USA > Indiana > A history of Indiana from its exploration to 1850 > Part 4
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The post at Vincennes had never been turned over to the English. History has left us only meager accounts of what befell the English traders caught up in this whirlwind of savage anger. Our sympathy goes out to the British soldiers, only a handful in number, stationed one thousand miles away from any point of supply or reinforcement, and wholly unfitted by their training for such service.83 69341
The fury of Pontiac's army wore itself out against the palisades of Detroit. Col. John Bradstreet with English reinforcements reached the fort in August, 1764. A sol- dier, Capt. Thomas Morris, was sent by Bradstreet on a mission up the Maumee to where Pontiac had withdrawn his baffled host. On every hand he saw evidences of the ravages made by the Indians. One Indian boasted that he was riding Braddock's horse, a large dapple iron gray. Another offered Morris a volume of Shakespeare for some gunpowder. All the tribesmen were in bad humor. Mor- ris found Fort Miami abandoned except for some renegade French traders who made the deserted barracks their home. A Kickapoo village occupied the meadow around the post. The main Miami village was across the St. Joseph river, northeast of the fort. Ottawa, Wea, Mascoutin and Dela- ware Indians mingled in the neighborhood in inextricable confusion. He also found the Delaware, Shawnee and Wyandotte Indians in little humor for peace. After being twice tied to the stake for torture, he escaped to Detroit. He had a letter to St. Ange at Fort Chartres, but his
8 Parkman, The Conspiracy of Pontiac, I, 278; Early Western Travels, I, 312.
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friends advised him that he would certainly be killed at Ouiatanon. He entrusted his letter to St. Vincent, a Frenchman, then fighting with the Indians. The double- dealing of the tribes and the hostility of the French were apparent. While making pretenses of friendship to Brad- street at Sandusky they were sending war belts to the Miamis, Kickapoos and Illinois. But the Indians soon had a different man to deal with.9
The marauding along the borders of Pennsylvania and Virginia continued. It was thought that fully three hun- dred whites were in captivity among the savages of Ohio and Indiana. In order to liberate these and punish the captors, Col. Henry Bouquet gathered a force at Fort Pitt in the fall of 1764. Besides the British regulars he had nearly 1,000 Pennsylvanians and 200 Virginia rangers. A rapid march brought him to the banks of the Muskingum in the heart of the Indian country. He summoned the Shawnee and Wyandotte warriors to his camp, ordered them to leave their chiefs with him as hostages, go back at once and bring all white people among them, whether captive or not, to him. Thoroughly alarmed, the Indians obeyed. A large number of men and women had accom- panied Colonel Bouquet in the hope of finding their long- lost relatives. The scene that followed the return of the Indians, bringing in 206 prisoners, was one of the most tragic ever witnessed on the American frontier. As fam- ilies were reunited, as wife and children were restored to husband and father, as mothers found their babes after years of captivity, and as others learned of the torture and death of their friends, their grief or joy was crush- ing. The humiliation of the Indian warriors was complete, even the sulky Delawares from the Scioto and White rivers bringing in their captives.10
9 Early Western Travels, I, 295 seq. The full Journal of Capt. Thomas Morris is printed. It is the best source on this event.
10 Bouquet's Expedition Against the Ohio Indians (Cincinnati, 1868). This is documentary.
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§ 9 THE JOURNEY OF GEORGE CROGHAN
AFTER an expedition had failed to reach the Illinois country by way of the Mississippi river in 1764, Gen. Thomas Gage, who commanded in America, determined to send a party to that region by way of Fort Pitt. For this purpose he chose the able Indian agent, George Croghan, deputy for Sir William Johnson, and the most experienced Indian agent on the western frontier.11 With a small party in two boats, he left Fort Pitt May 15, 1765, and in twenty-two days reached the mouth of the Wabash, not- ing carefully in his journal the appearance of the country and the attractions for settlers. The expedition was five days in passing down the Ohio river along the southern boundary of Indiana. The first night camp was made at the Falls. The river was very low and Croghan observed that the Falls were little more than a rapid, which could be passed easily at ordinary stages of water. At the mouth of the Wabash he found a breastwork built, as he sup- posed, by the Indians. The Wabash, he noted, ran through the finest countries of the world. Hemp, he observed, might be raised in immense quantities. All the bottoms were covered with red and white mulberry trees. Having dropped down the river a few miles lower to dispatch cour- iers to St. Ange at Chartres, the party was attacked about daybreak by a band of Kickapoos and Mascoutins. Two white men and three Indians were killed at the first fire, all the rest being wounded but two white men and one In- dian. At first the attacking party was mistaken for south- ern Indians, but as soon as the Shawnee guide recognized them he censured them boldly, telling them that all the northern Indians would band together to avenge the insult. The red warriors hurried their prisoners through the forest to Vincennes, where they arrived June 15.
