USA > Indiana > LaPorte County > Michigan City > History of Michigan City, Indiana > Part 6
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Elkswatawa, the Prophet, pretending to be inspired by the Great Spirit of the Indians, went about preaching a peculiar gospel against witchcraft, intemperance, intermarriage with white women, adop- tion of the dress and custom of the whites, and the sale of Indian lands by
treaty. Tecumseh visited the tribes with talk of war and confederation. The Prophet's arts were those of a success- ful sorcerer and by accusing dissenting chiefs of witchcraft he brought destruc- tion upon them, even causing them to be burned at the stake where Yorktown now stands, in Delaware county. Hear- ing of these things Governor Harrison sent the disaffected tribes a warning, in which he said :-
"My children :- Tread back the steps you have taken, and endeavor to regain the straight road which you have aband- oned. The dark, crooked, and thorny one which you are now pursuing, will certainly lead to endless woe and misery. But who is this pretended prophet who dares to speak in the name of the Great Creator ? Examine him. Is he more wise or virtuous than you are yourselves, that he should be selected to convey to you the orders of your God? Demand of him some proofs, at least, of his being the messenger of the Deity. If God has really employed him, he has doubtless authorized him to perform some mir- acles, that he may be known and received as a prophet. If he is really a prophet, ask of him to cause the sun to stand still, the moon to alter its course, the rivers to cease to flow, or the dead to rise from their graves. * My children :-- * * Do not believe that the great and good Creator of mankind has directed you to destroy your own flesh; and do not doubt but that, if you pursue this abom- inable wickedness, his vengeance will overtake and crush you."
A year later he again addressed them and said "this business must be stopped. I will no longer suffer it." He told them they were listening to a fool whose words were of the devil and of the Brit- ish agents. In 1808 the Prophet and his followers removed to what came to be called Prophetstown, near the mouth of the Tippecanoe, and there received nu - merous accessions from the lake tribes. And so the movement progressed. Te- cumseh, meanwhile, was actively engag- ed in his part of the conspiracy and jour-
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neyed to Canada, to the Mississippi and to Florida in visiting all the western and southern nations and he received much encouragement. Passing from the St. Joseph to Fort Dearborn he probably came down the Trail creek path. All this greatly retarded the settlement of, Indiana and Michigan. In May, 1810, Harrison sent a military messenger to the Pottawattomies along the lake with proposals of a treaty of friendship, but with no more success than General Wilk- inson had met when he did the same thing in 1791. In a letter concerning Te- cumseh, written in July, 1811, to the war department, Harrison said: "If it were not for the vicinity of the United States, he would perhaps be the founder of an empire that would rival in glory Mexico or Peru." Under the influence of the great chief the treaties from the time of Greenville were repudiated by the Indi-
ans and as the trouble with the British began to culminate and the war of 1812 was seen to be inevitable the evidences accumulated that the agents of that na- tion were busily engaged in equipping the red men with arms and supplies as allies in the approaching conflict. The inevitable battle took place November 7, 18II, near Lafayette, when Tecumseh was absent in the south, and there, at the battle of Tippecanoe, Harrison routed the Indians and sent them scattered and discomfited to their homes. A large number, fearing pursuit, took refuge in the sand hills on the lake until that fear was passed. Tecumseh, clothed in the uniform of a British general, was killed in 1813 at the battle of the Thames and the Prophet sank into obscurity as a common medicine man, drawing a Brit- ish pension until his death in 1834 in the Indian Territory.
CHAPTER FOUR.
Entering Into Possession.
By the battle of Tippecanoe Tecum- seh's great Indian republic was over- thrown and the Prophet's supremacy was destroyed. Cursing their credulity most of the red men dispersed to their tribal villages and it was never again possible to win their consideration for any scheme of confederation against the whites. The warfare on the border was not yet end- ed, however, nor had the natives lost all hope of driving back the ever growing horde of westward-pushing white set- tlers. British agents had led them to be- lieve in some vague way that they were the special objects of the English king's solicitude and that he, if they joined his standard, would give them protection for their families and homes. The war of 1812 was approaching and the English desired an alliance with the savages, who were annually supplied at Malden with British arms and provisions. The In- dians at Tippecanoe fought with British weapons thus obtained.
