History of Old Vincennes and Knox County, Indiana, Volume I, Part 3

Author: Green, George E
Publication date: 1911
Publisher: Chicago, S.J. Clarke Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 636

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Conspicuous among the refractory elements at the treaty last named were Tecumseh and his brother the Prophet; the former of whom mani- fested his hostility by endeavoring to induce an alliance with other kin- dred tribes for the enforcement of their opposition and the latter by a sys- tem of jugglery, to insure support by the power of superstition. In the spring of 1808, having by his artful policy drawn around him a consider- able number of followers, with Tecumseh, his brother, he removed from Greenville, Ohio, their former residence, and by permission of the Potta- wattomies and Kickapoos, settled on the west bank of the Wabash near the mouth of the Tippecanoe near the city of La Fayette, the place there- after being known as the Prophet's Town. From that time the Prophet's adherents began to increase in number until they became formid- able, making their presence felt along the border settlements in a manner to excite the gravest apprehensions among the settlers and the Govern- ment authorities at Vincennes for the maintenance of peace, resulting, finally in the battle of Tippecanoe. After this important event took place

HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY

the Prophet's followers were not long in deserting him, and his own peo- ple, after contending against the fates for the succeeding four or five years, finally succumbed to the authority of the United States and ac- cepted a home beyond the Mississippi.

TIIE POTTAWATOMIES.

Next to the Miamis, perhaps the Pottawatomies were considered the most powerful of the several tribes who formerly inhabited the Wabash country, having, early in the eighteenth century, crowded the Miamis from their dwellings in Chicago and forced a settlement on territory which had been held by the Miamis from time immemorial. They belonged, like nearly all the tribes on the Wabash, to the great family of Algonquins and were related, by ties of consanguinity, to the Ojibways-better known as Chippewas. The first trace of them was in the regions of Lake Su- perior, on the islands near the entrance of Green Bay, where they adopted into their tribe many of the Ottawas from Upper Canada. In the name of Pottawatomie there is a marked significance developed touching cer- tain characteristics from which they acquired some early distinction. The name is a compound of Put-ta-wa, signifying a blowing out or expansion of the cheeks, as in blowing a fire; and me, a nation, which, being inter- preted, means a nation of fire-blowers. The Pottawatomies have been generally aggressive in character, not infrequently locating themselves on territory not their own without consulting the right of the reputed owners to object. After the close of the war with Great Britain, in which most of the tribes in the Northwest had been engaged in opposition to the whites, a treaty was held at the Portage des Sioux, on July 18, 1815, be- tween the Pottawatomies and the United States, for the purpose of es- tablishing "perpetual peace and friendship between all the people of the United States of America and all the people composing the said Pottawa- tomie tribe or nation." By this treaty at St. Mary's on October 2, 1818, the Indians ceded to the United States all the territory embraced within the following limits. "Beginning at the mouth of the Tippecanoe river and running up the same to a point twenty-five miles in a direct line from the Wabash river, thence on a line as nearly parallel to the general course of the Wabash river as is practicable, to a point on the Vermillion river, twenty-five miles from the Wabash; thence down the Vermillion river to its mouth, and thence up the Wabash river to the place of beginning. The Pottawatomies also ceded to the United States all their claim to the country south of the Wabash river." The most important treaty of the Wabash Valley, held with this tribe, was that on the "Old Treaty Ground," at Paradise Springs, on the Wabash, near the mouth of the Mississinnewa river, on the 16th day of October, 1826. Under this treaty they ceded to the United States territory comprised within boundary "beginning on the Tippecanoe river, where the northern boundary of the traet ceded by

HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY

the Pottawatomies to the United States, by the treaty of St. Mary's, in the year 1818, intersects the same; thence, in a direct line, to a point on Eel river, half-way between the mouth of the said river and Pieresh's Village; thence up Eel river to Seek's Village, near the head thereof ; thence, in a direct line, to the mouth of a creek empyting into the St. Joseph's, of the Miami, near the Metea's village; thence up the St. Jo- seph's to the boundary line between the states of Indiana and Ohio; thence south to the Miami; thence up the same to the reservation at Fort Wayne ; thence, with the line of the said reservation, to the boundary line estab- lished by the treaty with the Miamis, in 1818; thence with the said line to the Wabash river; thence with the same river to the mouth of Tippe- canoe river and thence, with the Tippecanoe river to the place of begin- ning." And the said tribe also ceded to the United States all their right to land with the following limits: "Beginning at a point on Lake Michi- gan, ten miles due north of the southern extremity thereof, running east to the land ceded by the Indians to the United States, by the treaty of Chicago; thence southerly therof, ten miles; thence west to the southern extremity of Lake Michigan; thence with the shore thereof to the place of beginning." In the course of time, nineteen other treaties with the Pottawatomies were concluded by the United States, by which certain reservations withheld by former treaties, were ceded to the United States. By the final treaty held on February II, 1837, between John T. Douglass, on the part of the United States and this tribe, all their remaining inter- ests in Indiana came into possession of the United States and they accepted a tract of country appropriated to their use beyond the Missouri river and agreed to move thither. They were accordingly moved in the fall and winter of 1838 and 1839.

THE WEAS OR QUIATENONS.

This tribe is also a branch of the Miamis and belongs as well to the Algonquin family, and it is said, were here in 1702, when M. Jucherean de St. Dennis came with his Canadian companions and formed a settle- ment on the Ouabache. At this date there were four other villages of the tribe here-Ouj-a-tanon, Petitscotias, Les Goas and Peanquinchias ( Pi- ankeshaws)-the last named being the larger of the five and all of them capable of mustering twelve hundred warriors. The Weas ceded to the United States (by the Greenville treaty, 1795), a tract at Quiatenon, or Weatown, six miles square. This cession, though small, appears to have been the first made by them as a separate tribe, or jointly with other in- terested tribes, and embraced a portion of their most valuable possessions. By a subsequent treaty in which the Weas, jointly with the Miamis, Eel rivers, Delawares and Pottawatomies, at Grouseland, Vincennes, on August 21, 1805, declared that those tribes were "joint owners of all the country on the Wabash and its waters above the Vincennes tract," and

HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY

which had not been ceded to the United States by that or any other treaty and as such they agreed to recognize a community of interest in the same. By the provisions of the same treaty the joint interest of these tribes in certain lands south of White river was relinquished to the United States, in consideration of which the Weas were to receive an annuity of $250. Again, by the treaty of Fort Harrison, on June 4. 1816, the Weas, with the Kickapoos, entered into a treaty of peace with the United States and confirmed the treaties before made by them, involving the title to lands on the west side of the Wabash river. Under a subsequent treaty en- tered into October 2, 1818, the Weas, for themselves, ceded to the United States, all the lands owned by them in Indiana, Ohio and Illinois, except certain special reservations made in their interest, from which the United States stipulated to pay them, in addition to their former annuity of $1,150, the sum of $1,850, thus making the aggregate annuity $3,000 an- nually in silver. On the 11th of August, 1820, at Vincennes, this tribe made a further cession of all their lands reserved by the last preceding treaty, to the United States, in consideration of the sum of $5,000 in money and goods; the receipt of which was then and there acknowledged. Inasmuch, also, as it was contemplated by the foregoing provisions, that the Weas should shortly remove from the Wabash, their annuities were thereafter directed to be paid at Kaskaskia, in Illinois.

THIE KICKAPOOS.

This tribe was also of the Algonquin family, and appears first to have occupied with the Pottawatomies a portion of the territory between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi river. By invitation of the Miamis they went further south and at the beginning of the eighteenth century were numerous and powerful. As a result of a furious war between them and the Sacs on the one side and the Kaskaskias, Cahokias, Peorias, Michi- ganians and Temorias on the other, these latter tribes were almost anni- hilated, though a short time previously they aggregated four thousand warriors. By the provisions of the treaty at Greenville, August 3, 1795, the Kickapoos ceded their interest in certain lands disposed of by that treaty to the United States in consideration of annuity of $500. By pro- visions of article 7 of that treaty they were allowed "the liberty to hunt within the territory and lands which they have now ceded to the United States, without hindrance or molestation, so long as they demean them- selves peaceably and offer no injury to the people of the United States." Again, by the treaty at Fort Wayne on the 7th day of June, 1803, this tribe, with others, made further cession of rights and privileges to the United States, "as a mark of their regard for and attachment to the United States, whom they acknowledge for their friends and protectors." Sub- sequently, by the treaty of Fort Harrison, on the 4th day of June, 1816, they, with the Weas, acknowledged the cession by them of certain lands on

HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY

the north-west side of the Wabash, on the Wabash and Vermillion rivers, and again entered into a league of friendship with the United States, hav- ing, by former treaties, on the 30th of September and 9th of December, 1809, made joint cession of the same territory to the United States. By final treaty with the United States, on the 30th day of July, 1819. at Ed- wardsville, in the State of Illinois, they ceded to the United States, "all their land on the south-east side of the Wabash river, including their principal village, in which their ancestors formerly resided, consisting of a large tract to which they have had, from time immemorial and now have, a just right; that they have heretofore ceded, or otherwise disposed of, in any manner whatever;" also, all other lands in the state of Indiana not before ceded by them, promising to continue under the protection of the United States and no other nation. In consideration for this last treaty they were to receive $3,000 worth of merchandize, in addition to an annuity of $2,000 in silver, as a consideration for former cessions made, together with certain lands in Missouri Territory; provided they never sell said lands without the consent of the United States. Aside from the alliance of some of the tribe with Tecumseh and his brother in their pro- posed scheme for the confederation of the tribes, the Kickapoos have kept faithfully and maintained the integrity of every stipulation of their treaties.

CHAPTER III.

THE FIRST BLACK ROBED PRIEST TO VISIT VINCENNES.

EARLY COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN THE PEOPLES OF CANADA AND THE OLD POST-FATE OF TIIREE MISSIONARIES BROUGHT BY CHAMPLAIN FROM FRANCE TO AMERICA-ROUTES OF VOYAGERS TO WESTERN COUNTRY- FAME FORGETS SOME GOOD ACTORS IN MILITARY DRAMA PRESENTED AT VINCENNES A CENTURY AND A THIRD SINCE-THE VILLAGE OF CHIPPE- COKE-THE WABASH COUNTRY SUPPOSED TO CONTAIN GOLD AND SILVER DEPOSITS-ILLINOIS INDIANS MOULD BULLETS ON BUNKER HILL-MAR- QUETTE'S EXPLORATION OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER AND HIS SUPPOSED VISIT TO VINCENNES.

The lack of precision of some historians in fixing the date of the first settlement of Vincennes has been more or less annoying to students of history who value positiveness of statement in the chronicling of an event above the details of mere conjecture. The Indians, of course, has their "happy hunting grounds" here long before the advent of the white man. The French missionaries were the first white settlers, and came here as early as 1609, although it was not until the year 1702 that the first per- manent white settlement was perfected, the first fort builded and the first church erected west of the Allegheny Mountains. These three import- ant events comprised the germ, as it were, from which the civilization, religion and military glory of the Northwest Territory budded, blossomed and bloomed, emitting a wholesome fragrance that permeated a scope of country within the borders of which now dwell one-fourth of the popu- lation of the United States.

In the earlier days, following the establishment of Nouvelle France and the domination of Louis XIV over the same, and especially after the treaty of Ryswick, in 1697, Canada was bound to Vincennes re- ligiously, socially and commercially and through the marital ties existing among the aborigines, by a friendly chain in which Detroit, then only a spot in the wide expanse of the great Northwestern domain, was an im- portant and closely-connecting link. Before Marquette, before La Salle, before Juchereau, intercommunication was had by the peoples of Canada and this section of the Northwest Territory.

HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY

Quebec was founded by Champlain in 1608, more than a decade after Cartier had taken voyage up the St. Lawrence river to a settlement com- posed entirely of Indians who, in after years, took unto themselves squaws of French-Canadian extraction, which he subsequently named Mount Real, on account of the topography of the country, which showed an ele- vation of great eminence surrounded by a pleateau of surpassing beauty. The original name of the settlement was *Hochelaga and was known to the ancestors of the French who formed the first permanent settlement at Port Royal, in Nova Scotia, on the Bay of Fundy, in the year 1605. It was the zealous Christian spirit of Champlain which led him to bring from the sunny shores of southern France a quartette of Franciscan friars to the bleak and barren coasts of a country overrun with savages, "whose untutored mind" had not yet learned to "see God in clouds or hear Him in the wind." Forsaking the comfortable homes of their native land and turning their backs forever upon the place of their birth, their kindred and friends, to carry the cross into the very heart of a howling wilderness wherein death, danger and cunning treachery confronted them at every step and to proclaim the Word of God to beings who refused to listen, fur- nished such thrilling examples of self-sacrifice and devotion as to meet only with a counterpart in the sacred annals of the deeds of martyrs, All but one of this devoted band of religious pilgrims were the victims of Indian treachery, and their bleached bones have long since returned to the dust whence they came, and the silent solitudes and the chief actors in the tragedies that witnessed their dissolution have disappeared forever. One of these four "heralds of the cross" established a Catholic mission here, harmonious with the primeval forests, in 1609, although he came to Vincennes several months before actively engaging in missionary work. All record of this holy man, however, disappeared when some sac- riligious vandal, as late as 1873, purloined from the Cathedral library a letter, addressed by the priest to his mother in France, recounting his ex- periences in the New World.

