USA > Indiana > Johnson County > History of Johnston County, Indiana. From the earliest time to the present, with biographical sketches, notes, etc., together with a short history of the Northwest, the Indiana territory, and the state of Indiana > Part 3
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HISTORY OF INDIANA.
glory and delight,-war, not condueted as civilization, but war where individual skill, endurance, gailantry and cruelty were prime requisites. For such a purpose as revenge the Indian would make great sacrifices, and display a patience and perseverance truly heroic; but when the excitement was over, he sank back into a listless, un- occupied, well-nigh useless savage. During the intervals of his more exciting pursuits, the Indian employed his time in decorating his person with all the refinement of paint and feathers, and in the manufacture of his arms and of canoes. These were constructed of bark, and so light that they could easily be carried on the shoulder from stream to stream. His amusements were the war-danee, ath- letic games, the narration of his exploits, and listening to the ora- tory of the chiefs; but during long periods of such existence he remained in a state of torpor, gazing listlessly upon the trees of the forests and the clouds that sailed above them; and this vacancy imprinted an habitual gravity, and even melancholy, upon his gen- eral deportment.
The main labor and drudgery of Indian communities fell upon the women. The planting, tending and gathering of the crops, making mats and baskets, carrying burdens,-in fact, all things of the kind were performed by them, thus making their condition but little better than that of slaves. Marriage was merely a matter of bargain and sale, the husband giving presents to the father of the bride. In general they had but few children. They were sub- jected to many and severe attacks of sickness, and at times famine aud pestilence swept away whole tribes.
EXPLORATIONS BY THE WHITES.
EARLIEST EXPLORERS.
The State of Indiana is bounded on the east by the meridian line which forms also the western boundary of Ohio, extending due north from the mouth of the Great Miami river: on the south by the Ohio river from the mouth of the Great Miami to the mouth of the Wabash; on the west by a line drawn along the middle of the Wabash river from its mouth to a point where a due north line from the town of Vincennes would last touch the shore of said river, and thence directly north to Lake Michigan; and on the north by said lake and an east and west line ten miles north of the ex- treme south end of the lake, and extending to its intersection with the aforesaid meridian, the west boundary of Ohio. These bound- aries inelude an area of 33,809 square miles, lying between 37º 47' and 41° 50' north latitude, and between 7º 45' and 11º 1' west longitude from Washington.
After the discovery of America by Columbus in 1492, more tlian 150 years passed away before any portion of the territory now com- prised within the above limits was explored by Europeans. Colo- nies were established in Florida, Virginia and Nova Scotia by the principal rival governments of Europe, but not until about 1670-'2 did the first white travelers venture as far into the Northwest as Indiana or Lake Michigan. These explorers were Frenchmen by the names of Claude Allouez and Claude Dablon, who then visited what is now the eastern part of Wisconsin, the northeastern portion of Illinois and probably that portion of this State north of the Kan- kakee river. In the following year M. Joliet, an agent of the French Colonial government, and James Marquette, a good and simple-hearted missionary who had his station at Mackinaw, ex- plored the country about Green Bay, and along Fox and Wiscon- sin rivers as far westward as the Mississippi, the banks of which they reached June 17, 1673. They descended this river to about 33° 40', but returned by way of the Illinois river and the route they came in the Lake Region. At a village among the Illinois In- dians, Marquette and his small band of adventurers were received
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HISTORY OF INDIANA.
in a friendly manner and treated hospitably. They were made the honored guest at a great feast, where hominy, fish, dog meat and roast buffalo meat were spread before them in great abundance. In 1682 LaSalle explored the West, but it is not known that he entered the region now embraced within the State of Indiana. He took formal possession, however, of all the Mississippi region in the name of the King of France, in whose honor he gave all this Mis- sissippi region, including what is now Indiana, the name " Louisi- ana." Spain at the same time laid claim to all the region about the Gulf of Mexico, and thus these two great nations were brought into collision. But the country was actually held and occupied by the great Miami confederacy of Indians, the Miamis proper (an- eiently the Twightwees) being the eastern and most powerful tribe. Their territory extended strictly from the Seioto river west to the Illinois river. Their villages were few and scattering, and their occupation was scarcely dense enough to maintain itself against in- vasion. Their settlements were occasionally visited by Christian missionaries, fur traders and adventurers, but no body of white men made any settlement sufficiently permanent for a title to national possession. Christian zeal animated France and England in mis- sionary enterprise, the former in the interests of Catholicism and the latter in the interests of Protestantism. Hence their haste to preoeenpy the land and proselyte the aborigines. No doubt this ugly rivalry was often seen by Indians, and they refused to be proselyted to either branch of Christianity .
