USA > Indiana > Allen County > History of Allen County, Indiana, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 10
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*Iisl. Fort Wayne, 67-69.
#Parkman.
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HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY, INDIANA.
once complied with, their lives would he spared ; hut, refusing, they should ' all be killed without merey.'
" The aspect before them was now sadly euharrassing. Withont a com- mander, without hope, aud full of fear, to hesitate seemed only to wake death the more certaiu, and the garrison gate soon swing back on its hinges. The surrender was complete, and the English role at this point, and for a time, at least, hnd ceused to exercise its power."*
The Mimuis, at this time, were deeply embroiled in the great conspiracy, were the immediate agents, with the Pottawatomies and Ojihwas residing in the vicinity, and chiefly instrumental in the transactions resulting in the final drama to which attention has just heen directed.
In the latter part of September, 1764, when it had bee nue apparent that the English garrison at Detroit was likely to receive large re-inforeements, and the allies of the great conspirator began gradually to weaken in their adherence to his cause and to make overtures for peace, on the ground, perhaps, that a treaty of peace had been then recently established between the French and English Kiugs, and that they were not likely to receive further aid from their French Father, Pontiac, with a umuber of his principal chiefs, "repaired to the river Manmee, with the design of stirring np the Indians in that quarter, and renew- ing hostilities in the spring." The sneceeding winter, however, proved a severe one, and much suffering among the Indians was the consequence. In addition to this, also, the siege had exhausted their ammunition; the fur trade had heen interfered with, or the sources of profit from it had heen hroken up. They were greatly in want. In the mean time, the opportunity of Sir Williamu Johnson, in the Indian Department of the English Provincial Government, to utilize his Indian policy, had come, and accordingly he had despatched messengers to many of the tribes, inviting them to a great Peace Council at Niagara, which was producing the desired effect in allaying their hostile feelings.
All these things had a ten- deney to relax the sinews of war on the part of Pontiae's confederates.
At this time, sullen and intraetahle, Pontiae, and such of his followers as still adhered to him, had left Detroit and taken up their ahode for the time heing on the Maumee, a few miles from Fort Wayne.
Not long after this, Capt. Morris and a number of Canadians had started on a mission of penee to the Illinois Indians. Ascending the Maumee in a canoe, he was approaching the encampment of Pontiac, when he was met hy a party of ahout two hundred Indians, n part of Pontiac's hand, who treated him with great violence, while the Canadians were treated respectfully. After many demonstra- tions of hostile intentions, however, he was permitted to depart. Pulling his way up the river, he arrived with his party on the seventh day after their departure, and made a landing within sight of Fort Miami [ Ke-ki-ong-a], which, from the time of its capture the year previous, had been without a garrison. Ou the oppo- site side of the river, covered hy an intervening strip of woods, were the Miami villages. Here he met with further opposition from the Miamis, who gave him a hostile reception, with the intention of completing their work by hurning him at the stake, from the exceution of which purpose they were only prevented hy the interposition of some of the chiefs less hostile than the rest. Here, from the continued manifestations of a determination on the part of the Kiekapoos and Shawanoes and many of the Miamis, he was dissnaded from proceeding on his mission to the Illinois. With this conclusion he returned by the same route to Detroit, reaching there September 17.
In the summer and fall of 1765, in executing the mission proposed hy Sir William Johnson to induce a pacification of the hostile trihes, George Croyhan visited various points on the Wahash. On the 1st of August, as shown hy bis journal, he approached the village of the Miamis, in reference to which he makes the following entry : " The Twigtwee ( Twightwee) village is situated on both sides of a river ealled St. Joseph. This river, where it falls into the Miami ( Manmee) River, ahout a quarter of a mile from this place, is one hundred yards wide, on the east side of which stands a stockade fort, somewhat ruinous." This is the English Fort ( Miami) so called, hetter known here, perhaps, as Holmes' Fort, from its having heen under his command at the time of his assassination, two years before-in contradistinction to the French Fort on the south side of the St. Mary's, which, in 1697, and probably hefore, as it was in 1704 and 1705, was commanded hy Sieur de Vinsienne, und later hy Sieur Dubuisson. Then he made the following additional entry concerning this place.
