USA > Indiana > A history of Indiana from its exploration to 1850 > Part 3
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21 The evidence concerning the founding of Vincennes is well summed up in Vol. III, Publications of the Indiana Historical Society, 255, seq. See also J. P. Dunn, Indiana, ch. II; Jesuit Relations, index. Copies of the letters of Vincennes are in the library of Vincennes University.
22 Jesuit Relations, LXIX, 290, note.
23 The Mississippi Basin, 118.
(3)
22
HISTORY OF INDIANA
man by the name of Francois Morgane Sieur de Vincennes was stationed at the Piankeshaw village, Chipkawke, with a considerable body of French troops. From the name of the officer comes the name of the city of Vincennes. This commandant was killed by the Chickasaws and his place taken by St. Ange. Whether Vincennes was the founder of the post, or even its first commandant, no one at this time can say with certainty.
§ 6 THE FRENCH SETTLERS
AFTER the failure of La Salle, the king of France granted control of all the commerce of Louisiana to one of his courtiers named Anthony Crozat. This grant included the Illinois country and the Wabash. Crozat had expected to find rich mines of gold and silver, but disappointed in this he surrendered his gift to the crown in 1717. That same year a monopoly of the trade was granted to the Mississippi Company. This company in turn was superseded by the Western Company, also called the Company of the Indies. From 1720 to 1731 the latter company was in exclusive con- trol of the Illinois and Indiana country. Its policy was not to encourage settlements, and it retained complete feudal rights over all who did settle in its territory. The company built Ft. Chartres, near Kaskaskia, and there made its headquarters.
When the Company of the Indies surrendered its charter April 10, 1732, the king of France resumed direct control. From this period dates the actual settlements in both In- diana and Illinois. Before this everything had looked toward the fur trade. Now there were settlements made by cultivators of the soil. It is in connection with the car- rying out of this policy that the first authentic mention is made of the settlement at Vincennes. As stated above, the Chickasaw Indians made traffic on the Mississippi ex- tremely dangerous. In the year 1736, D'Artiguiette was instructed to take what force he had in Illinois and join De Vincennes, who was to come down the Wabash from his station supposed to be where Vincennes now stands. The
23
THE FRENCH IN INDIANA
French, who numbered three or four hundred, were defeat- ed by the hostile Chickasaws. De Vincennes was among the: slain. After this the records are silent as to Fort Vincennes. for twelve years. From then, 1749, the records in the parish church are complete.
The French settlers borrowed their habits of dress from the Indian. They wore little else than the hunting shirt, leggins, and moccasins, in colder weather a blanket or a buffalo robe being wrapped around the body. There were several styles of house building. The earliest house was built by setting in a square four forked posts and putting cross-poles from one to the other and making the walls and roof with bark or brush or anything else that was handy and would keep out wind and rain. A somewhat better house was built by the planters around Vincennes, which consisted of a double row of puncheons planted upright in the ground, the space between being filled with mortar, and whitewashed within and without. In still more pretentious houses, built in later years at the "Old Post," there were four or five rooms with an open porch on the side and an attic sleepingroom reached by a ladder. These rooms were warmed by a fireplace. Outside the house was a bake oven in the old French style.24 Their woolly ponies were sheltered by a "pole stable" which could be removed when the accumulations of manure made it necessary.
The priests in Canada made many complaints about the lawlessness of the coureurs de bois or bush-lopers. The lat- ter were no better, perhaps no worse, than the ordinary In- dians with whom they lived and whose customs they adopted. After the transfer of the government of the Illi- nois and Wabash country from Canada to New Orleans a better class of French people came to the posts. Still there were never any French settlers at Ft. Wayne and Ouiatanon except fur traders. The latter, now no longer outlaws, could carry on a regular commerce with the larger towns.
The Indians granted to the French at Vincennes a tract of land extending from Point Coupee below the present site of Merom to the mouth of White river and extending
24 For a picture of a bake oven see Harper's Magazine, CXVI, 440.
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HISTORY OF INDIANA
back on either side of the Wabash. This was held jointly and on this extensive domain the villagers laid off an ample commons of 5,000 acres which they enclosed with pickets. On this commons each villager had one or more strips for cultivation. These strips were separated only by balks or turn-rows. Each villager was compelled by the commandant or syndic to keep up his part of the fence. At times, it seems, this enclosure was used as a pasture- perhaps after harvest. Judge Jacob Burnet tells how diffi- cult it was for the Northwest Territorial Legislature in 1799 to regulate this commons, and a new law by the In- diana Territorial Legislature a few years later indicates that the early law was not entirely satisfactory. This commons lay southeast of the village of Vincennes, be- ginning about where the present courthouse stands.