The " Five Nations," farther east, comprised the Mohawks, Oneidas, Cayugas, Onondaguas and Senecas. In 1677 the number of warriors in this confederacy was 2,150. About 1711 the Tusca- roras retired from Carolina and joined the Iroquois, or Five Na- tions, whiel, after that event, became known as the " Six Nations." In 1689 hostilities broke out between the Five Nations and the colonists of Canada, and the almost constant wars in which France was engaged until the treaty of Ryswiek in 1697 combined to check the grasping policy of Louis XIV., and to retard the plant- ing of French colonies in the Mississippi valley. Missionary efforts, however, continued with more failure than success, the Jesuits allying themselves with the Indians in habits and customs, even encouraging inter-marriage between them and their white fol- lowers.
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HISTORY OF INDIANA.
OUABACHE.
The Wabash was first named by the French, and spelled by them Onabache. This river was known even before the Ohio, and was navigated as the Ouabache all the way to the Mississippi a long time before it was discovered that it was a tributary of the Ohio (Belle Riviere). In navigating the Mississippi they thought they passed the month of the Ouabache instead of the Ohio. In traveling from the Great Lakes to the south, the French always went by the way of the Ouabache or Illinois.
VINCENNES.
Francois Morgan de Vinsenne served in Canada as early as 1720 in the regiment of "De Carrignan " of the French service, and again on the lakes in the vieinity of Sault Ste. Marie in the same service under M. de Vandriel, in 1725. It is possible that his ad- vent to Vineennes may have taken place in 1732; and in proof of this the only record is an aet of sale under the joint names of him- self and Madame Vinsenne, the daughter of M. Philip Longprie, and dated Jan. 5, 1735. This document gives his military position as commandant of the post of Ouabache in the service of the French King. The will of Longprie, dated March 10, same year, bequeaths him, among other things, 408 pounds of pork, which he ordered to be kept safe until Vinsenne, who was then at Ouabache, returned to Kaskaskia.
There are many other documents connected with its early settle- ment by Vinseune, among which is a receipt for the 100 pistoles granted him as his wife's marriage dowry. In 1736 this offieer was ordered to Charlevoix by D'Artagette, viceroy of the King at New Orleans, and commandant of Illinois. Here M. St. Vinsenne re- ceived his mortal wounds. The event is chronieled as follows, in the words of D'Artagette: " We have just received very bad news from Louisiana, and onr war with the Chickasaws. The Freneh have been defeated. Among the slain is M. de Vinsenne, who eeased not until his last breath to exhort his men to behave worthy of their faith and fatherland."
Thus elosed the career of this gallant officer, leaving a name which holds as a remembraneer the present beautiful town of Vin- cennes, changed from Vinsenne to its present orthography in 1749.
Post Vineennes was settled as early as 1710 or 1711. In a letter from Father Marest to Father Germon, dated at Kaskaskia, Nov. 9, 1712, occurs this passage: "Les Francois itoient itabli un fort sur
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HISTORY OF INDIANA.
le fleuve Ouabache ; ils demanderent un missionaire ; et le Pere Mermet leur fut envoye. Ce Pere erut devoir travailler a la conversion des Mascoutens qui avaient fait un village sur les bords dumeme fleuve. C'est une nation Indians qui entend la langue Illinoise." Translated: "The French have established a fort upon the river Wabash, and want a missionary; and Father Mermet has been sent to them. That Father believes he should labor for the conversion of the Mascoutens, who have built a vil- lage on the banks of the same river. They are a nation of Indians who understand the language of the Illinois."
