[Illustration: The house of General Harrison at Vincennes, Ind., as it
now appears.]
THE LAND OF THE MIAMIS
By Elmore Barce
Member of the State and National Bar Associations
Member Indiana State Historical Society
Author "Land of the Potawatomi"
[Illustration]
An Account of the Struggle to
Secure Possession of the North-West
from the End of the Revolution
until 1812.
Fowler, Indiana
THE BENTON REVIEW SHOP
1922
Copyrighted, 1922, by the
Benton Review Shop, Fowler, Ind.
Photos and Maps by
Lieut. Don Heaton
Dedicated to
CARRIE MAY BARCE
My Wife.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
A BRIEF RETROSPECT--_A general view of the
Indian Wars of the Early Northwest_ 1
WHAT THE VIRGINIANS GAVE US--_A topographical
description of the country north of the
Ohio at the close of Revolutionary War_ 6
THE BEAVER TRADE--_A description of the
wealth in furs of this section at the close of the
Revolutionary War and the reasons underlying
the struggle for its control_ 12
THE PRAIRIE AND THE BUFFALO--_The buffalo
as the main food supply of the Indians_ 20
THE WABASH AND THE MAUMEE--_Chief line
of communication with the tribes of the Early
Northwest. The heart of the Miami country_ 34
THE TRIBES OF THE NORTHWEST--_A description
of the seven tribes of savages who opposed
the advance of settlement in the Northwest. Their
location. Kekionga, the seat of Miami power_ 44
REAL SAVAGES--_The Savage painted in his true
colors from the standpoint of the frontiersman_ 68
OUR INDIAN POLICY--_The Indian right of occupancy
recognized through the liberal policy of
Washington and Jefferson_ 80
THE KENTUCKIANS--_The first men to break
through the mountain barriers to face the British
and the Indians_ 112
THE BRITISH POLICIES--_The British reluctant
to surrender the control of the Northwest--Their
tampering with the Indian tribes_ 126
JOSIAH HARMAR--_The first military invasion of
the Northwest by the Federal Government after
the Revolution_ 145
SCOTT AND WILKINSON--_The Kentucky raids on
the Miami country along the Wabash in 1791_ 173
ST. CLAIR'S DEFEAT--_The first great disaster to
the Federal armies brought about by the Miamis_ 195
WAYNE AND FALLEN TIMBERS--_Final triumph
of the Government over Indians and British_ 207
THE TREATY OF GREENVILLE--_The surrender
of the Ohio lands of the Miamis and their final
submission to the government_ 238
GOVERNOR HARRISON AND THE TREATY--_Purchase
of the Miami lands known as the New Purchase
which led to the strengthening of Tecumseh's
Confederacy--the final struggle at Tippecanoe_ 245
RESULTS OF THE TREATY--_Harrison's political
enemies at Vincennes rally against him in the
open, and are defeated in the courts_ 271
THE SHAWNEE BROTHERS--_The Prophet as an
Indian priest and Tecumseh as a political organizer
--The episode of the eclipse of 1806--Tecumseh's
personal appearance described_ 280
PROPHET'S TOWN--_The capital of the Shawnee
Confederacy in the heart of the Miami Country_ 295
HARRISON'S VIGILANCE--_His political courage
and activities save the frontier capital_ 305
THE COUNCIL AT VINCENNES--_The dramatic
meeting between Harrison and Tecumseh--
Tecumseh announces his doctrine of the common
ownership of the Indian lands_ 316
THE SECOND AND LAST COUNCIL--_The last
meeting between the two leaders before
Harrison marched into the Indian country_ 332
THE MUSTER AND THE MARCH--_The rally of
the Kentuckians and their clansmen in southern
Indiana to Harrison's support--The coming of the
Fourth United States Regiment--The march to
the Tippecanoe battlefield_ 352
THE BATTLE OF TIPPECANOE--_The night attack
on Harrison's forces--The destruction of
Tecumseh's Confederacy_ 371
NAYLOR'S NARRATIVE--_A description of the
battle by one of the volunteers_ 381
LIST OF MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
1. The Home of General William Henry Harrison,
at Vincennes, as it now appears Frontispiece
2. A Section of the Grand Prairie in Benton County,
Indiana, which extends West to Peoria, Illinois 25
3. A Typical Buffalo Wallow on the Donaldson
Farm, in Benton County, Indiana 33
4. The Wabash River at Merom Bluff, Sullivan
County, Indiana--LaMotte Prairie beyond 41
5. Location of the Indian Tribes of the Northwest 57
6. Shaubena, the best of the Potawatomi Chiefs,
and a follower of Tecumseh 73
7. Thomas Jefferson, Third President of the
United States 97
8. Map of the Harmar, St. Clair and Wayne Campaigns 161
9. Map showing the Wea Plains, and the Line of
Scott's March. Tippecanoe County, Indiana 185
10. Indian Hills on the Wabash River, just below
the old site of Fort Ouiatenon 193
11. General Anthony Wayne and Little Turtle, at
Greenville. From an old painting by one of
Wayne's staff 241
12. Governor William Henry Harrison 257
13. Another View of the Wabash. A land of great
beauty 291
14. Raccoon Creek, Parke County, Indiana. The
North Line of the New Purchase 323
15. The Line of Harrison's March to Tippecanoe
and the New Purchase of 1809 363
16. Pine Creek, in Warren County, Indiana, near
the place where Harrison crossed 371
17. Judge Isaac Naylor. From an old portrait in
the Court Room at Williamsport, Indiana 387
PREFACE
In presenting this book to the general public, it is the intention of
the author to present a connected story of the winning of the Northwest,
including the Indian wars during the presidency of General Washington,
following this with an account of the Harrison-Tecumseh conflict in the
early part of the nineteenth century, ending with the Battle of
Tippecanoe.
