USA > Indiana > Allen County > Fort Wayne > Valley of the upper Maumee River, with historical account of Allen County and the city of Fort Wayne, Indiana, Volume I > Part 8
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The principles from which grew the American revolution were already asserting themselves, and the thunders of a new war which was destined to change the policy of nations, began to be heard. During all the long years of the struggle for independence, the western frontier was again the scene of savage warfare, and, instigated by the British, and by their own revengeful instinct, the tomahawk and scalping knife were again seized by willing and ruthless hands, in the west, and long were held suspended, like the sword of Damocles, over the heads of the hardy settlers of the western frontier. These settlers were born in the midst of danger, and were warriors almost from the cradle. Even the women were of heroic mold, often themselves defending their homes and loved ones from danger, and always encouraging their husbands and brothers, and teaching their children, to bravely sustain their man- hood in all the trials and dangers which surrounded them. So, when the war for independence came, when it was found that Great Britain, not content to meet her unruly sons in the open battle field, was secretly inciting the Indians to a murderous war along the frontier, there was little difficulty in raising hardy bands of brave men, skilled in the war- fare of the woods, burning to avenge the slaughter of near relatives by their savage foes. With an iron will and endurance, these brave men responded to the call of country, and sprang to the defense of their hearthstones, no matter how humble the roof which covered them, and went forth to conquer gloriously, or perchance die a fearful death by torture.
The first campaign of importance was that of Gen. George Rogers
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Clark, sent by Gov. Patrick Henry of Virginia, with a volunteer force to attack the British outpost at Kaskaskia, in 1778. The history of this campaign under its great-souled commander reads in some particulars like a chapter from the romances of the days of chivalry. The expedi- tion resulted in the capture of all the far western British posts, Kaskas- kia, Cahokia and Vincennes, in the face of largely superior forces and almost insuperable difficulties. The forts were manned by Americans, and the prowess of Clark's gallant forces soon made his name a terror among the Indians. Virginia extended her jurisdiction over these parts by creating the county of Illinois, and even the French settlers at Vin- cennes became friendly and peace seemed assured.
But when the news of Clark's success reached Detroit, by way of the Maumee, Hamilton, the British governor, determined to recapture the posts. With eighty regulars, a large number of Canadian militia, and 600 In- dians, he ascended the Maumee, crossed over to the Wabash, and made a rapid movement upon Vincennes, thinking to take the fort by storm, and destroy all within the garrison. When the enemy approached, Capt. Helm, who was in command, was not to be dismayed. With an air as confident as if the fort were full of soldiers, he leaped upon the bastion near a cannon, and swinging his lighted match, shouted with great force as the enemy advanced, " Halt! or I will blow you to atoms !" At this the Indians precipitately took to the woods, and the Canadians fell back out of range. Fearing that the fort was well manned, and that a desperate encounter would ensue, Hamilton offered a parley. Capt. Helm declared that he would fight as long as a man was left to bear arms, unless permitted to march out with the full honors of war, which was after some parley agreed upon, and the garrison consisting of Helm and five men all told, marched out, to the astonishment of the British commander. But Helm was afterward detained in the fort as a prisoner.
The season now being late and unfavorable, Hamilton took no further steps toward the capture of the other posts till spring. In the mean- time Clark, toward the last of January, 1779, received information of the recapture, and on the 7th of February, with 130 men, he took up his line of march through the forest for Vincennes, a distance of 150 miles, ordering Captain Rogers, with forty men, on board a large keel- boat, with two four-pounders and four swivels, to ascend the Wabash to within a few miles of the mouth of White river, there to await further orders. The march through the wilderness was one of peril and hardship. The river bottoms were inundated, and, as they moved through these lowlands, the soldiers were often, while having to feel for the trail with their feet, compelled to hold their guns and ammunition above their heads. Their food on the march was parched corn and jerked beef. At length, on the evening of the 23d of February, arriv- ing within sight of the fort, Clark ordered his men to parade about the summit of a hill overlooking the fort, keeping them marching for some time. By this stratagem the British commander was led to believe a
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large force was approaching -at least 1,000 men, he thought, with colors plainly visible. During the night a ditch was dug to within rifle- shot of the fort, and before day-break, a number of men were stationed there to pick off the garrison, and every gunner showing his head was shot by the unerring hunters. On the 25th the fort was surrendered, and Hamilton, Major Hay and a few others, as instigators of Indian murders on the frontier, were sent to Virginia to answer for the crimes charged upon them. They were put in irons and held for a time in close confinement in retaliation for the massacres that had occurred, but were finally released at the suggestion of General Washington. This achievement on the part of Clark and his brave comrades left them in possession of all the lower portion of .the west until the close of the revolution, when, at the treaty of peace with the British in 1783, on the basis of its having been conquered and held by Col. Clark, Great Britain conceded all of this region to the United States.