"On my arrival," wrote Croghan, "I found a village of about eighty or ninety French families settled on the east
11 Croghan's Journal is printed in Documents Relating to the Colonial History of New York, VII, 779-788; Hildreth, Pioncer History of the Ohio Valley; Butler's History of Kentucky, appendix; Early Western Travels, I, 126.
(4)
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side of the river, being one of the finest situations that can be found. The country is level and clear and the soil very rich, producing wheat and tobacco. I think the tobacco better than that in Virginia. The French inhabitants hereabouts are an idle, lazy people, a parcel of renegados from Canada and much worse than the Indians. As the savages took from me a considerable quantity of gold and silver the French traders extorted from them $45 for a pound of Vermillion. Here is likewise a village of Pianke- shaws, who were much displeased with the party that took me, telling them they had started a war for which their
women and children would have reason to cry. * * Post Vincent is a place of great consequence for trade, be- ing a fine hunting country all along the Wabash and too far for the Indians who reside hereabouts to go either to the Illinois or elsewhere to fetch their necessaries."
Croghan dispatched letters to St. Ange, commander at Fort Chartres, but he was not permitted to write to the English commander at Pittsburgh. He was convinced that the French at Vincennes were encouraging the Indians in their hostility to the English. The Kickapoos, it seems, delivered some scalps and a portion of the booty taken from Croghan's party to the French and received the promised reward. The Piankeshaws refused to have anything to do with the Indians who had captured Croghan.
Croghan left Vincennes June 17, on horseback. His way led through what is now Sullivan and Vigo counties, where he noted the great fertility of the meadows-the "Piankeshaw Hunting Grounds." On these prairies he saw bear, deer, and buffaloes in countless numbers. He reached Ouiatanon June 23, 1765.
Ouiatanon was on the Wabash near where Lafayette now stands. There were fourteen French families in the stockade fort, which stood on the north side of the river. The Kickapoo and Mascoutin warriors who had captured Croghan lived in near-by villages. The older members of the Kickapoos censured the young bucks, but laid the blame on the French, who, they said, had planned the outrage. Croghan remarked on this occasion: "The French have
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a great influence over these Indians and never fail in tell- ing them many lies to the prejudice of his Majesty's inter- ests."12 The country roundabout was particularly fine. The post had always been a very considerable trading place; for the great plenty of furs had originally induced its establishment. Croghan said it was the first post built on the Wabash. As usual Croghan remarked the resources of the country. Across the river from the fort ran a high bank in which were several outcropping veins of coal. On top of the bluff were large meadows cleared for several miles. These had been called barren savannas, but at the time they were covered with wild hemp ten feet high.
Croghan remained at Quiatanon from June 23 to July 25, meeting deputations from all the surrounding tribes and making treaties of peace. July 4 to 8 he was in con- ference with the Weas, Piankeshaws of Vermillion town, Kickapoos and Mascoutins. July 11 came the Illinois with Francois Maisonville as their interpreter. On the eight- eenth Croghan started to the Mississippi to meet Pontiac; but that chieftain with a large band of Senecas, Delawares and Shawnees was already near Ouiatanon and Croghan returned for a conference with them. Everything was arranged satisfactorily with them and treaties of peace confirmed.
