USA > Indiana > Marshall County > Tippecanoe in Marshall County > The Tippecanoe battle-field monument; a history of the association formed to promote the enterprise, the action of Congress and the Indiana legislature, the work of the commission and the ceremonies at the dedication of the monument > Part 5
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74
Report of Commission.
GENERAL LEW WALLACE.
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Tippecanoe Battle-field Monument.
ADDRESS BY GEN. LEW WALLACE. (Delivered at Tippecanoe Battle-ground, Sunday, June 20, 1899.)
Ladies and Gentlemen-I take it for granted that every one in this assemblage native to the State of Indiana loves it. So the adopted citizen, if he does not love, at least respects it. It is some- thing with which you are all familiar. Your habit is to traverse it almost daily ; for there was never a people who did so much going up and down the earth. Withal, however, I am tempted to ask you a question which I will get well off with if at first it be met with only a smile. What is Indiana?
When, recovered from surprise, you are moved to treat the query with soberness, you will each answer according to your bent. The curt man will say it is a State; the politer person, if he be scientific, will recur to its geology or triangulation; the poet will quote Longfellow ; the geographer will hurry up his parallels ; the politician will speak after his lights; yet, I respectfully submit, none of them will have answered to the advantage of the subject.
The age is utilitarian and materialistic, and by that idea we are governed whether we will or not. So, if you insist upon a definition of Indiana from me, I will meet you as a statistician who insists that nothing conveys comprehension like figures. Observe, if you please, how much I will be able by that resort to crowd into an interval scarce more than the space of a breath-how much of his- tory, area, prosperity, production ; then observe that I have fur- ther accomplished what is my special aim, an answer which will set before you the power of Indiana, one of a community of States marching, in bonds of happiest union, toward Christian control of the earth.
Settled at Vincennes
1702
Admitted as a state.
1816
Population in 1890.
2,192,404
Real property
$567,000,000
Personal property $227,000,000
Area in square miles
36,350
Miles of railroad.
6,046
Manufactures (yearly)
$148,000,000
Farm land in acres
21,000,000
Farm land values . $635,000,000
Public schools
10,000
Newspapers
600
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Report of Commission.
Assuredly, my friends, we have reason to be proud of the State, especially when it is considered that the results tabulated make a sum of achievements occupying barely eighty years. Then as to the future, calculate boldly, remembering that the ratio of increase accelerates of itself, exactly like the ratio of increase of money at compound interest.
I fear now lest some of you might regard this line of speech, if persisted in, a dry entertainment. Wherefore, turning to matter more interesting, let us see how the power I have figured before you under the name Indiana came about; when I have finished every one of you will have a higher respect for what was done here by our fathers.
Ladies and gentlemen, we do not all know enough of the history of our State. In our public schools and colleges we are crammed with Greece and Rome and Europe, their wars and literature, but of Indiana, nothing clear and determinate-I came near saying, of Indiana, nothing-nothing at all.
Suppose the prize boy or girl asked, who settled Indiana? The probabilities are you would have in reply, Indiana was settled by the English, or by the American colonists from New England or Virginia. That would be very agreeable to our Anglo-Saxonism, but it would not be the truth.
How it is with you, I do not know; but with me the origin of a power, commercial, political or social, and its growth and devel- opment, are of transcending interest. This I would have you un- derstand as a remark of general application; then naturally how much greater must my interest be in the origin and growth of a power constituting a factor of immense and abiding importance to our country. Such is Indiana.
I assert confidently, if to study the past of our State one re- quires the incentive of romance, he can not go amiss for it ; for, singularly enough, all of romantic incident pertaining to the early settlement of Canada west of Montreal, and all of like incident properly of the Mississippi Valley from Illinois and Missouri to Louisiana inclusive is inseparable from Indiana. This I know is very broad and sweeping; but I also know that now I have your attention, and will proceed to make my assertion good.
Great Britain and France, you remember, were competitors for dominion in North America. Contrary to the general idea, the French for a long time led in the rivalry, a circumstance due to their better management of the Indians. They had also the ad- vantage of earlier colonization in the part of America north of the
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Tippecanoe Battle-field Monument.