The village assembly usually determined all matters per- taining to the commons, or the common field. After church on Sunday the assembly would meet in the churchyard and determine a day for planting, or a day for harvest. The syndic presided over these parish meetings unless the mat- ter under consideration pertained to the church, when the priest took charge.
Some farmers held their land as tenants direct from the crown; others of the wealthier class held large seigniories under feudal conditions. Nearly all these settlers on the Wabash were either commoners or tenants of the crown.25
The farming in the Vincennes neighborhood was primi- tive. A large plow with wooden mold-board and flexible beam was in use. It was mounted on two wheels, the large one to run in the furrow, and a small one on the land. It was drawn usually by oxen as was later the cus- tom among the English settlers. Ordinarily a cart was found on each farm. This cart was a two-wheeled affair without any tires. On Sunday it served for a carriage in which the planter and his family rode to the parish church at Vincennes. The farm crops consisted of wheat and corn and various other grains, besides which there was always
25 Carter, Great Britain and the Illinois Country, 10; Jacob Burnet, Notes on the Settlement of the Northwest Territory, 307.
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THE FRENCH IN INDIANA
a liberal supply of tobacco, for all the members of the family smoked, or used snuff. A great deal of wine and spruce beer was made for home use. The inhabitants were a jovial, careless, pious, unpolitical class of people. They took the world easy and so the world took them.
After a year of bountiful harvest they spent the winter in social festivities such as dancing, feasting, and card playing. Even billiards were popular at this early date on the Wabash. They knew and cared little for the outside world. They sold beef, pork, and corn at New Orleans for what few manufactured goods they received. Their mili- tary commandant looked after all this world's affairs, and the parish priest attended to the affairs of the next world for them. Since there were no hotels, everybody's house was open to the stranger. A keen social rivalry existed and almost everyone knew his place. The invasion of Clark in 1779 put an end to this old-fashioned society. Little trace of the old settlers remains. In the schools in and about Vincennes, one may notice here and there the raven hair and the black sparkling eyes that mark a descendant of these subjects of Louis le Grande.
With the passing of power to the English in 1763 the better class of the French inhabitants crossed the Missis- sippi into Spanish territory. This migration continued till after 1800, by which time most of the original French settlers had left the Illinois country. Their descendants may still be found on the lower Mississippi.26
The more energetic Frenchmen were engaged in the fur trade. From the incomplete list, licensed by Governor Harrison in 1801, an idea may be had of the number, loca- tion and wide range of the early traders. All these had been trading previously, but the law then required that they take out a license. At Fort Wayne Joseph Richard- ville was one of the earliest traders. His son became a chief of the Miami tribe there. Peter la Fontaine, Baubien, and James Lasselle all traded at Fort Wayne before the Revolution. Lasselle held command of the post for some time during the Revolution till La Balme drove him away
26 Clarence E. Carter, The Illinois Country, 29.'
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HISTORY OF INDIANA
in 1780. Mr. Todd was licensed to trade at Blue River, Washington county; Mr. Dagenet at Terre Haute; Mr. Simon at Muncietown; Mr. Henry Mayraus at Terre Haute; Le Claire on the Vermillion river; Francis Boneus on the Kankakee; Thomas Lusby with the Kickapoos ; Francis La- fantazii at the Kickapoo town on Pine creek; Louis Bouri on the Elkhart; Hyacinth Lasselle on the Mississinewa; Benart Besayou on lower Eel creek; Conner Brothers on White river; Baptist Bino on the Tippecanoe; Baptist Tou- pin with the Kickapoos; Francis Milleni on Vermillion ; Charles Johnson at Terre Haute; Peter Thorn along the Ohio; Michael Brouillet on Vermillion river; Louis Severs on the Little Wabash; Joseph Dumay on White river; and Jonnet Pillet on White river. Some of them married Indian women and their children became warriors.
The materials of the fur trade on the part of the Indians consisted entirely of furs and hides. During the French period traps were used almost exclusively in catching the wild animals. The French government never allowed its traders, in the early days, to supply the Indians with guns. It was not till near the close of the eighteenth century that these western tribes had them. The supply then came largely from the English.