President Madison declared war June 19, 1812. At that time the Americans were maintaining military establish- ments at Mackinac, Fort Dearborn, Fort Wayne, Fort Harrison (near Terre Haute), Vincennes and Detroit. Gov- ernors Hull and Harrison were made brigadier generals and upon the former devolved the task of holding Detroit, which was the strongest of the western positions and the key to the entire region. "On to Canada !" had for years been the cry of the American war party and the opportunity seemed to have arrived.
Hull, crossing the river, took peaceful possession of the quiet little village of Sandwich and spread abroad a grandilo- quent manifesto declaring his occupancy of Canada and denouncing in awful terms the penalty of instant death to any Britisher found fighting side by side with Indians ; but he neglected to carry his victorious arms across the few interven- ing miles to Malden, where Brock and his army were supposed to be trembling in fear of the Michigander's prowess, and while he procrastinated and Brock fortified news came of the American sur- render at Mackinac. The longer Hull dallied at Sandwich the more he learned of Brock's activity and of the Indian re- inforcements brought up to Malden by Tecumseh. At last, early in August, he fell back across the river and when Brock and Tecumseh followed him he raised the white flag on the sixteenth, without consulting with any of his su- bordinates or firing a gun, and so, in- stead of capturing Canada by a brilliant stroke, he lost Detroit and the territory of Michigan by a pusillanimous surren- der. Later he was accused of treason and convicted of cowardice for this weak relinquishment of his stronghold. And yet something may be said in justice to the memory of this man who, having the civil and military control over the Trail creek valley, surrendered it to the British flag, for he had been under the influence of Jefferson, the president whose mortal terror of his own army and navy led him to permit for the western posts only such
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HISTORY OF MICHIGAN CITY.
moderate garrisons "as may merely take care of the posts" and to rely upon the neighboring militia for support in case of attack. This policy carried with it an inefficiency on the American side that was frightful as compared with the ef- fective fighting machine the English maintained in Canada, especially when the latter was strengthened by whole tribes of savages. The Madison admin- istration, also, failed miserably to give Hull the support that was necessary for his purposes in the first steps of the war.
message. At that time Captain Nathan Heald, the commandant, had fifty-four regulars and twelve militia, all privates, and two officers, Lieutenant Lina T. Helm and Ensign George Ronan. Many were sick, about forty being able for duty, and there were about a dozen wom- en and twenty children, the families of soldiers. The surgeon was Dr. Isaac Van Voorhis. Outside the blockhouse was the family of John Kinzie, who had settled on the St. Joseph river as a trader in 1800 and in the spring of 1804 moved
WATERWORKS
Madison mercifully gave him his life, for the court martial sentenced him to be shot, but he was a ruined man.
When Hull, learning of the disaster at Mackinac, decided to fall back to De- troit, he sent a message to Fort Dearborn directing the evacuation of that post and the junction of its garrison with his army, and giving the information of the declaration of hostilities and of the movements up to that time. November 7 the Pottawattomie chief Winamac (Catfish) arrived at the post with the
to the new fort and bought the establish- ment of LeMai. His step-daughter was the wife of Lieutenant Helm. In his service were Jean Baptiste Chandonnais, clerk, a half-breed Pottawattomie chief who later was a resident of LaPorte county, and Francois, a half-breed inter- preter. Two or three other white fam- ilies had been living there, but they left after the Indian hostilities became pro- nounced in the spring. In the Kinzie family there were, besides the parents, four children. The Indians in the lake
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shore region were for the greater part under the influence of the British and in- tensely hostile to the Americans, not- withstanding the efforts of a few such friendly chiefs as Winamac, Topinabee and Shaubeenee, who lived in or near LaPorte county. It was rather difficult just prior to the massacre at Fort Dear- born to get at the true state of mind of the Pottawattomies, Kickapoos and Win- nebagoes, then in that territory, because of their constant dissimulation of peace- ful intentions and their repeated declara- tions that such murders as were commit- ted were done by impetuous and ill-ad- vised young warriors. All of the whites and chiefs mentioned had crossed through or near the present site of Mich- igan City and knew the spot very well. Charles H. Bartlett, of South Bend, in his beautifully written "Tales of Kanka- kee Land," has described the situation at this time.