Potomac. Years prior to the coming of the Puritan Fathers, mis- sionaries from France had established the Roman Catholic Church in the eastern half of Maine, and the beggars of St. Francis-beg- gars by vow-had penetrated the woods of the Mohawk. One of them, LeCarson, on foot or in a birch bark boat, reached the rivers of Lake Huron in the North.
In 1627, Louis XII created New France, giving it, by charter, to Cardinal Richilieu, Champlain, and others. This was a gorgeous dream of royalty. Besides the basin of the St. Lawrence, the coun- try south of Virginia was included in its limits. Thus the most Christian king provided for the extension of commerce. The care of souls he entrusted to the Society of Jesus.
Prejudice aside, my friends, a student of the operations of the Jesuits at this period in America will be driven to admit that there is more romance connected with them than is to be found in the whole history of colonization elsewhere. As a theme for an epic poem they will compare with the emigration of Aeneas and his expatriated Trojans to Italy.
Laffemand, Raymbault, Jacques, Rene Soupil, Bressani, Chauminot, Dablon, Rene Misnard, and others like them, serv- ants of France as well as God, most of them at the cost of their lives, carried the dominion of Louis into every quarter- into Maine, and the vine-clad vales of western New York, down to the parks of Albany, out westwardly to the Falls of St. Mary, and to the green shores of Lake Superior; whence, just beyond, lay the mysterious and shifting distances of the Mississippi-all this, mark you, years before Eliot, the New England divine, had ad- dressed the tribe of natives dwelling within six miles of Boston harbor.
When you get home, ladies and gentlemen, take down the third volume of your Bancroft, and, if romance is what you want, read the stories of those Jesuit fathers and the part they took in the set- tlement of our America. They were such heroes as there is no demand for today. They reached the utmost limit of religious de- votion. In death, as in life, their imitation of Jesus Christ has never been surpassed. They established missions, founded villages and towns, and built convents, hospitals and colleges, and sought and found the crown of martyrdom. And as you read you will see how easy it is to believe there were Sir Galahads among them, and that the Holy Grail was a vision of the wilderness, and came to them often, a comforter at the stake and always a consolation.
In 1665, Father Claude Allonez undertook a mission to the far [6]
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Report of Commission.
West. He passed the rapids by which the upper lakes empty their tribute into the Huron; thence he paddled into the lake, and by the pictured rocks, and on the south shore said mass, and, by virtue of discovery, claimed the region, its land and inland seas for France. On the shore of the bay, in a village of the Chippewas, he planted a chapel; and there came to him to receive instructions bands of savages who had never seen a white man-Potawatomies, Sacs and Foxes, Illinois-and from Indians of the further west, he heard definitely of the river Mississippi.
Then, in 1668, Allonez was joined by Fathers James Mar- quette, and Claude Dablon. Marquette, listening to him, was in- spired to undertake discovery of the Great River. Congress of Nations was proposed. The tribes of Lake Superior, and those of the north and south were invited. Nicholas Perot, a messenger, se- cured an escort of Potawatomies, and was the first European amongst the Miamis at Chicago.
The day of the congress was a great day. The sun, risen over the Falls of St. Mary, looked down on an assembly of representa- tive savages from far and near, who could not sate their curiosity gazing at officers of France uniformed in gold. A cross of cedar was set up; the company of Frenchmen chanted a hymn; by the cross a cedar column was erected, marked with the lilies of the Bourbons. So, France laid a hand of possession upon the heart of the continent, and two great tribes of Indiana, the Potawatomies and Miamis, and one of Illinois, were willing witnesses of the deed.
Marquette went next to the authorities of Canada proposing to explore the Mississippi, and carry a flag of France to the Pacific, if the river would bear him thither, or to the Gulf of Mexico, if that was its direction. The ambition of the king was fired, and the adventurer bidden go. There were with him at starting, Joliet, a brother missionary, five Frenchmen, and two Algonquin guides. On the banks of the Wisconsin the Christians were left alone. In the words of Marquette, "France and Christianity stood in the Val- ley of the Mississippi." In two canoes they descend the Wisconsin, and in seven days they "entered happily the Great River," and Wisconsin was added to New France. On they went-on past the mouth of the Ohio, then called the Wabash-on to the junction of the Missouri-on yet through unknown peoples. A pipe of peace, bright with the plumage of birds, and hanging across the breast of Marquette, was their strange and only safeguard. On still, past the junction with the Arkansas river. Not till then was it def- initely ascertained that the Father of Waters stayed his mighty cur-
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Tippecanoe Battle-field Monument.
rent in the Gulf of Mexico. It was enough. The explorer turned his face northward. Joliet was sent to Quebec to proclaim the dis- covery. Marquette stayed to preach the gospel to the Miamis of Chicago. On the bank of a little river in Michigan he erected an altar, said mass, and being left alone for half an hour, "fell asleep," as Bancroft says, "on the margin of the stream that bears his name."
