USA > Indiana > The history of Indiana > Part 7
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1 The best sources for the history of the northwestern Indians are, Aborigines of the Ohio Valley, by William Henry Harrison ; The Jesuit Relations; Thwaites, Early Western Travels; The In- dian Tribes of the United States, Henry R. Schoolcraft; Michigan Historical and Pioneer Collections; Documents Relating to the Colonial History of New York; and The French in America, Francis Parkman. There is a vast literature on the subject, most of which is partisan. For illustrations of Indian life see Catlin.
81
WYANDOTS
bec. In an earlier paragraph the attempt of the French to civilize and reorganize this tribe has been noticed. The national enemies of the Hurons were the Iroquois. In a long war, said by Huron tradition to have been carried on through seventy summers, the Iroquois drove the Hurons back on the Ottawas and Chippewas, whose combined strength turned the tide of battle; so that the Iroquois in turn were saved only by the interposition of the French. The fact seems to be that the Hurons were so nearly destroyed that the wreck of the proud tribe sought refuge under the guns of Detroit.
After the destruction of the Iroquois in 1778-9 the Wyandots established their tribal village on Sandusky river in northern Ohio. They had profited by their ancient relations with the French and far surpassed their neighbors in civilization. They lived in well- constructed log dwellings and carried on considerable agriculture. They numbered at this time near 450 warriors. From this new home they joined with other Indians in the long border warfare carried on during and after the Revolution. They joined in the various treaties that mark the stages of that struggle, and, when finally forced to cede their last lands to the United States they passed with their kindred tribes to the valley of the Kansas, where the name of a county perpetuates their memory.
The Wyandots had the reputation of being the bravest as well as the most humane warriors on the frontier. They rarely punished their captives ; but, on the contrary, at once adopted most of them into their families. So many captives were adopted that the character of the tribe was materially changed. Many traditions lingered with the warriors and chieftains of this nation. One tradition is that in the old days of the tribe's glory, a famous chief, wishing to know how many warriors he had, commanded that each, as they filed past him, should drop into a wooden bowl, which
82
HISTORY OF INDIANA
the chief held, a single grain of corn. Although the bowl held over half a bushel, the grains had filled it before all the warriors were past.
Like the Wyandots, the Mingoes were a tribal rem- nant. They were the descendants of the haughty Iro- quois. In their days of power they had fought their enemies victoriously on the shores of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, in the valley of the Connecticut, on the banks of the Mississippi, along the rocky coasts of Lake Superior and among the pine barrens of the Carolinas. In all those wide reaches no Indians lived that did not acknowledge the power of these warriors. But at the close of the Revolution the broken tribes were refugees in the land of their ancestral enemies. The Mingo vil- lages were in northern Ohio and few, if any ever made their homes in what is now Indiana, though in war and chase they joined with the Miamis and ranged our for- ests and streams.
Like the latter nations, the Delawares also were a fugitive people. Their fathers sleep on the beautiful Susquehanna, around the Chesapeake, and on the numerous rivers and bays of Virginia. They were Delawares who captured John Smith; and so were those who treated with William Penn. Powhatan and Pocahontas were of their royal blood. Before the ter- rible Iroquois and the encroachment of the white set- tlers they had been forced gradually westward. Count Zinzendorf, Heckewelder and David Zeisler, the Mora- vian missionaries, had worked among them.
The homeless tribes settled on the Muskingum and Beaver creek in Ohio about 1760. There they estab- lished their "Gnadenhütten" or Tents of Peace. They were a dirty, squalid people about their villages. Lazy warriors basked in the sun or smoked in indolence while their squaws tended the small gardens or did other work. Their numerous towns were scattered far up this valley. They could muster near 600 warriors.
83
DELAWARES AND SHAWNEES
They mingled on terms of equality and friendship with the Shawnees and took an honorable part in every con- test for their new homes from Braddock's Defeat to the Battle of the Thames. After the War of 1812 they were transported beyond the Missouri. Some of the tribesmen passed thence into Texas, where they served as guides or hunters along the Santa Fe Trail, varying the occupation occasionally by robbing Mexicans, in which they exhibited their old time skill, for they were reputed to be the best horsethieves along the border.