In exchange the traders gave coarse cloths, blue or scar- let paints, knives, hatchets, traps, kettles, hoes, blankets and, in ever increasing amounts, whiskey. The French had to buy these goods from a single company and pay high prices. So, when the English came, they could pay for furs almost double what the French had been offering. For instance, the French sold rifle balls at the rate of $4.00 per hundred, the English at $2.00. This caused great dissatisfaction and worry to the Indians. They liked the Frenchmen and hated the haughty Englishman; but their beaver skins would bring double value from the Englishman. There soon came to be two parties among the Wabash Indians, the one favor- ing the French and the other the English. The parties came to open war in 1751, and the English traders and their Indian partisans were driven out.
The French government in America depended almost
27
THE FRENCH IN INDIANA
absolutely on the fur trade. For that reason the trade was well guarded. The Indian country was divided into dis- tricts comparing approximately with the divisions agreed upon by the tribes themselves. To each district or tribe certain traders were given the exclusive right to trade and no other allowed to encroach. Each trader was encouraged to establish a post as his headquarters and encourage the Indians to come there to trade. The trader lived among his tribesmen, studied their wants and catered to their humor. The missionary was always present as a check on the trader.27
27 Carter, Great Britain and the Illinois Country, 84.
CHAPTER II
THE ENGLISH PERIOD, 1763-1778
§ 7 THE ENGLISH CONQUEST AND GOVERNMENT
THE war between the English and French for the pos- session of the Ohio Valley was essentially a commercial struggle for the fur trade. The French interpreted the Treaty of Aix la Chapelle to confirm them in the owner- ship of the valley. The Marquis de la Galissoniere, the governor of Canada, began at once, after receiving news of the treaty, to secure the French interests.1
The English as early as 1720 were jealous of the en- croachments of the French along the Ohio river. Governor Burnett of New York advised the Lords of Trade, Novem- ber 20, 1720, to forestall them or the English would not only lose the trade of the country but the valley itself.2
Early in 1749 the French governor sent Captain Bien- ville de Celoron with a strong party of French and Indians on a mission to the Ohio. At Logstown, about twenty miles below the present site of Pittsburg, Bienville gathered the Indians together and instructed them as to the power and rights of the French. On his way down the Ohio he picked up a number of English traders and at an old Shawnee village on the Ohio released them with instructions to return beyond the mountains. At the same time he addressed notes to Governor Hamilton at Philadelphia and Governor Clinton at New York advising them of the trespasses of the traders and threatening to treat all such persons in the fu- ture as interlopers. This valiant Knight of the Order of St.
1 For a good account of the Ohio Valley and its strategic importance see the Governor's report for 1750, Documents Relating to the Colonial History of New York, X, 229.
2 Documents Relating to the Colonial History of New York, V, 576.
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THE ENGLISH PERIOD
Louis then proceeded on down the Ohio burying on its banks leaden plates bearing a proclamation of ownership from King Louis XV.
Hardly had Celoron passed on his way down the Ohio river when George Croghan, an agent of Governor Hamil- ton of Pennsylvania, appeared among the Indians and con- tradicted what the Frenchman had proclaimed.3
The correspondence of the French and English officers and their agents is full of hints of intrigue, murder, and bloody foray, incited by partisan leaders or abetted by promises of reward. No Indian chief was safe from the murderous weapons of his tribesmen. Every village had its English and its French faction. A part of the hunters of each tribe traded with the English, a part with the French.
Governor Galissoniere recommended to Count Maurepas that he send 300 or 400 good soldiers to the posts on the Wabash in 1748. Ensign Douville of Post Miamis, who was conducting a party of Miamis under Chiefs Coldfoot and Hedgehog down to Montreal, was stopped at Niagara by a war party of Mohawks. Douville stated that the English had offered a snug reward to La Demoiselle, a Miami chief on the Scioto, if he would bring Douville's head to the English governor.
Ensign Chevalier de La Peyrode, the commandant at Ouiatanon, started in August, 1748, with a large party of Weas on a visit to Montreal but was driven back by the Hurons, then friendly to the English. Sieur Laperriere Marin, commandant among the Miamis at St. Joseph, also stated that English emissaries had been among the Miamis and Pottawattomies of his post poisoning their minds against the French. Scores of traders lost their lives in trying to carry on trade under such conditions. French partisans in the paint and feathers of warriors led the savages in long expeditions against the English frontiers.