After settling everything with the natives, and being freed from his captors, Croghan left Ouiatanon July 25, 1765, and proceeded up the Wabash to Eel river. Six miles up this stream he found a small Twightwee or Miami vil- lage pleasantly located on the river bank-the home of the Eel River Miamis. For four more days he traveled up Eel river, then crossed over to the portage path from the Wa- bash to the Maumee. On August 1 he reached the Miami village on the St. Joseph about one-fourth of a mile up from its mouth. The Indians came out to meet him, greeting him kindly. An old English flag which he had given them at Fort Pitt was hoisted. With most of the Twightwee or Miami warriors Croghan was personally acquainted. The navigation, he observed, from here to Ouiatanon was very
12 Early Western Travels, I, 144.
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difficult in low water, but easy in times of freshet. Under the latter conditions the trip could be made in three days. On the east side of the river, near its mouth, stood a little tumbledown stockade-all that then remained of Post Miami. The Indian village consisted of forty or fifty cabins, together with nine or ten French houses occupied by French traders. Croghan again describes the French as a lazy, indolent, mischief-breeding pack. They were refu- gees from Detroit. They had aided the Indians in the late uprising and later, fearing punishment, had withdrawn to Post Miami. Croghan urged that they be removed where they would have no influence over the Indians. He was impressed with the natural resources and beauty of the country around Post Miami. After the usual conferences, and after the Indians had delivered up their prisoners, Croghan set out for Detroit August 6, having spent about three months among the inhabitants of the Wabash Valley.13
§ 10 ENGLAND TAKES POSSESSION AND ORGANIZES THE COUNTRY
ST. ANGE had been governing the Illinois country since the departure of Neyon de Villiers in 1764. He was sur- rounded by a lawless crowd of thieving savages and con- spiring French. He had orders to surrender the post to the English as soon as they should appear.
In January, 1764, Maj. Arthur Loftus set out from Mobile with 351 men from the Twenty-second Regiment. Sixty of them were to occupy Fort Massac and the re- mainder were to garrison Kaskaskia and Fort Chartres. This expedition was defeated and turned back by the Tonica Indians at Fort Adams, two hundred and forty miles above New Orleans. It was the encouragement from this defeat that impelled Pontiac to refuse the offers of Thomas Morris at Fort Miami in the autumn of 1764.14 In February, 1765, John Ross, an English officer, arrived at Fort Chartres from Mobile, having come directly north to
13 Early Western Travels, I, 150.
14 Carter, The Illinois Country, 36.
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the Ohio river and thence down to the Illinois Country. He was disappointed in the temper of the Indians and was for- tunate in escaping to New Orleans.
Meanwhile the English at Fort Pitt were waiting eagerly to hear of the results of Croghan's expedition. As soon as the latter was sure of his position at Quiatanon, he sent a messenger to Fort Pitt. Capt. Thomas Sterling was ready and at once set out from Fort Pitt to Fort Chartres, in Illinois, with 125 Scotch Highlanders of the Forty-second Regiment. Sterling arrived at Chartres October 9, 1765. St. Ange, the French commander, withdrew to the west side of the Mississippi, leaving all the northwest country in the hands of the English. The land of Indiana was under the jurisdiction of Captain Sterling.
Fort Chartres was the largest of the French inland fortresses. It was a fortress, the others mere posts. It was designed to be the headquarters for the French civil and military command of the upper valley. It was built almost two miles from the banks of the Mississippi on the road from Kaskaskia to Cahokia, about twenty miles from the latter. The construction was begun in 1718 by Bois- briant, governor of Illinois, and finished in two or three years. It was built of stone with bastions and towers, donjon and magazine. Its portholes and heavy cannon were out of harmony with its surroundings and an insult to the majestic river, on whose banks it stood. As if re- senting the intended domination the river set towards it, and seven years after the English took possession, under- mined its walls.15 A massive ruin still marks its location.
There seemed no hurry to take possession of the Wa- bash posts. Not till 1777 was there any English authority on Indiana soil and the story of Indiana, meanwhile is in- separably woven into the larger politics of the Northwest.
England found herself in possession of more territory at the close of the French and Indian War than her king and ministry could well govern. Their vast conquests in America were divided by the Proclamation of October 7,
15 Carter, The Illinois Country, index; Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, VI, 702.
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1763, into four provinces: Quebec, East Florida, West Florida, Grenada. The territory north of the Ohio was not included in any one of these. An order of the king forbade the colonial governors to sell lands to anyone be- yond the headwaters of the rivers flowing into the Atlantic. This order came to be known as the "Proclamation of 1763." Until the king's further pleasure was known the lands of the West were to be used, as formerly, as a hunt- ing ground for the Indians.
