USA > Indiana > Historic Indiana : being chapters in the story of the Hoosier state from the romantic period of foreign exploration and dominion through pioneer days, stirring war times, and periods of peaceful progress, to the present time > Part 9
USA > Indiana > Historic Indiana : being chapters in the story of the Hoosier state from the romantic period of foreign exploration and dominion through pioneer days, stirring war times, and periods of peaceful progress, to the present time, centennial ed. > Part 9
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His granddaughter, Mrs. Christian, says that the Indians seemed to retain an affection for her grand- father, but hated his second wife who was a white woman.
The Indians were always fond of making grave declarations in the councils, and many of the set specches were incorporated in and could be unearthed from the commissioner's reports to the government, when treaties were being arranged. None of these orations are more familiar, to those who declaimed it when school children fifty years ago, than the stirring address of Logan, the Shawnee chief, which was translated by General Gibson.
"I appeal to any white man to say, if he ever entered Logan's cabin hungry, and he gave him not meat; if he ever came cold and naked, and he clothed him not. During
1 "Reminiscences of Sarah C. Christian " in Indiana Magazine of History, vol. iii., No. 2, page 87.
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the course of the last long bloody war, Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my love for the whites that my countrymen pointed as they passed, and said, 'Logan is the friend of the white men.' I had even thought to have lived with you, but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, the last spring, in cold blood and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of Logan, not even sparing my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge. I have sought it; I have killed many; I have fully glutted my vengeance; for my country, I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not harbor a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one." 1
Tecumseh, who came to be the best known chief in the Northwest Territory, was not only a leader of shrewdness and intelligence but his powers of oratory were so great that he fascinated even groups of savages that listened to his eloquent speeches, and other chiefs were wont to shield their tribes from his influence.
The effect on the natives of contact with the white race was flattering to neither. The historians of the early periods of American history have all testified to the disastrous results from the sale of firearms and liquor, and drink is still the worst enemy of the remaining tribes on the reservations. Of the aborigines in Indiana Territory, its historian, Mr. Dunn, says: "It does not appear that the French civilization had any material effect on the manners and customs of the Indians in general. Some of them were converted to Catholicism, a few undertook something like an agricultural life; as a rule these advances were merely
Dillon, J. B., Hist. of Indiana, page 97. Indianapolis, 1859.
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grafted on the savagery which still remained."1 The Reverend Isaac McCoy, a Baptist missionary, who, with his faithful wife, labored with the Potta- wattomies, the Miamis, and Kickapoos for years and taught them agriculture and instructed their children, in his last days sighed over their inability to grasp the truths-"How few of the Pottawattomie tribes have reached the abode of the blessed." In one respect, at least, they were infinitely worse off than they were before the white man came. They acquired the ap- petite for rum, to satisfy which they were ready and willing to sacrifice anything they possessed. No tribe escaped this curse. The Indians themselves, in their sober moments, lamented their weakness, but there was no cessation of debauchery. In 1805, when Governor Harrison was urging the Territorial Legislature to adopt some measure to prevent this drunkenness, he said:
"You are witnesses to the abuses; you have seen our towns crowded with furious and drunken savages; our streets flowing with their blood; their arms and clothing bartered for the liquor that destroys them; and their miserable women and children enduring all of the ex- tremities of cold and hunger. So destructive has the progress of intemperance been among them, that whole villages have been swept away. A miserable remnant is all that remains to mark the names and situation of many numerous and warlike tribes. In the energetic language of one of their orators, it is a dreadful conflagration, which spreads misery and desolation through the country and threatens the annihilation of the whole race." 2
Contemplate this picture drawn by Governor Denonville in 1690:
