USA > Indiana > Wabash County > History of Wabash County, Indiana, Volume I > Part 7
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OFFICIAL CANNIBALS
As some civilized nations have their publie or official executioners, so had the Miamis. In this regard they also followed the custom prevalent in several countries of both the Orient and the Occident, in that it was an office that was inherited from generation to generation. With these common features named, the parallel diverges-and to the dire disad- vantage of the Miamis.
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These Indians had their public executioners, chosen through the gen- erations from one family, but their bloody function was not to kill erim- inals, but to eat such captives as had been condemned to death by tribal vote. The last victim known to have been killed and eaten was a young Kentuckian, who was thus disposed of at the Miami Village located near the present site of Fort Wayne. The best description of this fearful deed is found in a speech delivered by General Cass July 4, 1843, at Fort Wayne, on the opening of the Wabash and Erie Canal. He said : " For many years during the frontier history of this place and region, the line of your canal was a bloody warpath, which has seen many a deed of hor- ror. And this peaceful town has had its Moloch, and the records of human depravity furnish no more terrible examples of cruelty than were offered at his shrine. The Miami Indians, our predecessors in the occupation of this district, had a terrible institution, the origin and object of which have been lost in the darkness of aboriginal history, but which was con- tinued to a late period, and the orgies of which were held upon the very spot where we now are. It was called the Man Eating Society, and it was the duty of its associates to eat such prisoners as were preserved and delivered to them for that purpose. The members of this society belonged to a particular family, and the dreadful inheritance descended to all the children, male and female. The duties it imposed could not be avoided, and the sanction of religion was added to the obligations of immemorial usage.
"The feast was a solemn ceremony, at which the whole tribe was col- lected as actors or spectators. The miserable victim was bound to a stake and burned at a slow fire with all the refinements of cruelty which savage ingenuity could invent. There was a traditional ritual which regulated with revolting precision the whole course of procedure at those cere- monies. Latterly the authority and obligations of the institution had declined, and I presume it has now wholly disappeared. But I have seen and conversed with the head of the family, the chief of the society, whose name was White-Skin-with what feeling of disgust I need not attempt to describe. I well knew an intelligent Canadian who was present at one of the last sacrifices made at this horrible institution. The victim was a young American captured in Kentucky near the close of the Revolution- ary war. Here, where we are now assembled in peace and security cele- brating the triumph of art and industry, within the memory of the pres- ent generation our countrymen have been tortured, murdered and devoured. But, thank God, that conneil fire is extinguished. The impious feast is over; the war dance is ended; the war song is unsung; the war drum is silent, and the Indian has departed."
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HISTORY OF WABASH COUNTY
TRIBAL MANITOUS
Like other savage tribes, the Miamis believed in one supreme God, or Great Manitou, and in a more happy country than their earth, to which they went after death, carrying with them their bodily appetites and capacity for physical enjoyments. They also believed that each tribe was protected by a special maniton, which entered a particular form of animal life on this earth. One tribe worshiped the manitou of the buffalo; another, the deer; another, the rattlesnake. The Twightwee tribe, of the Miami nation, held that reptile in such great veneration that they would never kill one themselves, though in later years they were in nowise averse to having the white man destroy them. Offerings of tobacco were made to propitiate these venomous reptiles, and up to within forty years ago there were many old settlers still living who could remember having seen large quantities of it scattered about near their dens. The Miami's plan was to notch a sappling, bend it over and insert the tobacco in the split.
BURIAL CUSTOMS
It was the general practice of the Miamis to bury their dead, each little village having its sacred grounds for the departed, but there were evidently individual ideas as to proper entombment, or there were special customs befitting certain individuals. In 1812 General Harrison's troops found near one of the Miami's deserted villages on the Upper Wabash the body of a chief entombed in an enclosure of rough logs daubed with clay. Its silent occupant lay wrapped in his blanket, his gun and pipe by his side, and a small tin pan on his breast containing a wooden spoon and various trinkets, all designed to add to his pleasure and comfort in the happy hunting grounds. At another village was discovered the body of a woman in a sitting posture facing the east, with a basket by her side containing such charms used by the Indian sorceress as bones, owl bills and roots. Similar tombs were found, at a much later day, by some of the pioneers of Wabash County near what was afterward Stockdale Post- office in the western part of Paw Paw Township.