The conclusion of the discovery was left to Robert Cavalier de la Salle, a trader with the soul of a soldier. Passing up the St. Joseph river, La Salle and his party carried their stores across the portage, and launched themselves on the Kankakee, from which they entered the Illinois ; and so France acquired Indiana and Illi- nois. This was all in 1679. Louisiana and Texas came on a little later.
Look now, and see the new empire-Canada west of Montreal, the great lakes, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota and Indi- ana, both littoral of the Mississippi southward to the gulf, and all the unknown world, river and mountain bearing, off to Oonalaska's sounding shore. So, in this first epoch of American settlement, we find Indiana a part of New France. I said, "My friends, the ro- mance of the era was inseparable from our noble State." Did I not speak aright?
The second epoch in the history of Indiana is better known, and on that account admits of briefer disposition. There came a time when Great Britain and her American colonists awoke to an appre- ciation of New France, and resolved to possess it. There was war, and after a while the French were ousted. The romances of the first epoch were religious; those of the second are military. It is not strange that in the struggle, unconfined to any locality, the Indians were allies of the French. In the shadowy frontier we catch glimpses of agencies, some of them of exceeding interest to us. We see Washington, a youthful surveyor, and later a soldier of Vir- ginia fighting France and her savage allies. Braddock, haughty, but brave, marches through the fretted period, going to his defeat and death. When finally the epoch closes, New France is an append- age of the British, and Indiana a full partner in the conquest- Indiana reaching up from her mergement, and stirring, with the whispers of destiny in her ear-Indiana grown more distinctive.
Ladies and gentlemen, the first era in the history of Indiana ended with the expulsion of the French; the second, with the ex- pulsion of the British ; the third is ours, and we are standing in its early morning light. Can anything better become us than to un-
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Report of Commission.
derstand it from the beginning? I say the battle fought here was its beginning. Let us see.
The contest between the French and British proved rather an incentive than a deterrant to colonists along the Atlantic. Scaling the Alleghanies, they poured into the valley of the Ohio. The British did not look lovingly upon the movement. They recognized it a force to be opposed. At length Congress took a decided step, and acting prophetically created the Territory of the Northwest, covering the region out of which six States were subsequently carved-Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minne- sota.
Indiana meantime had risen distinctively. For nearly a century the French, passing from Lake Erie to the Mississippi river, had traversed it. Their route was by way of the Maumee river, the Wabash and the Ohio, with a portage in the vicinity of Lafay ette. At the source of the Maumee, at Wea Prairie, and at Vincennes, they had established trading posts and villages, determining not only that Indiana was a favorite even in its merged condition, but also the home and haunt of a multitude of Indians. Yet later, its new possessors distinguished it by keeping Vincennes a seat of jus- tice, or what we would call headquarters or capital. Such it was when George Rogers Clark wrested the fort from them; and in that light it becomes a matter of quick understanding how, upon its fall, the English abandoned the region, retiring into Canada.
At first glance one would think that the disappearance of the British must leave Indiana without an obstruction to the advancing settlers. No so. The Indians remained, and had next to be dis- posed of.
In 1800 Congress created the Territory of Indiana, and Wil- liam Henry Harrison, who had been Governor of the Territory of the Northwest, was continued at Vincennes, Governor of the new Territory. Still the Indians stayed in their old haunts, and the con- dition was war, cruel and relentless. White men were shot down in their fields. Women and children were awakened in their cabins at night by the war whoop; somettimes by the crackling flames in the roof over their heads.