In 1750 Colonel William Johnson, Indian agent for Great Britain, complained to the Lords of Trade that the French
3 The best source for this struggle is the Documents Relating to the Colonial History of New York, index; and Croghan's Journal in Early Western Travels, I, 45.
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HISTORY OF INDIANA
were encouraging the Lake Indians to make war on the English allies on the Ohio. In May, 1753, Commander Hol- land at Oswego reported that thirty French canoes, part of a force said to number 6,000 under Monsieur Marin, had passed that place on their way to the Ohio. Close after them came the report that six Englishmen and fourteen friendly Indians had been killed on the Ohio. These instan- ces are enough to show the conditions that prevailed in the western country from 1748 to the breaking out of war in 1755.
The church records of Vincennes during this period commence with the marriage record of a Canadian French- man and a French-Indian girl, written by the officiating priest, Sebastian Louis Meurin. There is little of historical interest in this early record of baptisms, marriages and burials. Father Meurin was succeeded by Louis Vivier, also a Jesuit, who remained until 1756; when he was suc- ceeded by Julian Duvernay, the last of the Jesuits, who re- mained until France gave up the territory in 1763.
The Illinois mission, of which Vincennes was a part, was badly neglected during these and succeeding years. John Baptist Lamorinie was stationed at Post St. Joseph as mis- sionary to the Miamis. Pierre du Jaunay was transferred from the Miamis to Ouiatanon about 1745. He returned to Quebec about 1754. He seems to have been the only mis- sionary who ever resided at Quiatanon. Marchand de Lig- neris was in command of the garrison at Quiatanon at the same time. 4
The echoes of the seven years of French and Indian warfare were scarcely heard in this land of savages, French peasants, and coureurs de bois. Many of the Miamis helped Beaujeu in the destruction of Braddock, and doubtless many young warriors joined in the raids on the Virginia and Pennsylvania frontier. Although the war did not reach the inhabitants of this remote wilderness the peace at the close of the war roused them to fury.
By the surrender of Montreal, 1760, the French gave up this western territory to the English. The French gar-
4 Rev. Herman Alerding, The Diocese of Vincennes, 58.
31
THE ENGLISH PERIOD
risons were to be withdrawn and the posts delivered over to the English as soon as possible. The duty of carrying out this decree fell on Colonel Robert Rogers; for that pur- pose he left Montreal, September 13, 1760, with about 200 men in boats. These were the famous Rogers Rangers, the terror of the Indians on the New England border. No body of English troops having ever penetrated so far west, their coming excited alarm among the savages. Pontiac met Rogers on the south shore of Lake Erie. After some hesi- tation the Indian chief gave his permission for the English to pass on to Detroit. On November 29, 1760, the lilies of France ceased to wave over Detroit. Detachments of the Sixtieth English Regiment came and took possession of Ouiatanon and Post Miamis, in what is now Indiana. The other western posts on the Great Lakes were not occupied till the following spring. All told, there were about six hundred English soldiers stationed west of Pennsylvania.5
§ 8 PONTIAC'S WAR
THE English soldiers, and especially the English traders, were extremely offensive to the Indians. The soldiers re- fused to mingle with the Indians, refused to sell them guns and ammunition, and refused to allow them to loaf inside the forts. The English fur traders, taken by and large, were the worst class of men in America. They had the characteristic commercial disregard of sentiment. To them the Indian was a very inferior being, to be cheated, out- raged, robbed or murdered as best suited their money- making purposes. The traders had no regard for the help- less settlers on the frontier so long as they themselves es- caped with plunder and life. We have to turn to Simon Legree, the villain slave-master of literature, to find a com- parison. If it were necessary to go further to explain this sudden uprising of the Indians in Pontiac's war, one might point out the long and intimate friendship of the French traders with the Indians, the natural result of which was to prejudice the Indians against the English.