" The Indian village consisted of ahout forty or fifty eahins, hesides nine or ten French houses, a runaway colony from Detroit, during the late Indian war ; they were concerned in it, and being afraid of punishment, came to this point, where ever since they have spirited up the Indians against the En- glish. *
* The country is pleasant, the soil is rich and well- * watered. After several conferences with these Indians, and their delivering me up all the English prisoners they had, on the 6th of August we set out for Detroit. down the Miamis River in a canoe."
In the spring of 1766, Pontiac, true to his promise, left his eneampment on the Maumee. for Oswego, " accompanied hy his chiefs and an Englishman named Crawford, a man of vigor and resolution, who had been appointed by the Super- intendent to the troublesome office of attending the Indian deputation and sup- plying their wants." Reaching Oswego, where the great council was held, he made his great peace speech, and " sealed his submission to the English by acknowledging allegiance to themu forever. When the treaty was concluded, loaded with the presents received, he is said to have returned again to the Mau- mce, where he spent the winter of 1766-67 living " in the forest with his wives and children. and hunting like an ordinary warrior."
Toward the close of the Revolutionary war, in the month of January, 1778, instructions were issued by Patrick Henry, Governor of Virginia, to Lieut. Col. George Rogers Clarke, of Albemarle County, " to raise, with all convenient speed, seveu compames of soldiers, to consist of fifty men each, officered in the usual
manner, and armed most properly for the enterprise, and with that foree to attack the British fort at Ka-kaskia," and for the subjugation of the allied British and Indians on the Wahash, if need he, and proteet the frontier settlements from their ravages.
Having, in pursuance of orders, attneked und reduced the British fort at Kaskaskia and appointed a commandant over it, he proceeded to Post Vincennes, which surrendered to him on the 25th of Fehruary, 1779. This put him in pos- session of all the lower portion of the West until the elose of the Revolution. The Upper Wahash, in the vicinity of the lakes, was still in the hands of the British. It was his purpose to have visited and taken foreihle possession of these points also, hut his attention, for the time heing, was directed to other fields.
The eapture of the British post at this place, however, was an enterprise contemplated hy another than Gen. Clarke. Late in the year 1780, a Frenchman at Kaskaskia, uamed La Balme, conceived the idea of its reduction and formed a plan for that purpose. Accordingly, he induced a number of persons at Kas- kaskia, and others at Vincennes, to join him in the expedition. The result was not what had heen anticipated, hut, on the contrary, was so great a disaster that few, if any, were left to tell the melancholy story. No official account of it has ever appeared, yet, from a somewhat laborious collection of facts and ineidents and unconnected details, with, perehanee, some plausible traditions, arranged by Mr. Charles B. Lasselle, of Logansport, Ind., than whom, perhaps, there is no one more familiar with the data hearing upon the ease, the following hrief statement is taken, the most acenrate at this time attainable.
Speaking of Ke-ki-ong-a, Mr. Lasselle, in his account, says : " This village was situated on the banks of the St. Joseph River, eouimeueing ahout a quarter of a mile ahove its coufluence with the St. Mary's, which forms the Miami ( Maumee), and was near the present eity of Fort Wayne. It had heen a prinei- pal town of the Miami Indians, for at least sixty years before the Revolution, and had heen occupied by the French before the fall of Canada, who had ereeted a fort at the confluence of the rivers, on the eastern side of the St. Joseph's. At the period of the Revolution, it had become a place of much importanee-in a trading and military point of view, and, as such, ranked in the Northwest next to Detroit and Vineennes. It was, accordingly, occupied as a post or scat for an official for Indian affairs hy the British in the beginning of the war. Col. Clarke, on the capture of Vincennes, had meditated an expedition against this place, as well as against Detroit ; aud though he seems uever to have abandoned the idea, yet be could not succeed in his arrangements to attempt its execution. But while the subject was still fresh in the mind of Clarke and the inhabitants of the lower Wahash, another individual made his appearance to undertake what even the daring Clarke, with greater resources, did not deem prudent to venture upon. This was La Balme. But of him and his expeditiou, it may be here stated, very little information, of an entirely authentie shape, is within our reach. Excepting ahout a dozen lines in Mr. Dillon's ' Historical Notes,' no published account what- ever of this expedition has ever appeared. Whatever may he given in this hricf sketch, has been obtained mostly from some of those who were, in part, eye- witnesses to the events, and from tradition as handed down by the old inhabitants. La Balme was a native of France, and had come to this country as some kind of an officer, with the French troops under La Fayette, in 1779. We are not