1 Dunn, J. P., Hist. of Indiana, page 122. Boston, 1888.
2 Burr, S. J., Life and Times of Wm. H. Harrison, page 86. N. Y. and Phil., 1840.
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"I have witnessed the evils caused by liquor among the Indians. It is the horror of horrors. There is no crime nor infamy that they do not perpetrate in their excesses. A mother throws her child into the fire; noses are bitten off. It is another hell among them during their orgies, which must be seen to be credited. There is no artifice that they will not have recourse to, to obtain the means of intoxication." 1
Notwithstanding all the terrors and sorrows it brought to the settlers, the people who trafficked in liquor still sold it to the natives just as they do to our own people in the present day. Many Indians would get drunk to incite themselves to fresh atrocities on those they hated. They would sell anything they possessed to obtain "fire-water." Said a Shawnee chief in 1732: "The Delaware Indians wanted to drink the land away"; whereupon we told them, "Since some of you are gone to Ohio, we will go there also, we hope you will not drink that away too." But they did drink much of Ohio away and many other lands. Besides their passion for liquor the Indians of Territorial Indiana were very fond of games of chance and there were many forms of gambling in vogue among the various tribes. The game of "Moccasin and Bullet" as played by those inveterate gamblers, the Delawares, the Miamis, and the Pottawattomies, is thus described by Mr. Robert Duncan in his memoirs. He well recollected frequently seeing them playing the game, which was played in this wise: The profes- sional gambler would spread upon a smooth level grass plot a large, well-dressed deerskin, upon which he would place in a semicircular form, within convenient
1 "N. Y. Col. Doc.," vol. ix., quoted on page 123, Dunn's Indiana. Boston, 1888.
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reach of the player, a half-dozen newly made moccasins. The game consisted in the use of a large-sized bullet held in his hands, and shown to those looking on and desiring to take part in the game, and then in a hurried and very dextrous manner, placing his hand under each moccasin, leaving the bullet under one of them. Betting was then made as to which one of the moccasins the bullet was under. As the manner of shuffling the hands under each moccasin was done so rapidly and skilfully that it was impossible for the bystanders to see under which the bullet was left, it will be seen that the chances were largely in favor of the gambler.
The names of some of the Indians of this time we learn from their signatures on old land sales. Twenty Canoes, Full Moon, Dogs 'Round the Fire, Dancing Feather, Corn Planter, Loaded Man, and Thrown in the Water, were among those on record, as ceding their titles to the invading settlers.
A detailed history of the Indian wars in Indiana Territory would be wearisome. It was an intermin- able maze of attacks by the natives, counter-attacks by the whites, in a few months, fresh reprisals, and then revenge taken on some other settlement. Often there were raids made on some innocent neighborhood for an injustice done to Indians miles away. Then the militia would be ordered out and the whole border "checkered" by the troops, in search of marauders. When it is remembered that over forty different treaties, in regard to the lands alone, not to mention peace pipes that were smoked pledging temporary peace, were made with the different tribes between 1796 and 1840, it is easy to imagine the constant conflict during that whole period. If Canada had been secured when the Independence of the United
B
The Site of Tippecanoe Battle Ground at the Present Time.
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States was declared, the situation would have been greatly bettered. For many of the savage raids in the Northwest were incited by the British who kept the Indians constantly stirred up against the colonists. As an example, the tribes knew there was to be fighting between the two nations, long before the war was declared in 1812. British commanders had summoned the chiefs to Canada, and British agents went all over the West, distributing presents to the tribes and stirring up the bloodthirsty natives against the Amer- icans. Tecumseh, the Shawnee chief, died in the Brit- ish service, and his brother, " The Prophet," received a pension from the British Government until his death in 1834. Nor were the French guiltless for they had always incited the savages against the English settlers.
There was continued fighting in scattered localities throughout the Territory during the whole of the disturbance from 1808 to 1815, occasioning much misery and suffering, but wearisome to recall in detail. The battle of Tippecanoe was one of the best remem- bered of those Indiana conflicts. It was fought by General Harrison and his troops against the Prophet Elkswatawa (Loud Voice) who was a brother of the Shawnee chief Tecumseh and Kanskaka, triplets born at one birth. Tecumseh was a man of vast influence with all of the Miami Confederation. Tecumseh, who was an Indian of talent, skill, and bravery, and became one of the most celebrated aborigines on the conti- nent, came down the Wabash attended by a large ret- inue of four hundred braves, fully armed, and appearing before Governor William Henry Harrison in August, 1810, made a long speech against allotting particular tracts of land to each tribe, and against the late pur- chase of lands by the white people.