Winamac's news threw Captain Heald into a state of great indecision and he could not bring himself to act on the or- ders of Hull. The friendly Indians and Captain Kinzie advised him that but two courses were open to him: he ought to evacuate instantly, before the surround- ing tribes could learn of the occurrences at. Detroit and of his orders, which would probably enable him to get into the shelter of Fort Wayne, the nearest post ; or he should prepare himself for a siege and attempt to hold his position until relief could come. He temporized between the two plans and finally decided to divide his stores among the savages, who were coming up in increased num- bers daily, and ask them for a safe-con- duct to Fort Wayne under a promise of further reward on arrival there. In the meantime Tecumseh's secretary, Billy Caldwell, arrived among the Indians and informed them of Hull's retreat and the fall of Mackinac. Caldwell, known as the Sauganash, afterwards became a res-
ident of Chicago and was one of the firmest and most valuable friends the Americans had, but this was not until after the close of the war. On the 13th Captain William Wells arrived at the blockhouse from Fort Wayne with thir- ty friendly Miamis, having learned of the proposed evacuation and made a forced march through the wilderness by the Trail creek route to save if possible his niece, the wife of Captain Heald, whom, after the Indian fashion, he termed his sister. Black Partridge, a distinguished warrior chief of the Pottawattamies, came to the fort and handed his medal of friendship to the commander, saying : "Father, I come to deliver up to you the medal I wear. It was given me by the Americans, and I have long worn it, in token of our mutual friendship. But our young men are resolved to imbrue their hands in the blood of the whites. I can- not restrain them, and I will not wear a token of peace while I am compelled to act as an enemy." On the very morning of the massacre Topinabec sent word that his band and the others that had promised safe-escort were meditating mischief.
The morning of August 15 arrived and Heald had determined to march out that day. At nine o'clock the troops, in mili- tary array and with martial music, left the gate, the women and children in the baggage wagons with the sick soldiers, and proceeded south on the sandy beach with the intention of following the shore line to the mouth of Trail creck and then striking across to Fort Wayne. The Miamis were in advance, led by Captain Wells, who had blackened his face after the manner of the savages, and the escort of five hundred Pottawattomies were in the rear. On reaching the sand hills this rear guard defiled into the prairie be- yond and got up even with the troops, with the hills intervening. Wells ob- served the movement and rode furiously
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back shouting an alarm and ordering an instant formation for defense, but he was too late ; a volley of balls from British muskets in the hands of the treacherous savages was poured into the little com- pany, which made a brave fight on the open ground near the present foot of Eighteenth street, now marked by a mon- ument, and the affair was soon over. Twenty-six regulars, all the militia, two women and twelve children were slaugh- tered in cold blood, Ensign Ronan and the surgeon fell mortally wounded, and Captain Wells was scalped, cut to pieces and his heart divided among the red- skins to be eaten for the purpose of giv- ing them greater courage. Lieutenant Helm, with twenty-five soldiers and eleven women and children, was taken captive. Captain Heald and his wife were wounded. Kinzie had placed his family in a boat bound for the St. Joseph before the battle and, though they did not escape the awful scene, they were allowed to proceed later and reached the post of the trader Burnett. Mrs. Helm fought desperately in the action and her life was saved by Black Partridge, while Winamac tried nobly to rescue Captain Wells. Billy Caldwell the next day gath- ered the remains of the captain and ten- derly buried them. Topinabee, Shau- beenee, Chandonnais, and the Indians named, with others, succeeded in getting the survivors away from a belated band of Pottawattomies that arrived too late to participate in the massacre and de- sired to taste the blood of the remaining whites. The Indians, whose known loss was fifteen killed, burned the blockhouse and divided the supplies. Some of the prisoners were dispersed among the Illi- nois settlements, but the greater part were taken to Detroit and turned over to the British by the Indians, and the scalps of the slain men, women and children, were sold to the English commander Proctor, who had offered a reward for such com- modities.
After this manifestation of enterprise by the Trail creek aborigines and their red associates they immediately invested Fort Wayne and maintained the siege from August 28 until September 16, when General Harrison relieved the place. At the same time Captain Zach- ary Taylor, afterwards president, was at- tacked in his fort near Terre Haute, (Fort Harrison) and gallantly repelled the assault. Referring to all these move- ments in his message of November 12, 1812, President Madison, after mention- ing "the providential favors which our country has experienced," said :-
"With these blessings are necessarily mingled the pressures and vicissitudes in- cident to the state of war into which the United States have been forced by the perseverance of a foreign power in its system of injustice and aggression.