The Shawnee Indians have a beautiful tradition of the Creation. It runs thus: The Master of life, him- self an Indian, made the Shawnee before any other human beings. He gave to the Indians all the knowl- edge he himself possessed. From the various parts of the first Shawnee the Master made the French, Eng- lish, Dutch and Americans. The inferior nations were made white, as a sign of their weakness. But later, the all-powerful Shawnees, becoming corrupt, knowledge was taken from them and given to the despised whites.
Of all the savages who warred on the western set- tlers, the most dreaded and despised were the treach- erous, cruel, sneaking Shawnees. Their very name was a terror throughout the border. They are said to have come originally from the south, driven thence by the allied tribes on account of their treachery. They set- tled on the Scioto and on Paint creek in Ohio. Large towns were found also at Piqua and on Mad river. Later they settled on the Great Miami. The Chilli- cothe towns were also Shawnee. All told there were no less than sixteen villages. Under their most famous chiefs, Tecumseh and the Prophet, they migrated to Indiana. From the beginning of the French and In- dian War in 1755 down to the end of the War of 1812, ill-tempered Shawnee warriors were continually harassing the American frontiers. Rarely taking a leading part, it was they who usually broke the peace
84
HISTORY OF INDIANA
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85
PIANKESHAWS AND MIAMIS
by committing some murderous foray. They were near the Ohio and it is to them that nearly all of the long list of casualties on that river are to be charged. In the beginning of these wars they were a numerous tribe. The Piqua towns alone are said to have num- bered 4,000 souls. The last years of the struggle wasted them rapidly, so that when they were trans- ported to their western home only about 1,800 of the large tribe remained. Shawnee county, Kansas, marks their later home.
So far as is known the Piankeshaws had always lived on the Lower Wabash. They had always been on friendly terms with the French and when the latter welcomed the Virginian, the Piankeshaws did likewise. Their friendship for the Americans was most for- tunate; for, had the two hundred warriors of Tobacco's Son been hostile, the conquest of Vincennes could not have been made by Colonel Clark. They were a branch of the Miami Confederacy. Their towns extended as far up as Terre Haute and the Vermilion stream. They quickly melted away before the vices of the more highly civilized whites. Harrison later described them as a most woebegone people, who, after bartering their clothes for whiskey, would then spend their time in drunken debauchery as long as the whiskey lasted. County Volney says the swine rolled the drunken wretches around in the gutter with their snouts.
Strongest of all the northwestern Indians were the Miamis. The nation or confederacy was made up of at least four tribes. The Twightwees lived in the val- ley around the junction of the rivers St. Mary and St. Joseph. Their principal village, Kekionga, was on the site of Fort Wayne. Another large village, over on Eel river, was called the Eel River Miamis. Other villages were on the Mississinewa and on the headwaters of White river.
Down the Wabash farther was the Wea town, Ouia-
86
HISTORY OF INDIANA
tanon, claimed by the Weas as the ancient home of their forefathers. Their squaws and children culti- vated wide fields on the Wea Plains below Lafayette. The Shockeys, who dwelt on the Vermilion river and the prairie west of the Wabash, were also reported pure Miamis. Besides these, there were the Pottawattomies, whose principal villages were on the Tippecanoe and the many beautiful lakes tributary to it, and on the Kankakee river and the St. Joseph of Lake Michigan. This was a warlike tribe when aroused, but not so irritable as the Shawnees or Delawares. The Kicka- poos were an allied, if not a kindred tribe living on the prairies northwest of Lafayette. Bands of Chip- pewas and Ottawas frequently dwelt on the Yellow and Kankakee rivers in friendly relation with the Miamis.
All these tribes, together with fugitive bands of Shawnees, Delawares and other eastern Indians falling back before the white settlers, made an Indian popula- tion on the Wabash of at least 5,000 warriors. Under their great chief, Little Turtle, they fought with a desperate courage unequaled in Indian warfare.