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" I am a warrior," said he, "I am the head of them all, and all the warriors will meet together in two or three moons from this, then will I call for those chiefs who sold you the land and shall know what to do with them. I will take no presents from you. By taking goods from you, you will hereafter say that with them you purchased another piece of land." 1
Tecumseh had no claim or title to any of the lands which had been sold by the six tribes and their own chiefs. For ten days the haughty Shawnee chief and Governor Harrison held daily councils,-the Governor trying to reason and explain the new conditions to the aboriginal mind. Events that followed showed that the lengthy pow-wow, and all subsequent warn- ings, accomplished nothing. At the close of the visit Harrison told Tecumseh that his claims and preten- sions would not be acknowledged by the President of the United States. "Well," said the astute Indian, by his interpreter, "as the Great Chief is to determine the matter, I hope the Great Spirit will put sense enough in his head to induce him to direct you to give up this land. It is true, he is far off and will not be injured by this war; he may sit still and drink his wine while you and I fight it out."2 After this, the chief and twenty followers, who probably had in- tended to make an attack on Vincennes at this time, but were overawed by the presence of the United States troops, passed on down the river to the South to enlist more tribes in a great revolt they had planned embracing the whole territory from the Lakes to the Gulf. While he was gone on this mission, his brother, the Prophet, stirred up the natives and continued the
1 Dillon, John B., Hist. of Ind., page 444. Indianapolis, 1859. 2 Ibid.
Prophet's Rock. The Prophet stood on the high ground and chanted war songs in a loud voice and assured his followers of victory.
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agitation in the Territory. Two months afterward the Governor, in his message to the Territorial Legis- lature warned them of the ominous clouds hovering over the Wabash; told them of the failure to induce the natives to take up agriculture, as game disappeared, and settle down on lands of their own.
"As long as a deer is to be found in these forests they will continue to hunt. Are then these extinguishments of native titles which are at once so beneficial to the Indian, the territory, and the United States to be suspended on account of the intrigues of these few individual leaders? Is one of the fairest portions of the Globe to remain in a state of nature, the haunt of wretched savages, when it seems destined by the Creator to give support to a large population? " 1
Until the present moment these are the arguments of the opposing civilizations. Four hundred years of contact since the discovery have not changed the point of view of either race. Governor Harrison, ever wise in his dealings with the natives, endeavored to break up the confederacy of the Indians at the Prophet's town. He sent them the following letter addressed to the Prophet and his brother:
"Brothers, listen to me. This is the third year that all the white people in this country have been alarmed at your proceedings. You invite all the tribes of the North and West of you to join against us. You shall not sur- prise us as you expect to do. As a friend, I advise you to consider well of it. Brothers, do you really think that the handful of men you have about you are able to con- tend with the seventeen fires (U. S.) or even that the whole of the tribes united could contend against the
1 Burr, S. J., Life of Wm. Henry Harrison, page 127. N. Y. and Phil., 1840.
.
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Kentucky fire alone? Brothers, I am myself of the Long Knife fire; as soon as they hear my voice, you will see them pouring forth their swarms of hunting-shirt men, as numerous as the mosquitoes on the shores of the Wabash. Brothers, take care of their stings. It is not our wish to hurt you. With regard to the lands, it is in the hands of the President; if you wish to go and see him, I will supply you with the means." 1
For months these negotiations were kept up, the Indians denying the threatened uprising and promising that they would send messengers among the tribes to prevent depredations. At the same time the Prophet was drawing the natives to his standard. In the autumn the signs grew ominous and Governor Har- rison having lost hopes of a peaceful solution of dif- ficulties determined upon an aggressive policy. He, with a force of troops, marched northward from Vincennes toward the Prophet's town to settle the question before winter set in, and ere Tecumseh should return from the South. The malign influence of the Prophet had reached all the tribes. In a speech to his followers, the Prophet had declared that his toma- hawk was up against the whites, that nothing would induce him to take it down, unless the wrongs of the Indians about their lands were redressed. When Governor Harrison and his troops drew near the Indian forces the Prophet sent out a chief to call them to halt. Governor Harrison explained that he had no intention of attacking him, until he dis- covered that they would not comply with his demands. "At present my object is to find a good piece of ground to encamp on, where we can get wood and