This was only a temporary disposition of the vast royal domain. There was no manifest intention on the part of the ministry to set the designated region aside permanently as a home for the Indians. Such a policy would have been in direct violation of English precedents. On the other hand the brutal character of the traders and their capacity for stirring up the savages to war made some such effort necessary. All Indian traders were required by the procla- mation to be licensed and to give security for their good behavior. The purchase of land from the Indians on pri- vate account was strictly forbidden. All interlopers or trespassers were ordered to be seized and sent out of the country. The policy was timely, though some of its details could not be carried out.16
Croghan's description of the fertile lands northwest of the Ohio roused the cupidity of the land-hungry English.17 One of the earliest of a series of giant land speculations was planned by Sir William Johnson, Indian agent for America, and Governor Franklin of New Jersey, a son of Benjamin Franklin. Governor Franklin wrote his father in London and the latter joined eagerly. General Gage and some wealthy Philadelphia merchants also entered into the scheme. They petitioned the king for a grant of 63,000,000 acres lying between Lake Erie and the Mississippi and the Fox and Wisconsin rivers and the Ohio and Wabash. This
16 The document is given, together with a map in the Annual Regis- ter, 1763, 208; Gentleman's Magazine, 1763, 477; Alvord, "Genesis of the Proclamation of 1763," in Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collec- tions, XXXVI, 25.
17 The English magazines like the Gentleman's and the Annual Regis- ter give clear indications of this widespread interest.
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settlement, they urged, would secure the country against a French uprising and also protect the western frontier from the Indians. Shelburne urged it upon the Board of Trade-especially emphasizing the necessity of a farming population to support the garrisons and at the same time to furnish a wider market for British manufactures. The Lords of Trade refused to grant the favor. The royal gov- ernors in America generally opposed it for the reason that it would only serve to draw men from the older colonies, thus weakening the already distressed colonial govern- ments.
A second attempt was made by a company headed by the London banker, Thomas Walpole, and called the Walpole Company. Franklin was interested in this as well as George Washington, Governor Pownall of Massachusetts, Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia, and Col. George Mercer, then in London. The Tory colonial minister, Lord Hillsborough, had other plans, and not even the prophetic eloquence of Burke or the solid sense of Franklin could shake the stub- born minister. One of the tracts of lands compre- hended in this prospective grant of 2,400,000 acres was called "Indiana." In 1769 Dr. Lee of Virginia and thirty- two other Virginians, the great patriots of the Revolution, including the Washingtons, together with two Londoners, organized the Mississippi Land Company. The hope of the company was a grant of 2,500,000 acres of western lands around the mouths of the Ohio and Wabash rivers. The whole scheme ended in the pigeon holes of the Board of Trade.
The Illinois Land Company through its agent, William Murray, a trader in the Illinois Country, acquired an Indian claim to two vast tracts bordering on the Mississippi and embracing the soil of half the present State of Illinois. The cession was obtained from ten Kaskaskia chieftains at a council held at Kaskaskia July 5, 1773, while Hugh Lord was the commandant. Two years later, Louis Viviat, an- other trader of the Illinois Country, bought for the Wabash Land Company a tract of land lying on both banks of the Wabash. This purchase comprehended about 60,000 square
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miles of territory. The price paid in each case was a few trinkets of trifling value.
Several other land companies were organized during the period to exploit the fertile western lands. This spec- ulative fever has never left the American people in their dealings with the public lands. Nor must we forget in this connection that there was truth in the beautiful periods of Burke, who saw in vision the western waves of migra- tion lapping over the crests of the Alleghanies and trickling down the valleys beyond, oblivious of kings and procla- mations.18 Thousands of hunters, traders and squatters crossed the Appalachians in defiance of law and made their homes in the Indian country. It was soon realized that the Proclamation of 1763 kept out only the best persons.