apprised whether he came to the West on his own responsibility, or whether he was directed by some authority ; but we find him, in the summer of 1780, iu Kaskaskia, raising volunteers to form an expedition against the post of Kekionga. with the ulterior view, in case of success, of extending his operations against the fort and town of Detroit. At Kaskaskia, he succeeded in obtaining only between twenty and thirty men. With these he proceeded to Vincennes, where he opened a recruiting establishment for the purpose of raising the number necessary for his object. But he does not seem to have met here with the favor and encourage- ment of the principal inhabitants; or to have had much success in his establish- ment. His expedition was looked upon as one of doubtful propriety, hoth as to its means and ohjeets, and it met with the encouragement, generally, of only the less considerate. Indeed, from the fragments of an old song,* as sung at the time hy the maidens of Vincennes, on the subject of La Balme and his expedition, preserved hy the writer, it would seem that plunder and fame were as much its objeets as of conquest for the general good. Injustice may have been done him in this respect ; hut it is quite certain, from all accounts, that though a generous and gallant man, well calculated to he of service in his proper sphere, yet he was too reckless and inconsiderate to lead such an expedition. How long he remained at Vincennes, we have not now, perhaps, any means of knowing. But some time in the full of that year, 1780, with, as is supposed, hetween fifty and sixty men, he proceeded up the Wahash on his adventure.
He conducted his march with such caution and celerity that he appeared at the village (here) hefore even the watchful inhabitants had apprehended his approach. The sudden appearance of a foe. unknown as to character, numbers and designs, threw them into the greatest alarm, and they fled on all sides. La Balme took possession of the place without resistance. It was, probably, his intention, in imitation of Clarke's capture of Kaskaskia, to take the village and its inhabitants by surprise, and then, hy nets and professions of kindness and friendship, to win them over to the American enuse; hut the inhabitants, includ- ing some six or eight French traders, totally elnded his grasp. His occupation of the village was not of long duration. After remaining a short time, and making plunder of the goods of some of the French traders and Indians, he retired to near the Aboite Creekt and eneamped. The Indians having soon aseertained the number and character of La Balme's forces, and learning that they were French- men, Were not disposed, at first, to avenge the nttack. But of the traders living there (here), there were two, named Beauhient and In Fontaine, || who, nettled
* The following is the beginning : " Notre bon cure, plus brave Devaux, A pris notre village sans tamhonr dmnjenu."
t Nror where the W. x Ente Conal crosses Dennbien married the chiefess, mother of Chief Richardvillo. Father of Chief La Foutuine,
* Jlan! Fort Wayne, p. 71.
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HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY, INDIANA.
and injured by the invasion and plunder of the place, were not disposed to let the invaders off without a blow. These men having incited the Indians to follow and attack La Balme, they soon ralhed their warriors of the village and vicinity under the lead of their war chief, the Little Turtle, and, falling upon them in the night time, massacred the entire party. Not one is said to bave survived to relate the sad story of the expedition. Such is a brief and imperfeet account of La Balme's expedition, of which so little is known."
Pursuant to the instructions received by Gov. St. Clair for the protection of the frontier settlements in the territory northwest of the Ohio, and at the same time avoid war with the Wabash Indians " by all means consistently with the security of troops and the national dignity," without which, "in the exercise of the present indiscriminate hostilities. it " would be " extremely difficult, if not impossible, to say that a war without further measures would be just on the part of the United States. But if, after manifesting clearly to the Indians the dispo- sition of the General Government for the preservation of peace and the extension of just protection to the said Indians, they should continue their incursions, the United States will be constrained to punish them with severity." " Maj. Hamtramck, then commanding at Post Vincennes, on the 15tb of April, 1790, dispatched Antoine Gamelin from that point with the speeches of St. Clair to the tribes of the Wabash. Reaching the Indian settlements, Mr. Gamelin delivered the speeches at all the villages bordering tbis stream, and enme as far eastward as the Miami village, opposite the present site of Fort Wayne.“
Having proceeded as far as this point, he makes the following statement of his proceedings : "The 23d of April I arrived at the Miami town. The next day I got this Miami nation, the Shawanoes and Delawares, all assembled. I gave to cach nation two branches of wampum, and began the speeches, before the French and English traders, being invited by tbe chiefs to be present, having | of settlers on the Northwestern frontier.