1 Burr, S. J., Life of Wm. Henry Harrison, page 127. N. Y. and Phil., 1840.
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water."1 The chief pointed out an oak grove which has since become so famous. It was on a table-land of the lower ground, which the troops settled on, and mutual promises were made for a suspension of hostilities until there was an interview on the following day, when General Harrison hoped to make peace settle- ments. Nevertheless, the army encamped in battle array and slept on their arms, for Governor Harrison was an old Indian fighter and knew their ways. He was none too wary. Before sunrise the Indians at- tacked so suddenly that they were in the camp before many of the soldiers could get out of their tents, and the battle of November 7, 1811, was on. The Prophet stood on high ground and chanted war songs in a loud voice and assured his followers of victory. When they were vanquished and the day was lost, they lost faith in the Prophet, deserted his standard, and he slipped away from the vengeance of the whites and joined the Wyandots.
It was on the return march from this battle of Tip- pecanoe that the soldiers from Kentucky gathered the seed of the blue grass which they found growing in Indiana, and carried it home with them thinking it was a superior variety, because it satisfied the hunger of their horses so that they would not eat their corn. It flourished so well on the limestone soil of central Kentucky that it made that State famous. Among the immediate results of the battle of Tippecanoe were the signal destruction of the Prophet's influence over the tribes, their dispersion from their settlements on that river, the complete defeat of chief Tecumseh's designs for a general uprising of all the allied tribes,
1 Burr, S. J., Life of Wm. Henry, Harrison, page 142. N. Y. and Phil., 1840.
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and a little relief to the frontier from the incursions of the savages.
An appreciation of William Henry Harrison's official services to Indiana Territory belongs in its history. He understood how to deal with the Indians and by his victories in the border forays at Tippecanoe, at Fort Meigs, and jointly with Lieutenant Perry in making peace, he made it possible for the settlements throughout the whole Ohio Valley to enjoy a measure of safety. It is vastly to his honor that in the hotly contested campaign of 1840, when he was the Presi- dential candidate, it was never intimated that any taint of misapplied funds, or dishonest dealings could be attached to his administration, either as a com- missioner, a military officer, or as an Executive. His zeal in the service and fidelity to the Territory made for General Harrison a most honorable record.
It is always to be remembered, in the annals of these Territorial days in Indiana, that the relief accomplished by any battle was temporary, that there would often be an outbreak in some other section in a short time. For example, a distressing massacre occurred in the following year, within the present limits of Scott County. In 1812, there was a place that was called the Pigeon Roost settlement. It consisted of a few families, isolated from other settlements, by a distance of four or five miles. During the afternoon of the third of September two of the men, who were out hunting for "bee trees" in the forest, about two miles from home, were surprised and killed by a party of Indians, consisting of ten or twelve warriors, mostly Shawnces, who afterwards attacked the settlement and in an hour, about sunset, killed one man, five women, and sixteen children, after a determined defence on
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the part of the few settlers. As soon as it grew dark two men, one woman, and five children eluded the savages, struck out through the woods, and by day- light reached the home of a neighbor six miles distant. The militia went to the scene of the disaster only to find the houses a smoking ruin and the victims of the savage warfare burned in their cabins. They buried the murdered persons in one grave on the spot where they died, and which they had suffered so much to attain.
The same month of the disaster of the "Pigeon Roost" settlement, Fort Wayne, which was more than a hundred miles away, was surrounded and held until the troops from far-off Ohio and Kentucky relieved it by dispersing the savages. Again, two months later, troops had to be sent to the Missis- sinewa River, to destroy the Miami villages and dis- perse those warlike bands. Only a few of the many conflicts between the natives and the white settlers can be recounted here. Indeed the alarms were so frequent that in 1812 the Territorial Legislature did not convene in regular session because so many of the members of that body were on military duty. Mr. Dillon says that twenty battle-fields and the ashes of fifty Indian towns are among the memorials of that triumph of civilized man in this region. The deaths and desolate homes of the white people have never been fully enumerated. Their graves are un- marked. Near their forest homes many times the ashes of both were found together and told the tale. The whole situation was deplorable, and continued so for years, but enough has been recounted for later generations to appreciate the conditions of living in Indiana when it was a Territory. Many interesting
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details of the encounters with the Indians in this particular State may be found in Colonel Cockrum's Pioncer History of Indiana. Throughout the con- tinent the white man was a usurper from the Indian's standpoint, whether the lands were purchased or appropriated. It was their hunting ground they wanted preserved. It has been said that the English race of settlers extinguished the Indian title by the simple expedient of extinguishing the Indian. All of the European races who came in must ever stand accused of many violations of faith with the natives, and of horrible retaliations for all the savage atrocities committed by the red man.