FIRST ALLIANCE WITH THE ENGLISHI
The Miamis and the English formed their first treaty of alliance in 1748 at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and three representatives of the nation from the country along the River "Oubache" were parties to it. The principal of those whose names are attached to that instrument was Aque-nack-que, head chief of the Miamis and father of the more famous Vol. I-3
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Me-che-quin-no-qua, or Little Turtle. At that time, and for many years previously, he was a resident of the Turtle Village on Eel River, a few miles to the northwest of Fort Wayne, where, about one year before the signature of the father was attached to this treaty of amity between his people and the English, his greater son was born.
At that time the French influence among the Miamis was on the wane, largely from the fact that although New France had virtually continued to monopolize the Indian trade for a century the Government had become more and more lax in supplying the increasing wants of the Miamis, especially those on the borders of the Ohio and its tributaries. They therefore turned to the English, whose traders had secured during the later years a limited trade among the dissatisfied Indians. The treaty made at Lancaster July 23, 1748, recognized them as "good friends and allies of the English nation, subjects of the king of Great Britain and entitled to the privilege and protection of the English laws." Soon after- ward some English traders commeneed to appear in the Ohio and Wabash valleys in larger numbers than heretofore, and there was trouble at once with the French and the Indian allies who remained faithful to them.
THE MIAMIS' LINGERING DEATH
We know of no more concise and interesting narrative of these three- score years of struggles, which preceded the fatal blow to the Miamis and their lingering death, than the account given in Paul's "Atlas of Wabash County," from which the conclusion of this chapter is adapted.
The territory at that time (1748) being under the protection of the French Government, this ineursion of the British was regarded by that power, or by its local representatives at Quebec, as a trespass upon their rights. Between the years 1749 and 1754 the French forces and their Indian allies captured a number of English traders on the borders of the Ohio River, seized and confiscated their goods and peltries and held them prisoners. In return, the Miamis captured three French traders and handed them over to the authorities in Pennsylvania. Whereupon the French captured a British trading post and killed fourteen Miamis. In this way the Indian nation became involved in the quarrels between the whites who coveted their land. 1
FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR
During the French and Indian war of 1754-60 the Miamis were actively engaged against the English and aided materially in the pro- longation of the struggle. In combat they were brave, in defeat they
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were dexterous, in victory they were cruel. Neither sex, age nor the pris- oner were exempt from their tomahawk or scalping knife. All along the frontier they waged a bloody and merciless warfare, which rendered agricultural pursuits hazardous and the life of the backwoodsman and his family a thing of great uncertainty. Concealing themselves in the woods or among weeds and bushes, behind trees, waylaying the path to water or the road to the field, they would fire the gun or let fly the arrow at the approaching victim. They would retreat, if necessary, or, if they dared, advance upon their adversary and take him prisoner; if mortally wounded, they would scalp him. 2042840
When besieging a fort they seldom showed themselves in force in any quarter, but dispersed and acted individually or in small parties. They aimed to ent off the garrison's supplies by killing the cattle, and they watched the watering places for those who went for that article of neces- sity, thus cutting off one by one in detail and with but little risk to themselves. When their stock of provisions became exhausted they would retire to the woods, supply themselves by hunting and then again return to the siege.
They were among the first to make peace with the English when the tide of fortune turned against the French (1760), though three years after that time they were equally ready to join with Pontiac in his bloody war against them. During the ensuing year they followed the fortunes of that vindictive chief of the north country until some time in the winter of 1764, when, deceived by the French, deserted by his allies and over- powered by the British, he retired to the Illinois country, where he was assassinated by a Kaskaskia Indian in 1767.
Colonel Croghan, a British officer, visited the Miami villages on the Eel River in June, 1765, passing through what is now Wabash County as a prisoner in the hands of the Kickapoos and Mussaquatannis. At this time the total effective force of Miami warriors was estimated as follows: The Twightwees (the eastern wing of the confederation), at the head of the Maumee River, 250; the Quiatenons, near the Post Ouiatenon on the Wabash, 300; the Piankeshaws on the Vermillion River (the western wing), 300, and the Shockeys, occupying the territory between Vincennes and Post Oniatenon ( La Fayette), 200. A thousand and fifty warriors were all that remained of the once proud nation, whose power had been so long felt in savage warfare.