told themu myself I would be glad to have them present, having nothing to say against anybody. After the speech. I showed them the treaty concluded at Muskingum [Fort Harmar] between His Excellency, Gov. St. Clair, and sundry nations, which displeased them. I told them the purpose of this present time was not to submit them to any condition, but to offer them the peace, which made disappear their displeasure. The great chief told me that he was pleased with the speech ; that he would soon give me an answer. In a private discourse with the great chief, he told me not to mind what the Shawanoes would tell me, having a bad heart, and being the perturbators of all the nations. He said the Miamis had a bad name on account of the mischief done on the river Ohio; but he told que it was not occasioned hy his young men, but by the Shawanocs, his young men going out only for a hunt "
Subsequently conferences were held with Blue Jacket, a chief warrior of the Shawanoes ; with several Pottawatomies; with Le Gris, of the Miamis, and with the representatives of several other tribes, to whom the speeches were pre- sented and who gave their views and the sentiments of their respective tribes concerning the questions presented for their consideration. They generally expressed satisfaction as individuals, hut preferred to await further deliberation on the part of their people. Few were ready to give a definite answer until the matter had been presented to ull the confederates and their unanimous consent obtained. On the 29tb of April, he had a general conference with several of these tribes ; the result was not materially different. Immediately thereafter he left Kc-ki-ong-a and started on his return trip. All these preliminary steps were taken to give the several Indian trihes on the Wabash and adjacent thereto, an opportunity to express themselves on the questions submitted and have grievances redressed if possible, as a means of preserving the peace before coercive measures were adopted, on the part of the United States, to seeure and maintain the riglits
SEMI-SAVAGE PERIOD.
CHAPTER I.
Washington's Policy Toward the Wabash Indians-Harmar's Expedition-His Defeat-Details of the . Engagement.
As a natural sequence of the hostile attitude maintained by the leading spirits of the Indian tribes of the Northwest during the few years anterior to 1790, just before and immediately succeeding the organization of the " Territory Northwest of the Ohio," the Government of the United States, having become satisbed of the inefficiency of pacific measures in securing safety and pcace to her border settlements, began to put in action the military power of the nation, as the best means of enforcing obedience to the laws of justice and bumanity. Accordingly, President Washington, in his message to Congress, on the Stli of January, 1790, directed the attention of that body to the failure of the pacific measures before adopted "with regard to certain hostile tribes of Indians" who were committing depredations against the inhabitants of the Sontbern and West- ern frontiers, and suggested " that we ought to be prepared to afford protection to those parts of the Union, and, if necessary, to punish aggressors."
Again, in his second annual message, on the 8th of December of the same year, he submits the following :
" It has been heretofore known to Congress that frequent incursions have been made on our settlements by certain banditti of Indians from the northwest side of the Ohio. These, with some of the tribes dwelling on and near the Wabash. have, of late, been particularly active in their depredations ; and, being emboldened by the impunity of their crimes, and aided by such parts of the neighboring tribes as could be seduced to join in their bostilities or afford them a retreat for their prisoners and plunder, have, instead of listening to the humane invitations and overtures made on the part of the United States, renewed their violences with fresh alacrity and greater effect. The lives of a number of valu- able citizens have thus heen sacrificed, and some of them under circumstances peculiarly shocking, while others have been carried into a deplorable captivity.
" These aggravated provocations rendered it essential to the safety of the Western settlements that the aggressors should be made sensible that the Govern- ment of the Union is not less capable of punishing their crimes than it is dis- posed to respect their rights and reward their attachments. As this object could not be cffected by defensive measures, it hecame necessary to put in force the act which empowers the President to call out the militia for the protection of the frontier. I have, accordingly, authorized an expedition in which the regular troops in that quarter are combined with such draughts of militia as were deemed sufficient. The event of the measure is yet unknown to me. The Secretary of War is directed to lay before you a statcuient of the information on which it is founded, as well as an estimate of the expense with which it will he attended."