"Previous to its declaration it was deemed proper as a measure of precau- tion and forecast, that a considerable force should be placed in the Michigan Territory with a general view to its se- curity, and, in the event of war, to such operations in the uppermost Canada as would intercept the hostile influence of Great Britain over the savages, obtain the command of the lake on which that part of Canada borders and maintain co- operating relations with such forces as might be most conveniently employed against other parts. Brigadier-General Hull was charged with this provisional service, having under his command a body of troops composed of regulars and of volunteers from the State of Ohio. Having reached his destination after his knowledge of the war, and possessing discretionary authority to act offensively. he passed into the neighboring territory of the enemy with a prospect of easy and victorious progress. The expedition, nevertheless. terminated unfortunately. not only in a retreat to the town and fort of Detroit, but in the surrender of both and of the gallant corps commanded bv that officer. The causes of this painful reverse will be investigated by a military tribunal.
"A distinguished feature in the opera- tions which preceded and followed this
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adverse event is the use made by the en- emy of the merciless savages under their influence. Whilst the benevolent policy of the United States invariably recom- mended peace and promoted civilization among that wretched portion of the hu- man race, and was making exertions to dissuade them from taking either side of the war, the enemy has not scrupled to call to his aid their ruthless ferocity, armed with the horrors of those instru- ments of carnage and torture which are known to spare neither age nor sex. In this outrage against the laws of honor- able war and against the feelings sacred to humanity the British commanders cannot resort to a plea of retaliation, for it is committed in the face of our ex- ample. They cannot mitigate it by call- ing it a self-defense against men in arms, for it embraces the most shocking butch- eries of defenseless families. Nor can it be pretended that they are not answer- able for the atrocities perpetrated, since the savages are employed with a knowl- edge, and even with menaces, that their fury could not be controlled. Such is the spectacle which the deputed authori- ties of a nation boasting its religion and morality have not been restrained from presenting to an enlightened age.
"The misfortune at Detroit was not, however, without a consoling effect. It was followed by signal proofs that the national spirit rises according to the pressure on it. The loss of an important post and of the brave men who surren- dered with it inspired everywhere new ar- dor and determination. In the States and districts least remote it was no sooner known than every citizen was ready to fly with his arms at once to protect his brethren against the bloodthirsty sav- ages let loose by the enemy on an ex- tensive frontier, and to convert a partial calamity into a source of invigorated efforts. This patriotic zeal, which it was necessary rather to limit than to excite, has embodied an ample force from the States of Kentucky and Ohio and from parts of Pennsylvania and Virginia. It is placed, with the addition of a few reg- ulars, under the command of Brigadier- General Harrison, who possesses the en- tire confidence of his fellow-soldiers, among whom are citizens, some of them volunteers in the ranks, not less distill-
guished by their political stations than by their personal merits. The greater portion of this force is proceeding on its destination toward the Michigan Terri- tory, having succeeded in relieving an important frontier post, [Fort Wayne] and
in several incidental operations against hostile tribes of savages, render- ed indispensable by the subserviency into which they had been seduced by the en- emy-a seduction the more cruel as it could not fail to impose a necessity of precautionary severities against those who yielded to it."
Finding himself at the head of mili- tary affairs in the west Harrison was charged with three main objects. He was to drive the Indians away from the western side of Detroit, destroy the Brit; ish post at Malden, and recapture the lost territory of Michigan and its dependen- cies, including Fort Dearborn. In that winter the bloody massacre of the in- competent Winchester's force at French- town, on the Raisin river near Detroit, stirred the whole country and added something to the importance of Tecum- seh. October 5. 1813, Harrison defeated the British and Indians at the great bat- tle of the Thames, in which Tecumseh was killed, and ended the war in the northwest. A year later Great Britain was ready to suggest peace and the day before Christmas, 1814, the treaty of Ghent was signed. In the July previous the lake Pottawattomies and some other tribes had entered into a friendly treaty with Harrison at Greenville, in which they engaged to transfer their alliance to the Americans, following one or two similar agreements a little earlier but not fully adhered to by the savages. Aban- doned by their British friends when the war ceased in the west the Indians fell into a state of great destitution and mis- ery and the settlers in Indiana soon lost their fear of further depredations and again began to extend their holdings of land. At the same time the poverty and suffering of the tribes and the dissensions
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HISTORY OF MICHIGAN CITY
into which they fell over the question of allegiance were seriously augmented by the use of liquor, which they began to obtain more easily from the traders. In the spring of 1815 some evidence appear- ed that the English were again tamper- ing with the Pottawattomies, but nothing came of it except that a new agreement of friendship was required and at Spring Wells, near Detroit, it was given in Au- gust.