Their traditions taught them that the Wabash was their sacred river. Little Turtle, at the treaty of Greenville, said it was well known that his forefather kindled the first fires at Detroit; from thence he ran his line to the Scioto, to its mouth, and thence down the Ohio to the Wabash; from the mouth of the Wabash to Chicago on Lake Michigan. They have no tradition of a migration. The earliest French explorers found them on the Wabash and there the spirit of the tribe remains. A few hundreds of their children were car- ried away beyond the Mississippi, but, more nearly than any others, they mingled with the whites. Miami county, Kansas, is a memorial of them. More humane treatment would have subdued their haughty pride and converted the whole tribe into valuable citizens ; but at the close of the eighteenth century they were a savage
87
CLOSE OF THE WAR
folk who massacred women and children, drank the blood of their victims, and made merry as they burned their captives at the stake. More white men have been tortured at old Kekionga than at any other place in the State.
§ 17 LAST STAGE OF THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR IN THE WEST
AFTER the capture of Colonel Hamilton the British changed their plans in the west. Previous to that event it had been the custom for England to conduct the war with comparatively strong bodies of regular troops, aided by such bands of Indians as could be had. The Indians were armed and provisioned by the British but the war was waged by British troops commanded by British officers.
After the fall of Vincennes a Tory Knickerbocker named Arent DePeyster took command at Detroit. As with Hamilton and Rocheblave, the policy of this par- tisan was to rouse the Indians to war, supply them with arms and provisions and place them in charge of white officers. This policy had for its object not only the terrorization of the frontier, but the British general hoped thus to prevent the Americans from making any effort at capturing Detroit. The Indians were led to believe that they could drive the settlers from Ken- tucky.
Colonel Clark never regarded his work of conquest as finished. Detroit was his objective, and he had been keen enough from the first to recognize that fort as the source of all the western depredations. Jefferson, who succeeded Patrick Henry as governor of Virginia, was in accord with Clark's plan and did what he could to aid him. But the Indians north of the Ohio were be- coming more hostile, and all the men on the border were needed to repel their frequent incursions. The
88
HISTORY OF INDIANA
traitor Arnold having invaded Virginia in 1781, that State could hardly spare a man, nor was it afterward free of hostile armies till the war was ended. Histor- ians have blamed the Virginia government for not sup- porting Clark; but such censure is nonsense. He would, indeed, be a far-sighted governor who would send his army fifteen hundred miles through the forest on a foreign conquest when his own capital was in the possession of the enemy and hostile armies devastating the homes of his people.
Clark did, later, recruit some reinforcements in Pennsylvania and was enabled to garrison Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Vincennes. The Indians around these forts were completely overawed. No American was more feared by the Indians than Clark. A small band of Delawares who had established themselves in the thickets near the mouth of White river continued to annoy the white settlers after they had made peace. Clark sent his rangers against them with instructions to destroy them. In vain the hapless Delawares sued for peace. The rangers tracked them down, sparing only the women and children. The other nearby tribes were treated so fearlessly and justly by Clark that they never afterward opposed him. It was decided to make the Falls the base of military operations in the west, and thither Clark repaired in the autumn of 1779. He was made a brigadier general and placed in com- mand of all the western militia. His position here gave a sense of security to the frontier, and thousands of settlers poured into Kentucky, many even continuing on to the Wabash and Illinois countries.
While Clark was busy on the lower Ohio the British were directing war parties against eastern Kentucky and western Virginia. In order to check these John Bowman, the county lieutenant of Kentucky, collected 160 Kentuckians in May, 1779, and surprised the In- dians in the Chillicothe towns. The Indian town was
89
BIRD'S INVASION OF KENTUCKY
burned but the Indians, regaining their courage, rallied in and around a blockhouse that had been defended against the fire and drove the Kentuckians away. The discomfited whites retreated slowly. The Indians had the best of the attack but the loss of their town and the show of such force was a great shock to them. The Kentuckians had eight or ten men killed and two wounded and the Indians lost an equal number. The Kentuckians were much chagrined over their defeat, but judged by its results, it was most fortunate. The partisan captain, Henry Bird, was at one of the Mingo towns nearby, where he had succeeded in raising and arming a formidable war party to attack the settle- ment. When news of the assault of Bowman reached them, his Indians fled in a panic and the expedition broke up. But Bird was not to be baffled.