PEACE IN THE WABASHI VALLEY
During the French and Indian war all the British trading posts in the West had been broken up. From 1768 to 1776 the French population
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HISTORY OF WABASH COUNTY
about Vincennes and along the Miami villages of the Wabash Valley dwelt peaceably and in the enjoyment of the most unrestrained freedom. Liv- ing in the heart of the wilderness without taxes and in friendship with the Indians, they passed their lives in hunting, fishing, trading in furs and raising a few potatoes and a little corn for their families. Many of them intermarried with the Miamis, whose amity was thus more securely bound.
A race of half-breeds thus grew up whose natures were more Indian than French, and the intermingling of the two people and their languages is still to be seen in the names of personages and places. The morals of the French traders, never any too strict, did not improve by this inter- course. They soon learned to excel even the Indians in habits of indo- lence and improvidence. They made no effort to become educated, skilful in agriculture or ingenious in mechanical matters. Daneing, running, jumping, wrestling and target shooting were among their favorite amuse- ments. Their manners and customs carried them above barbarism, but left them far below true civilization. The savage natures of the Indians were in some degree softened by this intercourse; but their ready adop- tion of all the corrupting vices which such a state of society engendered rendered them decidedly the worse for such contact.
THE MIAMIS IN THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR
At the elose of the French and Indian war many of the French had taken the oath of allegiance to the British Government, and at the out- break of the Revolutionary war they were very instrumental in inciting the various tribes with whom they had had such intimate intercourse to wage a border warfare against the unprotected frontier of the American colonies. The Miamis were among the last to take up the tomahawk in the cause of the British, whom they had never loved any too well, but during the later part of the eight years' struggle, and for some time afterward during General Washington's administration they were exceedingly hos- tile. At successive periods they defeated expeditions sent against them under Harmer and St. Clair, and only yielded finally to the superior intrepidity and perseverance of Gen. Anthony Wayne. In 1895 a treaty of peace was concluded between them and the United States authorities at Greenville, Ohio, the home of Tecumseh, the great Shawnee chief. That peace was maintained until after the breaking out of the War of 1812.
AGAIN ON THIE WARPATHI (1812)
Following the example of many of the surrounding tribes at that time, a portion of the Miamis again started on the warpath, and, as the follow-
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ing chapter will reveal, were severely punished for so doing. Many of them remained friendly to the United States, but a large portion became hostile, in union with the warlike Shawnees under Tecumseh, and the Kickapoos and Pottawatomies. But the Harrison campaign against the Miami rebels is reserved for a separate narrative which has close connec- tion with the history of Wabash County.
THE POTTAWATOMIES
The Miamis were the Indians who held the land and were always in strong evidence in both the lower and upper valleys of the Wabash. The Pottawatomies were migratory and shadowy, and seemed to come to the foreground only upon special occasions. For over a century, lasting well into the nineteenth, the seat of what influence was left to them was along the southern shores of Lake Michigan.
The Pottawatomies, like the Miamis, were of the Algonquin family, and during the earlier period of their tribal life appear to have been associated with the Ottawas. Anciently they were called Poux, and, with the Ottawas and Chippewas, are claimed to be a great offshoot of the parent Algonquin stock.
"It is represented as a part of the family history that the separation of these into distinet bands took place in the vicinity of Michilimackinack (Upper Michigan), not far from the middle of the seventeenth century- as early probably as 1641. At the time of the separation, or immediately after, the Poux having located on the southern shore of Lake Michigan, the Ottawas went to live with them. After a time the Ottawas, becoming dissatisfied with the situation, determined to withdraw from their former allies and seek a home elsewhere. The Poux, being informed of this deter- mination, told the Ottawas they might go back to the North if they did not,like their association ; they, the Poux, had made a fire for themselves and were capable of assuming and maintaining a separate and inde- pendent sovereignty, and of building their own council fires. From this circumstance, it is said, the name of the Pottawatomies was derived. Ety- mologieally, the word is a compound of put-ta-wa, signifying a blowing out, or expansion, of the cheeks, as in the act of blowing out a fire, and me, a nation; which, being interpreted, means a nation of fire-blowers-a people, as intimated to the Ottawas, able to build their own eouneil fires and exercise the prerogatives of independence, or self-government.