Prior to the inauguration of the expedition against the Wabash Indians, Gen. Harmar had been operating with the troops at his disposal against the Indians on the Scioto River, with only partial success. Upon the return of his forces to Fort Washington, after consultation with Gov. St. Clair, au expedition was fitted out against the Maumee towns, of which he was placed in chief com- mand. Simultaneously with the formation of this expedition, a eall was issued by the Governor to the militia officers of the adjacent States of Western Penn- sylvania, Virginia and Kentucky, requesting the co-operation of the militia of those States with the regular troops sent out under the direction of the President. Since it had heen currently understood by the military authorities of the United States that the British Government was largely responsible for the Indian atrocities on the frontier, in order to prevent any misunderstanding of the purpose of the expedition on the part of the British, a letter, embodying the purposes contemplated, was issued from Fort Harmar on the 19th of September, 1790, and addressed to the British Commandant at Detroit. The following extract from that document fully expresses its import :
" I am courmanded by the President of the United States to give you the fullest assurances of the pacific disposition entertained toward Great Britain and all her possessions ; and to inform you explicitly that the expedition about to be undertaken is not intended against the post you have the bonor to command, nor any other placo at present in the possession of the troops of His Britannic Majesty ; but is on foot with the sole design of humbling and chastising some of the savage tribes whose depredations are becoming intolerable, and whose cruel- ties bave of late become an outrage, not on the people of America only, but on humanity ; which I now do in the most unequivocal manner. After this candid explanation, sir, there is every reason to expect, both from your personal charac- ter and from the regard you have for that of your nation, that those tribes will mect with neither countenance nor assistauce from any under your command, and that you will do what in your power lies to restrain the trading, from whose instigations, there is too good reason to believe, much of the injuries committed by the savages has proceeded."
The plan of the campaign contemplated that, of the militia, 300 were to rendezvous at Fort Steuhen (Jeffersonville), march thence to Fort Knox (Vin- cennes), and joining Maj. Hamtramck in an expedition up tbe Wabash from that point. Seven hundred, also, were to rendezvous at Fort Washington (Ciociu- nati), and 500 below Wheeling, to join the regulars in the expedition to the Maumee towns. The following was the make-up of the expedition as it was mustered into service :
"The Kentuckians composed three battalions, under the Majors Hall, McMullen and Bay, with Lieut. Col. Commandant Trotter at their head. The Pennsylvanians were formed into one battalion, under Lieut. Col. Trubley and Maj. Paul, the whole to be commanded by Col. John Hardin, subject to the orders of Gen. Harmar."
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HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY, INDIANA.
The necessary supplies having been forwarded. the regulars moved out and were " formed into two small battalions under the immediate command of Maj. Wyllys and Maj. Doughty, together with Capt. Ferguson's company of artillery and three pieces of ordnance." This occupied the 30th of September. On the 3d of October following, with Gen. Harmar at the head, the army was formed in the line of march, the order of encampment and battle, the details heing .explained to the subordinate officers. On the 4th, it began to move, and on the 5th, was joined by a re-enforcement of horsemen and mounted infantry from Ken- tucky. "The dragoons were formed into two troops ; the mounted riflemen made a company, and this squall hattalion of light troops were put under the command of Maj. Fontaine." The whole force, as thus constitu:ed, " consisted of three battalions of Kentucky militia, one battalion of Pennsylvania militia, one battalion of Kentucky mounted riflemen, amounting to eleven hundred and thirty-three men, and two battalions of regulars, amounting to three hundred and twenty men. The whole force of the expedition consisted, therefore, of fourteen bundred and fifty-three men."
Withont considering the measure of discipline applicable to this body of men, and the nature of their equipments, it would seem that the material of Gen. Harmar's command would constitute a most formidable military force, equal to almost any contingency in Indian warfare. The sequel shows, however, that there were not only incongruous elements, but a general want of the necessary implements of war, which detracted greatly from their prospective efficiency in the enemy's country. One of the chief difficulties in the way of success was the indisposition on the part of the militia to co-operate with the regular troops which, manifesting itself especially in the effort of the general officer to organize and discipline the forces under his command, proved most unsatisfactory, and operated seriously to promote inbariuony of action.
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