As early as 1646 the remote wilderness centres of the Northwest Ter- ritory had been visited by forty-five Jesuit missionaries, besides nineteen assistants. To these light bearers in a wilderness of darkness and men like Champlain, Marquette and La Salle, explorers for the purpose of in- creasing man's knowledge of worldly affairs and awakening his sense of spiritual bliss, their missions were as epic poems, resplendent with stanzas having the rhythmic measure of celestial music, which made them forget the hardships and perils of their undertakings. To these devout French- men the birch canoe was made to answer the purpose of the steamboat of a later day. With this frail craft they not only navigated the lakes and rivers of Canada and ascended the Mississippi and all it tributaries,

* Today an eastern suburb of the modern city of Montreal.

HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY

but also *"surmounted the most dangerous rapids, passed from river to river, penetrated into the bosom of trackless forests and struck into the recesses of inhospitable mountains." By this means of navigation, which was the only way possible at such an early date for these indomitable voyageurs to traverse this vast region, t"the French succeeded in secur- ing its trade, cultivating the friendships of its inhabitants and gaining a power which, if ably wielded, must have permanently subjected the whole of this country to their language, their customs, their religion, and per- haps, to their dominion."

It was, therefore, more through religious enthusiasm than any other agency, that the first settlements were established in the Northwest Terri- tory. #"It was religious enthusiasm which colonized New England; re- ligious enthusiasm took possession of the wilderness on the Upper Lakes and explored the Mississippi. Puritanism gave New England its worships and its schools ; Catholicism and the Jesuit priests built for Canada its altars, its hospitals and its seminaries. The influence of Calvin can be traced in every New England village; in Canada not a cape was turned, nor a mis- sion founded, nor a river entered, nor a settlement begun, but a Jesuit led the way. Religious enthusiasm not only raised altars, chapels and churches and built schools and hospitals, but wherever it erected a church it con- structed a fort, planting the sword beside the cross.

It was religious enthusiasm that built the first fort at Vincennes more than two centuries ago, which was the prelude to one of the most thrilling and sensational military dramas-presented more than two-thirds of a century later-ever enacted upon any stage of any continent. The dra- matis personac were of a class which have long since withdrawn from the flare of the foot-lights, their places having been usurped by an altogether different set of actors which new schools of acting, demanded by the changing tastes of patrons, have created. The scenic effects were grand beyond description. Dense woods, hemmed either bank of a beautiful river, reflecting their great nude limbs in its mirrored depths. Beyond these towering forest giants stretched wondrous expanses of prairie lands, their dead and dying vegetation, stirred by gusts of chilling winds, heaved like the troubled bosom of an ochreous ocean. On the east shore of the classic stream nestled an Arcadian village, its peaceful inhabitants dwell- ing in white houses, thatched with golden straw, within hail one with an- other. Above the house-tops, the frowning bastions of a rude fort and the belfry of the quaint church gleamed in the sunlight and cast their shadows towards the river, at whose landing battcaur of handsome design, pirogues and dug-outs, laced together with raw-hide, were moored or beached. Aside from the fort and church-inanimate things, yet full of animation in this instance-there were little less of artificial properties

* Milburn, Pioneers, Preachers and People of the Mississippi Valley.

+ Milburn.

HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY

to add to the settings of natural scenery. There was no large audience to greet the hero of the play with deafening plaudits or sounding plati- tudes as he strode upon the stage. He made his entrance after bolest announcement, and his presence was an inspiring, if not an ominous, one to all except the small aggregation of which he was the star. No actor ever threw his heart and soul into a part as did the leading man in this great drama-this noble son of Virginia, a commonwealth so prolific in heroes, warriors and statesmen. He displayed talents of the highest order, military genius unsurpassed; possessing qualifications but rarely combined in one man and a versatility not often allied with a sound judg- ment. "To great quickness of perception and clearness of mind, he added a solidity of judgment, a boldness of thought and a vigor of action, that carried everything before them. The hardihood of his designs, the alac- rity with which he reached decisions, the rapidity of his movements sur- prised his friends as well as his foes, inspiring fear on the one hand and confidence on the other. This latter characteristic of the man led his critics to remark, that his actions always had the appearance of rashness, until the results were developed, and then they seemed to have been con- ceived in consummate prudence and profound sagacity .* Throughout the play his appearance and manners were prepossessing and commanding, his address dignified and winning, yet it required no effort, when occa- sion demanded, for him to fly into a tempest of anger and terrify his beholders with the fierceness of his aspect. He knew men and men's na- tures, and had studied them well, selecting for his company a very capable corps of actors from the backwoods-frontiersmen and border-fighters, born close to Nature-who essayed their respective roles with a profound knowledge of the characters they had assumed, displaying histrionic ability that was both marked and marvelous. The whole caste, from the first walking gentleman down to the drummer boy and supernumeraries, ac- quitted themselves admirably. So well, in fact, did all the performers play their respective parts, that when the curtain descended on the final act of the drama, to be again rung up by an encore, a grand transforma- tion scene-the immensity of which beggars description and whose spec- tacular finale, for brilliant effects, has never been approached by any com- pany, on any stage of the world's vast theater-was presented. A new era in the eventful career of Vincennes had been wrought. The old town became the key, as it were, to unlock the door to a scope of country of matchless beauty, vast in extent and pregnant with resources-the em- porium of an empire, the seat of government of a trackless territory now embracing the great states of Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and a portion of Minnesota. Regretfully, it must be said, that the actors who played tragic roles in this great historical drama, with its all-im- portant scenes laid at Vincennes, have been permitted, by the faithful

- * Hall, The Romance of Western History, pp. 418, 419.

HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY

chroniclers of the times, to pass from the worldly scenes of action with- out a meed of praise : aye, without even a friendly criticism of how well they played their parts. Men whose brilliant deeds would add additional lustre to the pages of American history-the history of which we write- have been accorded but a passing notice, or ignored entirely, by historians. Verily,

We build with what we deem eternal rock ;

Die too : the deep foundations that we lay, Time plows them up, and not a trace remains."

We build with what we deem eternal work; A distant age asks where the fabric stood; And in the dust, sifted and searched in vain, The undiscoverable secret sleeps."

While it is of little or no consequence to the average reader to know of the first white man to visit a certain locality. or the date of its found- ing, there are quite a few persons desirous of gaining such information, especially if either the place or the visitor subsequently become noted or famous.

Because of the establishment of friendly relations between Canada and this particular spot in the Northwestern country almost simultaneous with the founding of Quebec, it is not unreasonable to suppose that mis- sionaries were here many years before the establishment of a military post. The quest for sinners among savages by the Jesuits, the tribal re- lations of the Indians, and the knowledge possessed by the latter and French-Canadian trappers, gained through communication with fur hunt- ers here, of this immediate locality as superior hunting grounds, abundantly supplied with a variety of game. had a magnetic effect in drawing these three different classes of people hither, at a very early day, from the great lakes of the northland.

The French colonial records of Quebec, Canada, make mention of this country and the beautiful river, called by the Creole natives "Ouabache" [pronounced "We-ba"-meaning a summer cloud. moving swiftly] and of the labors of the missionaries and the achievements of trappers and trad- ers, placing the settlement at 1702. The earliest written account of "Poste St. Vincent" ( Vincennes) and the country. and the Indians in- habiting the place, [a Piankashaw-Miami tribe then occupied with a vil- lage, a strip of ground bounded by Busseron and Perry streets and ex- tending from the banks of the river easterly as far, probably, as Eighth or Ninth street, called "Chip-Kaw-Kay." and pronounced by the settlers *"Chip-pe-coke" or "Brushwood"] is found in a book printed in the city

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History of Old Vincennes and Knox County, Indiana, Volume I, Part 3

Author: Green, George E Publication date: 1911 Publisher: Chicago, S.J. Clarke Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 636

Author: Green, George E
Publication date: 1911
Publisher: Chicago, S.J. Clarke Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 636