Following the advice of Lord Hillsborough, who, in turn, followed Col. Guy Carleton, commander at Quebec, and his Swiss lieutenant, Cramahe, the king decided on the Quebec Act as the one measure that would settle amicably all these American troubles. It would, he thought, pacify the French, who were the only legitimate settlers of the North- west, by giving them their French religion and civil law. It would give a government to the western country by plac- ing it under the jurisdiction of the Province of Quebec. It would also put an end to land speculations encouraged by royal governors. It was enacted in 1774. It did pacify Canada, and it gave a legality to government, but it utterly failed to stop western migration. It effectually destroyed the love of the leading Virginians for their king. More than any other act of the king, the Quebec Act prepared the Old Diminion for rebellion. By its terms all the lands north of the Ohio, east of the Mississippi and south of the Great Lakes were attached to Quebec.19
18 George Henry Alden, New Governments West of the Alleghanies Before 1780, in Bulletins of University of Wisconsin, II, gives a good discussion of these land companies. See his references; also Carter, The Illinois Country, ch. 6. The petition of the Mississippi Company is given in the appendix to The Illinois Country, 165, seq.
19 See Statutes at Large, Fourteenth George III, ch, 83. Most of the discussions in American history seem to have been by men who have not read the statute. There is no ground in the law for anticipating the storm of opposition aroused in America.
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During Pontiac's war the English were unable to relieve the French commanders in the Northwest. Neyon de Vil- liers was at Chartres and the veteran, St. Ange, at Vin- cennes. Villiers left his post early in 1764 for New Or- leans and with him went a large number of settlers. He ordered St. Ange to come and take charge of the fortress of Chartres. When the latter left Vincennes he turned the government of the post over to Deroite de Richardville. After taking possession of Chartres, the English were in no hurry to come to Vincennes; and nothing but the exig- encies of another war brought it a garrison. The stockade posts at Vincennes, Quiatanon and Post Miami rotted down and disappeared. A more forlorn settlement could not have been found in America than those on the soil of Indiana just preceding the Revolution. Authority at Vincennes finally settled down to the notary, Raumer, who ran away with the records. To add to their misery the settlers re- ceived orders from General Gage, toward the close of 1772, to vacate the territory; for it had been temporarily set aside by the Proclamation of 1763 as a hunting ground for the Indians. It seemed the settlement would disappear, and the valley of the Wabash revert entirely to its ancient savagery. The fur trade became more and more lawless and unprofitable. Fortunately the order of General Gage was not approved by the king and the inhabitants were not molested.
By the Quebec Act Vincennes came under the jurisdic- tion of the commander of Detroit. Accordingly, early in 1777-there seemed no great hurry-Lieutenant Governor Abbott was sent by Governor Hamilton from Detroit to re- build the stockades on the Wabash, and organize a band of French chasseurs to attack the back settlements of Vir- ginia. Abbott found large numbers of Indians, whom he encouraged in their murderous raids on the western fron- tier; but the French had no stomachs to join England against the Americans. Abbott built a stockade fort at Vincennes and mounted some cannons, sent over by Roche- blave from Fort Gage, formerly Chartres, at Kaskaskia. He remained and governed the people till January 30, 1778,
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when he returned to Canada, leaving Vincennes to fall help- lessly into the hands of Virginia.
The only business of the country worth mentioning was the fur trade. Under the provisions of the Proclamation of 1763 only English traders were allowed in the field. Each trader was required to have a license from a colonial governor. A superintendent of Indian affairs for the coun- try north of the Ohio had charge. The commissary at each post was a petty justice with jurisdiction over the petty quarrels arising among the traders. Effort was made to center the trade as much as possible around the garrison post. At each post was a commissary, an interpreter, and a smith. The commissary and superintendent had power to establish a uniform price for all goods used in the trade. For all their plans and pains the fur trade was a lawless business engaged in by the English, French and Spanish, with and without license. Liquor was carried into the western forests by every avenue. Indians were made drunk, maltreated and left to take vengeance on helpless pioneer families.20
20 Carter, The Illinois Country, ch. V.
CHAPTER III
THE CONQUEST BY VIRGINIA 1778-1779
§ 11 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION AND THE INDIANS
SCARCELY had the American Revolution broken out when the English began to utilize the warlike energy of the Indians against their rebellious colonists. King George had in 1763 by a royal proclamation set aside temporarily the vast valleys west of the mountains as a hunting ground for his red children. He had ordered the colonists to stay on the eastern side of the mountains. But as soon as the French and Indian war had ended, bands of settlers began to locate in the valleys of the westward-flowing rivers. In a vain attempt to stay this tide of migration the Indians had sustained the crushing defeat at Point Pleasant, Vir- ginia, 1774, and the loss in that battle of some of their bravest chiefs.
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