This could not go on. The suffering Territory had become a hope of the nation. It still covered with its name and jurisdiction the present States of Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and a part of Minnesota. Nor that only. Four years after its organization its name and jurisdiction were extended to embrace the unknown and indefinite West, from Ohio to Oregon. Virginia had been less a
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Tippecanoe Battle-field Monument.
mother of States than Indiana; and it is no cause of shame that when the final partition' came she was left in area the least of all her splendid progeny.
Great peoples, my friends, are those who come up through trib- ulations. Indiana, as has been observed, was the home and favorite hunting ground for Indians of many tribes. They infested the rivers, forests and prairies. They knew the soils most favorable to corn. Their veneration for the graves of their fathers was a deathless trait. They had eyes for fair landscapes and far views under bright skies, and divine directions through pathless woods and starless nights, instinct serving them as it serves birds and foxes. War and hunting were passions to which they were born, and they clung to Indiana as souls are supposed to cling to Para- dise. White settlers they regarded as mortal enemies whom it was a duty to kill. Such were the savage spirits in the way; clearing land for peaceful farming was waiting on them; and so one last crowning achievement was reserved for the squatters and warran- tees first to penetrate the royal preserves of nature primevally in Indiana. And to that I am now come.
An Indian named Tecumseh was the chief obstacle confronting the settler. He was born in Clark county, Ohio. Like Caesar, he was both statesman and warrior. Brave and of matchless elo- quence, he yielded himself and his genius to two inspirations, hate of Americans, and an idea said to have been borrowed from Pon- tiac, the bringing all the tribes north and south into a confedera- tion for offense and defense. His following was regardless of tribal distinctions. In 1808, he and a brother, who assumed the functions of a prophet, were invited by the Pottawatomies to come and live with them in their country, and accepting, he joined them in building a town known as Tippecanoe, or the Prophet's Town, which quickly arose into importance, being both the headquarters of the Prophet and of the confederacy. He established relations with the British in Canada, and, while holding talks, sometimes stormy, sometimes peaceful with the Territorial authorities, was really organizing war against them. These practices he continued down to 1811, when, in furtherance of his great scheme, he went south, leaving the Prophet in control of his affairs in Indiana.
The Territorial seat of government, as has been said, was in Vin- cennes. Governor Harrison had a proper idea of Tecumseh. In an official report he spoke of him, and there is so much of characteriza- tion in what he said that I can not refrain from quotation-"If it were not for the vicinity of the United States he would perhaps be
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Report of Commission.
the founder of an empire that would rival in glory Mexico and Peru. No difficulties deter him. For four years he has been in constant motion. You see him today on the Wabash and in a short time hear of him on the shores of Lake Erie or Michigan, or on the banks of the Mississippi, and wherever he goes he makes an impression favorable to his purpose. He is now upon the last rounds to put a finishing stroke upon his work. I hope, however, before his return that that part of the work which he considered complete will be demolished and even its foundation rooted up."
The Governor's judgment was sound, and it was time to act. A few months more-possibly a few weeks-and the whole frontier, thousands of miles in extent, might be drenched in blood. The at- tempt at extermination was certain to fall heaviest upon Indiana. In fact, the war was already begun.
On the 26th of September, 1811, the Governor set out from Vincennes for the Prophet's town. At 2 o'clock, November 6, he halted and encamped within two miles of his destination.
Let me stop here to correct some popular delusions. Many in- telligent persons, failing to realize the extent of settlement in In- diana, believe the battle of Tippecanoe was fought by soldiers of the regular army and by Kentuckians. The best way to settle the point is to speak by the records of the United States war office. By these records the total of the army actually engaged was a few men over nine hundred. Two hundred and fifty of them were of the Fourth regiment of the United States Infantry ; sixty were Kentuckians ; the rest, six hundred strong, were militia of the Ter- ritory of Indiana, raised, we are told, at Corydon, Vincennes, and points along the Wabash and Ohio rivers-six hundred, or nearly two-thirds of the army.
This, ladies and gentlemen, was as it should have been. The firesides to be defended were of Indiana. Saying now that the six hundred behaved well, why should they not receive their due proportion of the glory? With respect to their conduct, hear what Harrison says: "But I have not given them (the regulars) all the honor of the victory. To have done so, I should have been guilty of a violence of truth, of justice, and a species of treason against our Republic itself, whose peculiar and appropriate force is its militia. With equal pride and pleasure, then, do I pronounce that, notwithstanding the regular troops did as well as men ever did, many of the militia were in nowise inferior to them."