Mermet was therefore the first preacher of Christianity in this part of the world, and his mission was to convert the Mascoutens, a branch of the Miamis. "The way I took," says he, " was to con- found, in the presence of the whole tribe, one of these charlatans [medicine men], whose Manitou, or great spirit which he wor- shiped, was the buffalo. After leading him on insensibly to the avowal that it was not the buffalo that he worshiped, but the Man- itou, or spirit, of the buffalo, which was under the earth and ani- mated all buffaloes, which heals the sick and has all power, I asked him whether other beasts, the bear for instance, and which one of his nation worshiped, was not equally inhabited by a Manitou, which was under the earth. 'Without doubt,' said the grand medi- cine man. 'If this is so,' said I, ' men ought to have a Manitou who inhabits them.' 'Nothing more certain,' said he. 'Onght not that to convince you,' continued I, 'that you are not very reasonable? For if man upon the earth is the master of all animals, if he kills them, if he eats them, does it not follow that the Mani- tou which inhabits him must have a mastery over all other Mani- tous? Why then do you not invoke him instead of the Manitou of the bear and the buffalo, when you are sick?' This reasoning disconcerted the charlatan. But this was all the effect it produced."
The result of convincing these heathen by logie, as is generally the case the world over, was only a temporary logical victory, and no change whatever was produced in the professions and practices of the Indians.
But the first Christian (Catholic) missionary at this place whose name we find recorded in the Church annals, was Menrin, in 1849.
The church building used by these early missionaries at Vin- cennes is thus described by the " oldest inhabitants:" Fronting on Water street and running back on Church street, it was a plain
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HISTORY OF INDIANA.
building with a rough exterior, of upright posts, chinked and daubed, with a rough coat of cement on the outside; ahont 20 feet wide and 60 long; one story high, with a small belfry and an equally small bell. It was dedicated to St. Francis Xavier. This spot is now occupied by a splendid cathedral.
Vincennes has ever been a stronghold of Catholicism. The Church there has educated and sent out many clergymen of her faith, some of whom have become bishops, or attained other high positions in ecclesiastical authority.
Almost contemporaneons with the progress of the Church at Vincennes was a missionary work near the mouth of the Wea river, among the Oniatenons, but the settlement there was broken up in early day.
NATIONAL POLICIES.
THE GREAT FRENCH SCHEME.
Soon after the discovery of the mouth of the Mississippi by La- Salle in 1682, the government of France began to encourage the policy of establishing a line of trading posts and missionary stations extending through the West from Canada to Louisiana, and this policy was maintained, with partial success, for abont 75 years. The traders persisted in importing whisky, which cancelled nearly every civilizing influence that could be brought to bear upon the Indian, and the vast distances between posts prevented that strength which can be enjoyed only by close and convenient inter- communication. Another characteristic of Indian nature was to listen attentively to all the missionary said, pretending to believe all he preached, and then offer in turn his theory of the world, of religion, etc., and because he was not listened to with the same degree of attention and pretense of belief, would go off disgusted. This was his idea of the golden rule.
The river St. Joseph of Lake Michigan was called "the river Miamis" in 1679, in which year LaSalle built a small fort on its bank, near the lake shore. The principal station of the mission for the instruction of the Miamis was established on the borders of this river. The first French post within the territory of the Miamis was at the month of the river Miamis, on an eminence naturally fortified on two sides by the river, and on one side by a
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HISTORY OF INDIANA.
deep ditch made by a fall of water. It was of triangular form. The missionary Hennepin gives a good description of it, as he was one of the company who built it, in 1679. Says he: "We fell the trees that were on the top of the hill; and having eleared the same from bushes for about two musket shot, we began to build a redoubt of 80 feet long and 40 feet broad, with great square pieces of timber laid one upon another, and prepared a great number of stakes of about 25 feet long to drive into the ground, to make our fort more inaccessible on the riverside. We employed the whole month of November about that work, which was very hard, though we bad no other food but the bear's flesh our savage killed. These beasts are very common in that place because of the great quantity of grapes they find there; but their flesh being too fat and luseious, our men began to be weary of it and desired leave to go a hunting to kill some wild goats. M. LaSalle denied them that liberty, which caused some murmurs among them; and it was but unwill- ingly that they continued their work. This, together with the approach of winter and the apprehension that M. LaSalle had that his vessel (the Griffin) was lost, made him very melancholy, though he concealed it as much as he could. We made a cabin wherein we performed divine service every Sunday, and Father Gabriel and I, who preaelied alternately, took care to take such texts as were suitable to our present circumstances and fit to inspire us with courage, concord and brotherly love. * The fort was at last perfected, and called Fort Miamis."