"The first historie reference we have to them was in 1641, when it was stated they had abandoned their own country (Green Bay), and taken refuge among the Chippewas, so as to secure themselves from their enemies, the Sioux, who, it would seem, had well nigh overcome them.
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In 1660 Father Allouez, a French missionary, speaks of the Pottawato- mies as occupying territory that extended from Green Bay to the head of Lake Superior, and southward to the country of the Saes and Foxes, and the Miamis, and then traders had preceded him to their country. Ten years later they returned to Green Bay and occupied the borders of Lake Michigan on the north. Subsequently, about the beginning of the eighteenth century, they traversed the eastern coast of Lake Michigan to the mouth of the River St. Joseph's, where, and to the southward of Lake Michigan, a large body of them held possession until near the middle of the nineteenth century. The occupancy of this territory was at first permissive only on the part of the Miamis, who had before possessed the undisputed right to occupy and enjoy it; but, in the course of time, their right was acknowledged by giving them a voice in the making of treaties, which also included the right of session and conveyance."
As a rule the Pottawatomies followed the policies of the Miamis and the Ottawas in their wars and alliances. They were in the front ranks of the warriors during the bloody execution of Pontiac's conspiracy. On the 25th of May, 1763, the old post at St. Joseph's fell into the hands of the conspirators, and the Pottawatomies bore Pontiac's order for the sae- rifice of the garrison. Two days later the same determined band captured the fort at Ke-ki-nog-a, with all the usual accompaniments of treachery and indiscriminate slaughter. They participated in the Greenville treaty of 1795, which, with the Miamis, they kept until 1812, when they were drawn into the uprising and confederacy led by Teemnseh. In pursuance of his plans, and as agents of Great Britain, it was the Pottawatomies who were foremost in the Chicago (Fort Dearborn) massacre of 1812; but their star fell, with that of the Miamis, in the events of that year, and a score of treaties followed previous to 1837, when they made the last of their lands over to the United States.
THE GREAT CHIEF ME-TE-A
The Pottawatomie best known in the Upper Wabash Valley was Me-te-a, a war chief of great intelligence and bravery, whose tribe occu- pied two villages on the Little St. Joseph's River a few miles from Fort Wayne. They were located on lands granted to them by the Miamis. At the period of the War of 1812 Me-te-a was at the height of his power, and while executing an ambuscade for Harrison's troops, who were marching to the relief of Fort Wayne, had his arm shattered and rendered useless for life by a rifle ball. During the greater part of the eighteenth century his tribe is said to have inhabited the country to the north and west of the present site of Fort Wayne and the borderland of the Tippecanoe
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River. It is known that the chief himself resided in that region from 1800 to 1827. and in May he was poisoned by certain members of his tribe who were incensed at him for his faithful adherence to the Mississinewa treaty of 1826. The fatal poison is supposed to have been the root of the May apple. Me-te-a, who had a wide reputation for vivacity and wit, as well as for generosity and bravery, was buried on the sandhill overlooking St. Mary's, near Fort Wayne College. The Pottawatomies who came in contact with the carly settlers of Wabash County were mainly members of Me-te-a's tribe and villages.
THE WEAS (QUIATENONS)
The Weas, or Oniatenons, as they were originally called by the French, were of the Algonquin family, and were closely related to the Miamis- more closely than the Pottawatomies, for with the organization of the Miasi confederation, or nation, the Weas formed a distinct unit in that body. They were thus found with the coming of the French in 1669-70.
Among the French archives at Paris is found the following in an official document written in 1718: "This river, Ouabache, is the one on which the Oniatenons ( Weas) are settled. , They consist of five villages, which are continuous, the one to the other. One is called Oujatenon, the other Peanquinchias, another Petitscotias, and the fourth, Les Gros. The name of the last I do not recollect, but they are all Oujatenons, having the same language as the Miamis, whose brothers they are, and properly all Miamis, having the same customs and dress. The men are very mmer- ous-fully a thousand or twelve hundred. They have a different custom from all other nations, which is to keep their fort extremely clean, not allowing a blade of grass to remain in it. The whole of the fort is sanded like the Tuilleries. Their village is situated on a high hill and they have over two leagues of improvement, where they raise their Indian corn, pumpkins and melons. From the summit of this elevation nothing is visible to the eye but prairies full of buffalo."
