) was a prominent Indian leader, whose initial excellent relations with white settlers in Pennsylvania and the Ohio Territory deteriorated into a vendetta after the slaughter of his family in 1774.

Logan’s mother was a Cayuga Indian; his father was Chief Shikellamy, who was purportedly a white Frenchman who had been captured as a child and raised by the Oneida. Chief Shikellamy became a friend of the secretary of the Pennsylvania colony, James Logan, whose name the chief’s son assumed.

Logan moved to the Ohio River valley after the French and Indian War (1754–63). He was never a chief but achieved renown among many Indian tribes, at first because of his friendship with the white settlers. Logan was converted to an intense hatred of all white men in 1774, when his entire family was treacherously slaughtered by a frontier trader named Daniel Greathouse during the Yellow Creek Massacre. In the ensuing conflict, which is known as Lord Dunmore’s War, Logan was a prominent leader of Indian raids on white settlements, and he took the scalps of more than 30 white men. But when the defeated Indians finally gathered at Chillicothe, Ohio, to make peace after the Battle of Point Pleasant (October 10, 1774), Logan sent a message containing his refusal to participate in the negotiations. His memorable statement of his grievances was widely circulated through the colonies and was recorded for posterity by Thomas Jefferson. The statement remains known as “Logan’s Lament.”

Logan continued his attacks on white settlers and associated himself with the Mohawk auxiliaries of the British during the American Revolution. He was by then a violent alcoholic and died in an altercation.