On June 22, 1780, there appeared before Ruddle's Station, a small stockade on the south fork of Licking, in the center almost of the wilderness of Kentucky, an army of Canadians and Indians numbering over 700 Indians and near 200 rangers, flying the English flag and supported by artillery. Such a sight had not been seen in Kentucky and we can hardly blame the little station for surrendering at discretion. This army had been raised by DePeyster and was in command of Cap- tain Bird.
Henry Bird was then a captain in the Eighth or King's Regiment of regulars. With him on this expedi- tion went the three Girty Brothers, loyalists of Pitts- burg, and Captain McKee, the royal Indian agent. DePeyster had sent a strong body of Indians down the Wabash to take Vincennes and join Bird in an attack on Clark at the Falls. Bird had been ordered to attack Clark, but when he reached the Ohio river his Indian chiefs forced him to attack the smaller stations. They had a wholesome dread of Clark.
It was said that this was a part of the magnificent
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HISTORY OF INDIANA
army of 1,500 Indians summoned to co-operate with Hamilton the year before. Detroit had been a beehive of industry during the preceding winter. The com- mander at Quebec complained of the enormous amount of supplies and especially of the whiskey consumed. Forgetful of his intention, the tory commander having taken the little posts, Ruddles and Martins, on the Lick- ing, fled precipitately to Canada, abandoning his guns at the Indian towns in Ohio and killing most of his prisoners, of whom he took nearly 300.
In the early months of 1780 General Clark was down at the mouth of the Ohio, where he established Fort Jefferson to protect the commerce with the Span- ish on the Mississippi, and also to strengthen his claim to the whole east bank of that river. In May, with all the troops he could spare, he had returned through the forest to the settlements at Harrodsburg, Kentucky. The overwhelming force of the Indian attack had spread consternation among the settlers and many were tempted to return east of the mountains. Clark sent a guard to the Crab Orchard to intercept all those who attempted to leave by the Wilderness Road. Then closing the land office at Harrodsburg he drafted an army to go against the Indians.
These men were to meet at the mouth of the Lick- ing, opposite Cincinnati. Capt. Benjamin Logan was second in command and looked after the men drafted, while Clark proceeded to Louisville and led his men from that garrison. The latter went up the river in light boats, while the horsemen rode as near the bank as possible. The settlers turned out almost to a man, the riflemen floating down the Licking on rafts or in canoes. There was little in the way of provisions, every man carrying his own supply. On August 2, Clark ferried his men across the Ohio and plunged into the wilderness of Ohio. Old Chillicothe lay full sixty
91
CLARK'S INVASION OF OHIO
miles to the north, and thither he led his men with accustomed swiftness and silence. At night, to avoid surprise, the troops camped in a large square. Chilli- cothe was deserted when the army reached it. After burning it they hastened on to Piqua, on Mad river, which they reached at ten on the morning of August 8. Piqua, or Pickaway, was built of log huts in the French fashion. They stood apart from each other facing the stream and separated by strips of cornland. In the center stood a considerable block-house, loop-holed for muskets. Clark divided his army, sending half, under Logan, around to cross the stream and gain the rear of the villages and cut off retreat, while he himself led half the troops directly across and drove the Indians from the town. Logan failed to cross the river and the Indians escaped, the 200 warriors, with their fam- ilies, fleeing for safety. As soon as the latter had reached the cover of the woods, the warriors turned and faced the whites, gradually yielding, however, to superior numbers. For two hours this skirmish was kept up, when the Kentuckians returned toward the town, halting half an hour, when nearly there, for Logan to come up. As they returned Captain McAfee was killed by an Indian secreted in a tree top. This Indian was immediately shot, but it was soon found that a large body of warriors had slipped back and taken possession of the blockhouse. In the fighting here each side suffered. The Indians were finally dis- lodged and retreated under shelter of the river bank, barely escaping Logan, who had finally crossed the river and marched down. Clark lost seventeen men and the Indians about the same number.