The Greenville treaty of 1795 marked the first session of lands made by the Weas as a separate tribe. This was a tract of land six miles square at the Ouiatenon, or Old Wea Towns, at the present site of Lafayette, Tip- peranoe County. On August 21, 1805, the Weas, Miamis, Eel Rivers, Delawares and Pottawatomies at a treaty made at Grouseland, near Vincennes, declared that they were "joint owners of all the country on the Wabash and its waters above the Vincennes tract," which had not been ceded to the United States by that or any other treaty, and as such they agreed thereafter to recognize a community of interest in the same. By the provisions of the same treaty the joint interest of these tribes in
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certain lands south of the White River was relinquished to the United States, in consideration of which the Weas were to receive an annuity of $250. Three subsequent treaties were made by the Weas, involving ses- sions of land, before they finally departed from the Wabash Valley, the last of which was at Vincennes, on the 11th of August, 1820. It was con- templated by the last treaty that the Weas should shortly remove from the Wabash, as they did, and their annuities were thereafter paid at Kas- kaskia, Illinois.
CHAPTER IV
THE MISSISSINEWA EXPEDITION
IMPORTANT STEP IN RECAPTURING DETROIT-HARRISON'S ARMY OF INVEST- MENT-MOVING AGAINST THE MIAMI VILLAGES-BURN VILLAGES IN WABASH COUNTY-BATTLE OF THE MISSISSINEWA -- CAPTAIN PIERCE KILLED THE KILLED AND WOUNDED --- HARD MARCH TOWARD GREEN- VILLE-WHAT BECAME OF THE INDIANS-MISSISSINEWA BATTLE FIELD IN 1836-THE VISIT OF 1861-SITE OF THE INDIAN VILLAGE-FIRST PLOWING OF THE BATTLE FIELD -- REVISITING THE GROUNDS IN 1883- THE SLAUGHTER .OF THE HORSES-IMPORTANCE OF THE BATTLE- FORMAL ACTION TO PRESERVE THE BATTLE GROUND-COMMITTEE FROM GRANT AND WABASH COUNTIES.
The first campaigns in the war of 1812 all centered in the recap- ture of Detroit from the British, after it had been turned over to the enemy with such un-American celerity by the panie-stricken Hull. It was not only the key to the invasion of Canada, but it was even more important that it should be taken to revive the national confidence and military spirit. In the investment of Detroit nothing was more neces- sary than that the rear of the American army should be safe from the attacks of those Indian tribes which, through the generations, were ever lying in wait to push on to disaster the weaker of the white fae- tions which happened to be at war.
IMPORTANT STEP IN RECAPTURING DETROIT
Although the Miamis professed to be neutral in the War of 1812, yet from their participation in the attacks upon Fort Wayne and Fort Harrison and other acts of hostility, their fair words were doubted. The natural avenue along which they would pass to engage in attacks upon the rear of an American foree would be that of the Wabash Valley. That must be prevented as the first important step in the advance upon Detroit.
In September, 1812, General Harrison was named by President Madi-
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son as commander-in-chief of the northwestern army, and his letter of instruction contained the following, which explains the short, sharp, and decisive campaign against the Miamis in Grant and Wabash counties: "Having provided for the protection of the western frontier, you will retake Detroit and, with a view to the conquest of Upper Canada you will penetrate that country as far as the force under your command will, in your judgment, justify."
HARRISON'S ARMY OF INVESTMENT
The plan for the raising of Harrison's army had been carefully worked out. It was to consist of regular troops, rangers, the volunteer militia of the states of Kentucky and Ohio, and 3,000 from Virginia and Pennsylvania-a force estimated at 10,000 men. The Kentucky volunteers responded so enthusiastically that many had to be rejected, and soon after General Harrison assumed command over 2,000 mounted men had assembled at Vincennes to be led into the Indian country along the Wabash and Illinois rivers-the "western frontier" of the United States which was to be made safe before the American forces delivered their assault against Detroit. Briefly, the Kentuekians were under com- mand of General Samuel Hopkins. They rebelled against his anthority and were sent home. The general then organized another force and destroyed the Prophet's Town, on the Tippecanoe, the headquarters of Tecumseh's brother, which had been abandoned by the Indians. But it is not this wing of the Harrison army, which was sweeping Indiana of treacherous savages, that is of special interest to the writers or readers of the history of Wabash County.
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