The story embraces all of the early efforts of the Republic of the
United States to take possession of the Northwest Territory, acquired
from Great Britain by the Treaty of 1783 closing the Revolutionary War.
The whole western country was a wilderness filled with savage tribes of
great ferocity, and they resisted every effort of the government to
advance its outposts. Back of them stood the agents of England who had
retained the western posts of Detroit, Niagara, Oswego, Michillimacinac
and other places in order to command the lucrative fur trade, and who
looked upon the advance of the American traders and settlers with
jealousy and alarm. They encouraged the savages in their resistance,
furnished them with arms and ammunition, and at times covertly aided
them with troops and armed forces. In other words, this is a part of
that great tale of the winning of the west.
We are well aware that there is a very respectable school of historians
who insist that the British took no part in opposing the American
advance, but the cold and indisputable facts of history, the words of
Washington himself, contradict this view. England never gave up the idea
of retrieving her lost possessions in the western country until the
close of the War of 1812.
An attempt has also been made in this work to present some of the great
natural advantages of the Northwest; its wealth of furs and peltries,
and its easy means of communication with the British posts. The leading
tribes inhabiting its vast domain, the Indian leaders controlling the
movements of the warriors, and the respective schemes of Brant and
Tecumseh to form an Indian confederacy to drive the white man back
across the Ohio, are all dwelt upon.
The writer is confessedly partial to the western frontiersmen. The part
that the Kentuckians played in the conquest of the Northwest is set
forth at some length. The foresight of Washington and Jefferson, the
heroism of Logan, Kenton, Boone and Scott and their followers, play a
conspicuous part. The people of the eastern states looked with some
disdain upon the struggles of the western world. They gave but scanty
support to the government in its attempts to subdue the Indian tribes,
voted arms and supplies with great reluctance, and condemned the
borderers as savages and barbarians. There is no attempt to condemn the
eastern people for their shortsightedness in this regard, but after all,
that is the term exactly applicable. The West was won despite their
discouragement, and the empire beyond the mountains was conquered
notwithstanding their opposition.
William Henry Harrison has been condemned without mercy. Much of this
hostile criticism has proceeded from his political enemies. They have
distorted the plain facts of history in order to present the arguments
of faction. Harrison was the greatest man in the western world after
George Rogers Clark. The revelations of history justify his suspicion of
the British. The people of the West were alone undeceived. The General
was always popular west of the Alleghenies and justly so. Tecumseh and
the Prophet were, after all is said, the paid agents of the English
government, and received their inspiration from Detroit. Jefferson knew
all these facts well, and so wrote to John Adams. Jefferson's heart beat
for the western people, and throughout the whole conflict he stood
stoutly on the side of Harrison.
We recognize the fact that we have done but poorly. Out of the great
mass of broken and disconnected material, however, we have attempted to
arrange a connected whole. We submit the volume with many misgivings and
pray the indulgence of the reading public. We have endeavored at all
times to quote nothing that we did not deem authentic, and have
presented no fact that is not based on written records.
We desire to express our appreciation of the valuable help afforded by
the State Library people at Indianapolis, by Prof. Logan Esarey of
Indiana University, who kindly loaned us the original Harrison letters,
and by Ray Jones and Don Heaton of Fowler, Indiana, who were untiring in
their efforts to give us all the assistance within their power.
E. B.
CHAPTER I
A BRIEF RETROSPECT
--_A general view of the Indian Wars of the Early Northwest._
The memories of the early prairies, filled with vast stretches of waving
grasses, made beautiful by an endless profusion of wild flowers, and
dotted here and there with pleasant groves, are ineffaceable. For the
boy who, barefooted and care-free, ranged over these plains, in search
of adventure, they always possessed an inexpressible charm and
attraction. These grassy savannas have now passed away forever. Glorious
as they were, a greater marvel has been wrought by the untiring hand of
man. Where the wild flowers bloomed, great fields of grain ripen, and
vast gardens of wheat and corn, interspersed with beautiful towns and
villages, greet the eye of the traveler. "The prairies of Illinois and
Indiana were born of water, and preserved by fire for the children of
civilized men, who have come and taken possession of them."
In the last half of the eighteenth century, great herds of buffalo
grazed here, attracting thither the wandering bands of the Potawatomi,
who came from the lakes of the north. Gradually these hardy warriors and
horse tribes drove back the Miamis to the shores of the Wabash, and took
possession of all that vast plain, extending east of the Illinois river,
and north of the Wabash into the present confines of the state of
Michigan. Their squaws cultivated corn, peas, beans, squashes and
pumpkins, but the savage bands lived mostly on the fruits of the chase.