In the year 1711 the missionary Chardon, who was said to be very zealous and apt in the acquisition of languages, had a station on the St. Joseph about 60 miles above the mouth. Charlevoix, another distinguished missionary from France, visited a post on this river in 1721. In a letter dated at the place, Aug. 16, he says: " There is a commandant liere, with a small garrison. His house, which is but a very sorry one, is called the fort, from its being sur- rounded with an indifferent palisado, which is pretty near the case in all the rest. We have liere two villages of Indians, one of the Miamis and the other of the Pottawatomies, both of them mostly Christians; but as they have been for a long time without any pas- tors, the missionary who has been lately sent to them will have no small difficulty in bringing them back to the exercise of their re- ligion." He speaks also of the main commodity for which the In, dians would part with their goods, namely, spirituous liquors, which they drink and keep drunk upon as long as a supply lasted.
INDIANS ATTACKING FRONTIERSMEN.
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HISTORY OF INDIANA.
More than a century and a half has now passed since Charlevoix penned the above, without any change whatever in this trait of In- dian character.
In 1765 the Miami nation, or confederaey, was composed of four tribes, whose total number of warriors was estimated at only 1,050 men. Of these abont 250 were Twightwees, or Miamis proper, 300 Weas, or Oniatenons, 300 Piankeshaws and 200 Shockeys; and at this time the principal villages of the Twightwees were situated about the head of the Maumee river at and near the place where Fort Wayne now is. The larger Wea villages were near the banks of the Wabash river, in the vicinity of the Post Ouiatenon; and the Shoekeys and Piankeshaws dwelt on the banks of the Vermil- lion and on the borders of the Wabash between Vincennes and Ouiatenon. Branches of the Pottawatomie, Shawnee, Delaware and Kickapoo tribes were permitted at different times to enter within the boundaries of the Miamis and reside for a while.
The wars in which France and England were engaged, from 1688 to 1697, retarded the growth of the colonies of those nations in North America, and the efforts inade by France to connect Canada and the Gulf of Mexico by a chain of trading posts and colonies naturally excited the jealousy of England and gradually laid the foundation for a struggle at arms. After several stations were estab- lished elsewhere in the West, trading posts were started at the Miami villages, which stood at the head of the Manmee, at the Wea villages about Ouiatenon on the Wabash, and at the Piankeshaw vil- lages about the present sight of Vincennes. It is probable that before the elose of the year 1719, temporary trading posts were erected at the sites of Fort Wayne, Ouiatenon and Vincennes. These points were probably often visited by French fur traders prior to 1700. In the meanwhile the English people in this country commenced also to establish military posts west of the Alleghanies, and thus matters went on until they naturally culminated in a general war, which, being waged by the French and Indians combined on one side, was called " the French and Indian war." This war was terminated in 1763 by a treaty at Paris, by which France ceded to Great Britain all of North America east of the Mississippi except New Orleans and the island on which it is situated; and indeed, France had the preceding autumn, by a secret convention, ceded to Spain all the country west of that river.
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HISTORY OF INDIANA.
PONTIAC'S WAR.
In 1762, after Canada and its dependencies had been surrendered to the English, Pontiac and his partisans secretly organized a pow- erful confederacy in order to crush at one blow all English power in the West. This great scheme was skillfully projected and cau- tiously matured.
The principal act in the programme was to gain admittance into the fort at Detroit, on pretense of a friendly visit, with short- ened muskets concealed under their blankets, and on a given signal suddenly break forth upon the garrison; but an inadvertent remark of an Indian woman led to a discovery of the plot, which was eon- sequently averted. Pontiac and his warriors afterward made many attacks upon the English, some of which were successful, but the Indians werc finally defeated in the general war.
BRITISH POLICY.
In 1765 the total number of French families within the limits of the Northwestern Territory did not probably exceed 600. These were in settlements about Detroit, along the river Wabash and the neighborhood of Fort Chartres on the Mississippi. Of these fami- lies, abont 80 or 90 resided at Post Vincennes, 14 at Fort Oniate- non, on the Wabash, and nine or ten at the confluence of the St. Mary and St. Joseph rivers.
The colonial policy of the British government opposed any meas- ures which might strengthen settlements in the interior of this country, lest they become self-supporting and independent of the mother country; hence the early and rapid settlement of the North- western territory was still further retarded by the short-sighted selfishness of England. That fatal policy consisted mainly in hold- ing the land in the hands of the government and not allowing it to be subdivided and sold to settlers. But in spite of all her efforts in this direction, she constantly made just such efforts as provoked the American people to rebel, and to rebel successfully, which was within 15 years after the perfect close of the French and Indian war.