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Tippecanoe Battle-field Monument.
But we ought to do better by these brave men, I continue, than we have. We ought, if possible, to find a measure for the honor they won that memorable night in November; for when it is found we will have wherewith to measure the gratitude we owe them.
Undoubtedly there have been greater battles than this one of Tippecanoe-greater in the numbers engaged and in the number killed and wounded-yet few have been more decisive, and still fewer attended with greater results. Bear with me while I tell you of at least one of these results. Perhaps you will then understand why I wanted an effigy in bronze of the Indiana captain, Spencer, one of those who died on the battle line within sound of my voice, set up conspicuously under the shaft of the memorial pile in In- dianapolis known as the soldier's monument.
The flower of Tecumseh's savage chivalry were at Tippecanoe, the town, awaiting Governor Harrison's arrival. There was a strong thousand of them. Not a white man was with them, neither Briton nor Frenchman. They were all Indian. If they won, what horrors awaited the defenseless settler of the Territory? On the other hand, if they were beaten-well they were beaten, and con- sider the one consequence comprehensive of the rest. Never again was there a purely Indian army to offer battle east of the Missis- sippi. The survivor-Tecumseh as well-sunk to be despised allies of the British. Best of all, however, from that night the way was open and made smooth for the coming of the State of Indiana- the power, commercial, political, social, manufacturing, within the definition with which I set out.
Indiana is my native State. I have seen her growth since 1827, and words are lacking to express the pride I have in her present amplitude of wealth and influence; yet one of the sweetest satis- factions I have springs from the fact that what the feat of arms has done, this crowning achievement, this rescue of civilization, this final extinguishment of savagery, was a performance in which her citizens were principal actors.
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Report of Commission.
HON. EDGAR D. RANDOLPH.
Tippecanoe Battle-field Monument.
ADDRESS OF THE HON. EDGAR D. RANDOLPH.
(A Memorial Address on the Battle of Tippecanoe, Delivered Sunday, June 17, 1900.)
Indiana, one time the domain of Louis the Great of France, over whose virgin advances George III wielded the scepter of power, whose provincial seat of government has been Quebec, Montreal, Detroit, Richmond, Va., New York City, Marietta, Ohio, and Vin- cennes, Indiana-Indiana, that one time tolerated slavery, burnt witches at the stake; one time a howling wilderness or uninhabited plains, has a unique history.
When in February, 1779, General Rogers Clark, the Napoleon of pioneer days, defeated and captured the English General Hamil- ton and his forces at Vincennes, and raised the Stars and Stripes for the first time on Indiana soil, Indiana became an American pos- session forever. It has ever been the motto of this people that wherever that flag has been planted by American bravery and blood, it is there to remain; never to be hauled down so long as American manhood and patriotism shall endure.
While Washington fought the Revolutionary battles of the East, Clark fought the Revolutionary battles of the West. While Washington and his soldiers held possession of the East, Clark and his little band captured and held possession of the Northwest Ter- ritory, now the heart of the nation. It is a question, whether, had it not been for those efforts in the West, the Alleghanies would not have marked the western boundary of the United States north of the Ohio at the close of the Revolution.
THE INDIAN.
The Indian has played an important part in the great tragedies that have occurred in America ; not only did he stubbornly impede the progress of the white man, but his warring qualities on one side or the other of national contests, on this continent, has fur- nished the balance of power that has decided the fate of nations. The Indian has acknowledged allegiance to France, England and America; but the title to his abode has ever been a question of dispute, whether that title was acquired by treaty, rum or money ; and it was seldom quieted except by conflict.
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Report of Commission.
Books have been written and theories advanced, how the con- flicts with the red man might have been avoided. We judge the motive by the act; we judge the act by the result. It was a con- dition, not a theory, that confronted the pioneer and the red man. Man, civilized or barbarian, Christian or heathen, is a selfish being. Back of all deeds and doings there is an ego which furnished the spirit of the action, and to be benefited by the result.
As the individual, so the nation; men or nations who claim possession of the same territory do not long remain friends. Thus it was a question of possession between the white man and the In- dian, and the only court of final decision was the battle-field, where the doctrine of the survival of the fittest finds its proof.
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