Their hunting trails extended from grove to grove, and from lake to
river.
Reliable Indian tradition informs us that about the year 1790, the herds
of bison disappeared from the plains east of the Mississippi. The deer
and the raccoon remained for some years later, but from the time of the
disappearance of the buffalo, the power of the tribes was on the wane.
The advance of the paleface and the curtailment of the supply of game,
marked the beginning of the savage decline. The constant complaint of
the tribes to General William Henry Harrison, the first military
governor of Indiana, was the lack of both game and peltries.
From the first the Indians of the Northwest were pro-British. Following
the revolutionary war they accepted the overtures of England's agents
and traders, and the end of the long trail was always at Detroit. The
motives of these agents were purely mercenary. They were trespassers on
the American side of the line, for England had agreed to surrender all
the posts within the new territory by the treaty of 1783. The thing
coveted was the trade in beaver, deer and raccoon skins. In order that
this might be done, the Americans must be kept south of the Ohio. The
tribes were taught to regard the crossing of the Alleghenies as a direct
attempt to dispossess them of their native soil. To excite their savage
hatred and jealousy it was pointed out that a constant stream of
keel-boats, loaded with men, women, children and cattle, were
descending the Ohio; that Kentucky's population was multiplying by
thousands, and that the restless swarm of settlers and land hunters, if
not driven back, would soon fill the whole earth. Driven as they were by
rage and fear, all attempts at treaty with these savages were in vain.
The Miamis, the Potawatomi and the Shawnees lifted the hatchet, and
rushed to the attack of both keel-boats and settlements.
The wars that followed in the administration of George Washington are
well known. Back of them all stood the sinister figure of the English
trader. Harmar was defeated at Miamitown, now Fort Wayne; St. Clair's
army was annihilated on the head waters of the Wabash. For a time the
government seemed prostrate, and all attempts to conquer the savages in
their native woods, futile. But finally General Anthony Wayne, the hero
of Stony Point, was sent to the west. He was a fine disciplinarian and a
fearless fighter. At the battle of Fallen Timbers, in 1794, he broke the
power of the northwestern Indian confederacy, and in the following year
forced the tribes into the Treaty of Greenville.
On July 11th, 1796, the British, under the terms of Jay's Treaty,
evacuated the post of Detroit, and it passed into the hands of its
rightful owners, the American people. Well had it been for the red men,
if, with this passing of the British, all further communication with the
agents of Great Britain had ceased. Already had the tribes acquired a
rich legacy of hate. Their long intercourse and alliance with the
English; their terrible inroads with fire and tomahawk, on the
settlements of Kentucky; their shocking barbarities along the Ohio, had
enraged the hearts of all fighting men south of that river. But the
British in retiring from American soil had passed over to Malden, near
the mouth of the Detroit river. Communication with the tribes of the
northwest was still kept up, and strenuous efforts made to monopolize
their trade. At last came Tecumseh and the Prophet, preaching a
regeneration of the tribes, and a renewal of the contest for the
possession of the lands northwest of the Ohio. All past treaties were to
be disregarded as impositions and frauds, and the advance of the
paleface permanently checked. The joy of the British agents knew no
bounds. Disregarding all the dictates of conscience and even the welfare
of the tribes themselves, they whispered in the ears of the Wyandots of
Sandusky and began to furnish ammunition and rifles. As a result of this
fatal policy the breach between the United States and the Indian
confederates was measurably widened. The end was Tippecanoe, and the
eternal enmity of the hunters and riflemen of southern Indiana and
Kentucky who followed General Harrison on that day. One of the ghastly
sights of that sanguinary struggle, was the scalping by the white men of
the Indian slain, and the division of their scalps among the soldiers
after they had been cut into strips. These bloody trophies were carried
back to the settlements along the Ohio and Wabash to satisfy the hatred
of all those who had lost women and children in the many savage forays
of the past.
With the death of Tecumseh at the battle of the Thames and the
termination of British influence in the west, the tribes soon
surrendered up their ancient demesne, and most of them were removed
beyond the Mississippi. The most populous of all the tribes north of the
Wabash were the roving Potawatomi, and their final expulsion from the
old hunting grounds occurred under the direction of Colonel Abel C.
Pepper and General John Tipton, the latter a hero of the Battle of
Tippecanoe, and later appointed as Indian commissioner. At that time the
remnants of the scattered bands from north of the Wabash amounted to
only one thousand souls of all ages and sexes. The party under military
escort passed eight or nine miles west of the city of Lafayette,
probably over the level land east of the present site of Otterbein,
Indiana.
Thus vanished the red men. In their day, however, they had been the
undoubted lords of the plain, following their long trails in single file
over the great prairies, and camping with their dogs, women and children
in the pleasant groves and along the many streams. They were savages,
and have left no enduring temple or lofty fane behind them, but their
names still cling to many streams, groves and towns, and a few facts
gleaned from their history cannot fail to be of interest to us, who
inherit their ancient patrimony.