Unless the whole continent was to be retained as a vast hunting ground, and forever closed to the over- crowded population of the rest of the world, border war was inevitable. The tribes had always battled among themselves for the same reason, and constantly depleted their own race in appalling conflicts for their " game preserves." If the white race finally conquered, it was not an easy victory, as we have seen.
In Indiana Territory the Indians resisted the advance inch by inch. Pleadings, protestations, strategy, cun- ning, cruelty, and massacre were tried to maintain their sway in the land. It is needless now to deplore or recriminate for the part our nation played in the Indian question. Like negro slavery, it was instituted by the different European nations who started the settlement of this continent before there was any American government. English, Spanish, French, and Dutch trafficked in slaves, and pushed the Indians back long before the Republic existed. We may regret it, deplore it, and be thankful that slavery finally was abolished; but the inception of both Indian
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and negro injustice was European, and the American nation inherited the two problems with the domain. We must shoulder our own share of the responsibility for mistakes in trying to adjust the difficult relations between the different civilizations, but Europe must share with us the beginning of sorrows. Neither of the two dark races has been able to develop suf- ficiently to " catch step" with the descendants of the Europeans. An ironical form of the Indian's retali- ation for the loss of domain might be recognized in the money loss to the world by his introduction of the use of tobacco. Possibly the living descendants of the departed braves could spend the rest of their days in computing the cost, to the nations, of the wealth "gone up in smoke" from the use of the weed made known to the white man on the banks of the James. It might be a grim satisfaction to Big Chief, fretting on Western "farms in severalty," to reflect that, at an ever-increasing ratio, his mild poison is absorbing the revenues of the European races; that the value of his lost lands will be a mere bagatelle, compared with the cost of the tobacco which is being consumed at the rate of four hundred million dollars a year, within that same domain.
Notwithstanding the continued Indian troubles, the Northwest Territory increased in population and in material wealth. After the Revolutionary War, in 1785 the disbanded soldiers began drifting westward in large numbers. After Virginia and the other Atlantic colonies had ceded their individual claims to the Federal Government, Congress completed the organi- zation of the lands north of the Ohio and east of the Alleghanies into the tract known officially as the Northwest Territory, and adopted the famous
9
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"Ordinance of 1787 " for its government. In the year 1800, with a population of 4700 white people, an independent territory, extending to the Mississippi River, and called Indiana, was organized with William Henry Harrison as Governor. Four years later it was granted a Representative in Congress. In 1808, when the population had increased to 17,000, the part east of the Wabash River was divided from Illinois. In 1816, Indiana was admitted into the Union. "She has come in free," was the glad word carried from hamlet to village. This meant that slavery existed on this soil, in the early history of Indiana. Slaves were brought with the settlers from the South, others were sold "up the river" by the Spanish; and Louis of France, by a royal ordinance in 1721, had authorized the importation of negro slaves into his territory, and slaves were still held by Americans who had come from the South. When the United States secured control of the territory the struggle began between those who wished slavery continued within its borders, and those who strenuously opposed it. Mr. J. P. Dunn, in his interesting and exhaustive history of Indiana as a Territory, and its redemption from sla- very, covers every phase of the discussion the reader may wish to investigate. He gives due weight to the historical fact that the local slavery question was the paramount political influence in Indiana up to the time of the organization of the State government; and he brings clearly to light the causes which produced the pro-slavery feeling, and the difficulties which the anti-slavery sentiment was obliged to overcome. Here it will suffice to recall that, as the French settlers already had slaves under the crown, which they brought up the river upon their return from the trading trips
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