After all the Indian property was destroyed, Cap- tain Logan was sent to attack a neighboring village, twenty miles away, which he destroyed, together with a store belonging to British and French traders. The
92
HISTORY OF INDIANA
army then hastened home, having spent only twenty- five days on the campaign.2
It was generally believed throughout the west that the French in Detroit were as friendly toward the Americans as those of the Illinois Country had been. The Americans felt that if a sufficient force could be quickly and quietly marched through the Indian coun- try without rousing them the fort could be taken. There was at this time a Frenchman in the Illinois Country named LaBalme. He had come to America in 1776 and had served as inspector general of cavalry in the Continental Army. He was chosen for the at- tempt on Detroit because it was thought he would have great influence with his countrymen at Detroit and in Illinois. Ambitious to duplicate the achievements of Clark, he raised a company of seventy or eighty creoles in Illinois and on the Wabash in the fall of 1780 and hastened up the Wabash. The Indians, cowed by the punishment so recently inflicted by Clark, no doubt would not have interfered with LaBalme's march had he proceeded directly to his work. But his control over the creoles, many of whom were traders and bush rangers, was slight and the stores of the British traders at the site of Fort Wayne tempted his men to plunder. While engaged in plundering, a large force of Indians under Little Turtle fell upon the camp of the invaders by night, in early November, and killed about half the party, including the captain, and scattered the rest to the woods. Had LaBalme marched directly, without molesting the traders on whom the Indians depended for supplies, his chances were favorable for success.3
2 The documentary history of these Indian campaigns is in the George Rogers Clark Papers. This should be supplemented by Jefferson's letters, given in his works; by Henry's Life of Henry; and by Butterfield's History of the Girtys. The Haldimand Papers contain the documents on the British side. Butler's History of Kentucky is the best of the old books on this period. 3 John Todd Papers, Fergus Historical Series, No. 33, 207, note.
93
SPANIARDS CAPTURE ST. JOSEPH
Early in the war Virginians had opened up com- mercial connections with the Spanish at New Orleans. Communications had been kept open and nearly all the ammunition used in the western campaign had come from Spanish merchants. An agent of Virginia sta- tioned at New Orleans furnished Clark with money for his Illinois garrisons. When Clark was in Illinois he had also exchanged civilities with the Spanish com- manders at St. Louis and St. Genevieve. But he soon came to distrust them, believing that they would be pleased to see the British regain the Illinois so that they might in turn drive the British out and thus hold the whole western country for Spain at the close of the war, which all saw was fast approaching. With this design of the Spaniards the French seemed in full sym- pathy. It was their hope to limit the Americans to the country east of the crest of the mountains. If not held for the Spanish Crown the Northwest at least would serve as a makeweight in the treaty for the cession of Gibraltar.
A Spanish general named Bernardi de Galvez, with a force of creoles, both French and Spaniards, cap- tured the posts on the middle river-Baton Rouge and Natchez-and then marched on Mobile and Pensacola. The commander of St. Louis joined in the work early in 1781. On January 2, Don Pierro, the commandant, led a party of 100 nondescript Spaniards, Indians and French creoles from St. Louis against the post of St. Joseph on the St. Joseph river of Lake Michigan. He met with no opposition but was afraid to garrison the post after he had robbed the British fur-traders and burned their huts. Like the plunderer he was, he re- treated faster than he had advanced. Insignificant as the raid was, Spain laid claim to the whole territory northwest of the Ohio on the strength of it.
Since the capture of Vincennes, Clark had kept in mind his intention to take Detroit. At a council of
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HISTORY OF INDIANA
war, held at the Falls in 1779, he had discussed it with his fellow officers, but the establishment of Fort Jeffer- son, the invasion by Bird, and the expedition against the Piqua town, had occupied him for over a year. He hastened to Virginia as soon as he could leave Ken- tucky, to perfect his arrangements and raise troops. He found Virginia in great distress over the invasion of Arnold, and at once joined the army to drive out the traitor.
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