5 Avery, A History of the United States, IV, 354.
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HISTORY OF INDIANA
The news of the treaty, ceding all the western country to the English without so much as consulting the Indians, brought all this sullen hatred to a head. The Senecas in the east and the Ottawa-Ojibwa-Pottawattomie confederacy in the west, organized the attack. Their plan, briefly, was to capture Fort Pitt and Detroit, together with the smaller posts, after which they would throw all their force against the English frontier and drive the white people into the sea. Pontiac, the Ottawa chief, was the soul of the league and one of the greatest of American Indians.6
Early on the morning of May 7, 1763, a party of Indians in canoes crossed from the Canadian shore to Detroit and stalked with apparent unconcern up to the palisades of the fort. It was the first act in a bloody siege that lasted throughout the summer. First, the garrison of Detroit was forced to see the dead bodies of a relief party, 60 or 80 in number, gashed and mutilated with knife and fire, float past the fort. Hardly had this horror ended when a long line of naked Wyandotte warriors, painted black, paraded in front of the fort, each decorated with a ghastly scalp. It was the news from the Sandusky, Ohio, garrison, butchered May 16. A month later, June 15, a band of Pottawattomies came to the fort bringing Ensign Schlosser, who, with fourteen men, had been stationed at Fort St. Joseph, at the mouth of the river St. Joseph. The same tale of treachery and slaughter was repeated. On June 18, news was brought by a Jesuit priest that the Chippewas and Ojibways had surprised the post at Michillimacinac, slain its garrison, and captured its commander, Captain George Etherington. Soon after this came came a letter from Lieutenant Edward Jenkins of Ouiatanon. On the morning of June 1, the lieu- tenant had been invited to their hut by some friendly In- dians. The Kickapoos, Mascoutins, Piankeshaws, and Weas.
6 "This Indian has a more extensive power than ever was known among that people; for every chief used to command his own tribe; but eighteen nations, by French intrigue had been brought to unite, and choose this man for commander, after the English had conquered Canada; having been taught to believe that, aided by France, they might make a vigorous push and drive us out of America." Thomas Morris's Journal in Early Western Travels, I, 305.
THE ENGLISH PERIOD
33
WAYNE
FRANKLIN.
DEARBORN
KNOX
JEFFERSON
SWITZER- LAND
WASHINGTON
CLARK
GIBSON
HARRISON
PERRY
POSEY
WARRICK
INDIANA COUNTIES, 1814. BY E. V. SHOCKLEY.
34
HISTORY OF INDIANA
together with a few French families, then lived near this post. As soon as Jenkins had reached the place, the In- dians seized and bound him as they had done several of his soldiers. They had then forced him to surrender the rest of the garrison. Here, however, the rule had been broken and the prisoners had been placed in the house of a French trader, where they were well cared for. It seems, however, that this leniency was a second thought, due per- haps to the French traders, Lorain and Maisonirtle; for the Indians later made known a plan which they had formed to kill all the garrison the previous night. Either the order for attack did not reach the Indians in time, having re- ceived the wampum belt after dark the night before, or the French traders prevented the bloodshed. Jenkins re- mained a prisoner at Quiatanon till after August 1, not knowing what hour he might be put to death. This post was destroyed by the Indians and never rebuilt.7
Next came the report from Fort Miami, at the junction of the St. Joseph and the St. Mary, where the city of Fort Wayne now stands. Its commander, Ensign Holmes, had been put on his guard ; but on May 27, 1763, he was betrayed - to a neighboring house by a young squaw, who lived with him, and shot down from ambush by two Indians. The girl's story was that in the wigwam a short distance from the fort was a sick woman, her mother, who needed his at- tention. The officer put on his coat and accompanied the girl across the meadow to the hut. Just as they were enter- ing the door two Indians stepped from behind the wigwam, fired and the ensign fell dead. His head was cut off and carried back to the fort. The sergeant who heard the shots, on running outside the gate to see what had happened, was seized and bound. When a Canadian named Godfrey then summoned the frightened soldiers to surrender in order to save their lives, they hastened to obey. Godfrey was a notorious French partisan. He had left Detroit with other Canadians soon after the siege began on the plea that he knew a French officer whom he could induce to come to De- troit and persuade Pontiac to quit the war. On the Maumee
7 Parkman, The Conspiracy of Pontiac, index.
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THE ENGLISH PERIOD
he had robbed an English trader named John Welsh whom he sent to Detroit to be put to death. Godfrey was later captured and sentenced to death but pardoned on condition of his accompanying Thomas Morris as an interpreter. All but one of the prisoners of Fort Miami were finally killed, many being tortured. When Morris visited the place in September of the following year one of them was still a prisoner, held for sacrifice. He was later adopted as a son by a squaw whose son was killed in the war.
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