AMERICAN POLICY.
Thomas Jefferson, the shrewd statesman and wise Governor of Virginia, saw from the first that actual occupation of Western lands was the only way to keep them out of the hands of foreigners and
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HISTORY OF INDIANA.
Indians. Therefore, directly after the conquest of Vincennes by Clark, he engaged a scientific corps to proceed under an escort to the Mississippi, and ascertain by celestial observations the point on that river intersected by latitude 36° 30', the southern limit of the State, and to measure its distance to the Ohio. To Gen. Clark was entrusted the conduet of the military operations in that quar- ter. He was instrueted to select a strong position near that point and establish there a fort and garrison; thence to extend his conquests northward to the lakes, erecting forts at different points, which might serve as monuments of actual possession, besides affording protection to that portion of the country. Fort "Jefferson " was erected and garrisoned on the Mississippi a few miles above the southern limit.
The result of these operations was the addition, to the chartered limits of Virginia, of that immense region known as the "North- western Territory." The simple fact that such and such forts were established by the Americans in this vast region convineed the Brit- ish Commissioners that we had entitled ourselves to the land. But where are those " monuments " of our power now?
INDIAN SAVAGERY.
As a striking example of the inhuman treatment which the early Indians were capable of giving white people, we quote the follow ing blood-curdling story from Mr. Cox' " Recollections of the Wabaslı Valley":
On the 11th of February, 1781, a wagoner named Irvin Hinton was sent from the block-house at Louisville, Ky., to Harrodsburg for a load of provisions for the fort. Two young men, Richard Rue and George Holnian, aged respectively 19 and 16 years, were sent as guards to protect the wagon from the depredations of any hostile Indians who might be lurking in the cane-brakes or ravines through which they must pass. Soon after their start a severe snow-storm set in which lasted until afternoon. Lest the melting snow might dampen the powder in their rifles, the guards fired them off, intending to reload them as soon as the storm ceased. Hinton drove the horses while Rue walked a few rods ahead and Holman about the same distance behind. As they aseended a hill about eight miles from Louisville Hinton heard some one say Whoa to the horses. Supposing that something was wrong about the wagon, he stopped and asked Holman why he had called him to halt. Holman said that he had not spoken; Rue also denied it,
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but said that he had heard the voice distinctly. At this time a voice eried out, " I will solve the mystery for you; it was Simon Girty that eried Whoa, and he meant what he said,"-at the same time emerg- ing from a sink-hole a few rods from the roadside, followed by 13 Indians, who immediately surrounded the three Kentuckians and demanded them to surrender or die instantly. The little party, making a virtue of necessity, surrendered to this renegade white man and his Indian allies.
Being so near two forts, Girty made all possible speed in making fast his prisoners, selecting the lines and other parts of the harness, he prepared for an immediate flight across the Ohio. The panta- loons of the prisoners were eut off about four inches above the knees, and thus they started through the deep snow as fast as the horses could trot, leaving the wagon, containing a few empty bar- rels, standing in the road. They continued their march for sev- eral eold days, without fire at night, until they reached Wa-puc-ca- nat-ta, where they compelled their prisoners to run the gauntlet as they entered the village. Ilinton first ran the gauntlet and reached the council-house after receiving several severe blows upon the head and shoulders. Rue next ran between the lines, pursued by an Indian with an uplifted tomahawk. He far outstripped his pursuer and dodged most of the blows aimed at him. Holman complaining that it was too severe a test for a worn-out stripling like himself, was allowed to run between two lines of squaws and boys, and was followed by an Indian with a long switch.
The first council of the Indians did not dispose of these young men; they were waiting for the presence of other chief's and war- riors. Hinton escaped, but on the afternoon of the second day he was re-captured. Now the Indians were glad that they had an occasion to indulge in the infernal joy of burning him at once. Soon after their supper, which they shared with their victim, they drove the stake into the ground, piled up the fagots in a circle around it, stripped and blackened the prisoner, tied him to the stake, and applied the torch. It was a slow fire. The war-whoop then thrilled through the dark surrounding forest like the chorus of a band of infernal spirits escaped from pandemonium, and the scalp dance was struck up by those demons in human shape, who for hours encireled their victim, brandishing their tomahawks and war clubs, and venting their execrations upon the helpless sufferer, who died about midnight from the effects of the slow heat. As soon as he fell upon the ground, the Indian who first discovered
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