The Indians were greatly disappointed and angered over the treaty made at Ghent so far as it concerned their in- terests. Billy Caldwell, Tecumseh's faithful secretary, said of it twenty years later: "The British officers promised to stand by the Indians until we gained our object ; they basely deserted us and got defeated, and after putting in our claims in the negotiations at Ghent, finally left us to make peace with the Americans on the best terms we could. The Americans fairly whipped us, and then treated with us honorably." It was in conformance with this agreement with the red men that Great Britain at Ghent put forward as a condition without the acceptance of which, the negotiators said, there could be no further discussion. This sine qua non was thus expressed :- "The Indian allies of Great Britain to be included in the pacification, and a definite boundary to be settled for their territories." This was held to mean that the United States should recognize the sovereignty of the Indians and establish a line which would leave them in possession of a region be- tween the British and American boun- daries, and it was suggested that the proposed independent Indian nation should be given the territory now occu- pied by Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wis- consin and western Ohio. The Amer- ican plenipotentiaries declined to submit the proposal to their government, or even to consider it or any modification of it, and the negotiation came near terminat-
ing at that point, but His Britannic Maj- esty yielded little by little until the entire condition was abandoned and his Indian allies were left to their fate.
The sovereignty of the United States was thereby once more assured in Michi- gan and in the valley of Trail creek, hav- ing been much in doubt since the surren- der of Detroit, and the title to the soil rested in the Pottawattomies. Lewis Cass had succeeded Hull as governor and the capital was at Detroit. In this situation the ten-mile strip was given to Indiana when its territorial government was superseded by that of a state in No- vember, 1816. Jonathan Jennings, the first governor, in the course of his in- augural address to the first general as- sembly at Corydon, the capital, spoke of many matters of deep concern to the people of the new state and said :- "A uniform adherence to the first principles of our government, and a virtuous exer- cise of its powers, will best secure effi- ciency to its measures and stability to its character. Without a frequent recur- rence to those principles, the administra- tion of the government will impercepti- bly become more and more arduous, until the simplicity of our republican in- stitutions may eventually be lost in dan- gerous expedients and political design. Under every free government the happi- ness of the citizens must be identified with their morals, and while a constitu- tional exercise of their rights shall con- tinue to have its due weight in the dis- charge of the duties required of the con- stituted authorities of the state, too much attention cannot be bestowed to the en- couragement and promotion of every moral virtue."
At this time the traders Burnett, near Niles, and Bertrand, at the place now bearing that name, were driving a vig- orous trade with the Indians on both sides of the St. Joseph. In that summer John Kinzie returned from the St. Jo-
OE.PARKS
BARGE O. E. PARKS
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HISTORY OF MICHIGAN CITY
seph to his house from which he was driven at the massacre of Fort Dearborn and reopened his business there. The negro Ouilmette had returned immedi- ately after the massacre ; not long after, in the same year, Jean B. Beubien, the second permanent white resident of Chi- cago, settled there, with Francis La- Framboise as a neighbor within a short time. In July, 1816, Captain Hezekiah Bradley, with two companies of infantry, arrived at the Chicago river and rebuilt Fort Dearborn, gathering up the scatter- ed remains of the victims of the massacre and burying them. "The subsequent life of the settlers was quiet and unvaried," says Andreas. "Cultivation of the soil furnished them with the necessaries of life, and the abundance of game added a variety that many an eastern table might have envied. A thrifty bartering of the surplus of products with the occasional vessels that came for furs, supplied other wants, and thus days on the frontier passed away." The powerful vitality of the nation, just emerged from the war with a new sense of absolute freedom from the influences of the Old World, sought its outlet toward the west and a new tide of immigration swept into the great central valley. The pacification of the natives was complete and their dete- rioration, aided by the white man's fire water, set in. The policy of extinguish- ing the Indian titles by purchase was preserved, but Jefferson's fanciful dream of amalgamating the red race with our own dissolved in thin air.
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