At the period of the revolution Kekionga had become a place of much importance, in trading and military points of view, and as such, ranked next to Detroit and Vincennes. It was, accordingly, occupied by the British as a post or seat of an official for Indian affairs. Col. Clark, on the capture of Vincennes, had meditated an expedition against this place, as well as against Detroit; and though he seems never to have abandoned the idea, yet he could not succeed in his arrangements. But while the subject was still fresh in the minds of Clark and the inhabit- ants of the lower Wabash, another individual made his appearance to undertake what even the daring Clark with greater resources, did not deem prudent to venture upon. This was La Balme, a native of France, who had come to this country as an officer, with the French troops un- der La Fayette, in 1779. It is not known whether he came to the west on his own responsibility, or whether he was directed by some authority; but he is found in the summer of 1780, in Kaskaskia, raising volunteers for an expedition against the post of Kekionga, with the design in case of success, of extending his operations against Detroit. At Kaskaskia, he succeeded in obtaining only twenty to thirty men. With these he proceeded to Vincennes, where he sought recruits. But his expedition was looked upon as a forlorn hope, and it met with the encouragement, generally, of only the less considerate.
It is quite certain, that though a generous and gallant man, he was too reckless and inconsiderate to lead such an expedition. Sometime in the fall of 1780, with as is supposed, fifty to sixty men, he proceeded up the Wabash on his adventure. He conducted his march with such cau- tion and celerity, that he appeared at the village of Kekionga before the watchful inhabitants had warning of his approach. The sudden ap- pearance of a foe, unknown as to character, numbers and designs, threw them into the greatest alarm, and they fled on all sides. La Balme took possession of the place without resistance. It was probably his intention, in imitation of Clark's capture of Kaskaskia, to take the village and its inhabitants by surprise, and then by professions of kindness and friend-
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ship, to win them over to the American cause; but the inhabitants, including some six or eight French traders, eluded his grasp. His occu- pation of the village was not of long duration. After making plunder of the goods of some of the French traders and Indians he retired and encamped near the Aboit creek, not far from the place where that stream was crossed by the Wabash and Erie canal. The Indians having soon ascertained the number and character of La Balme's men, and learning that they were Frenchmen, were not disposed at first to avenge the attack. But two of the traders, Beaubien and La Fontaine, indignant at the invasion and plunder of the place, were not disposed to let the in- vaders off without a blow, and incited the Indians to follow and attack them. The warriors of the village and vicinity rallied under the lead of their war chief, Little Turtle, and falling on La Balme's camp in the night time, massacred the entire party. La Balme's expedition may not have been impelled by the most patriotic motives, nor guided by wise counsels, nor attended with results beneficial to the country; yet it is an interesting event connected with the early history of the upper Maumee valley.
Northwest Territory .- The need of some form of government for the growing settlements in the west, together with the fact that large numbers of the soldiers of the disbanded armies of the revolution were ready and willing to emigrate and found new homes, if guaranteed the necessary protection of the laws, led congress to listen to their demands, and in 1787, the ordinance was passed which created the " North West Territory," and provided a government therefor. This terri- tory consisted of all of the lands lying northwest of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi, and comprised all of what are now the states of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin. Virginia ceded all her rights in the territory to the United States, and her example was followed by all the other states which claimed title under their original charters, which generally granted them the lands to the westward indefinitely.
In July, 1788, the seat of government was located at Marietta, Ohio, in the place called "Campus Martius." General Arthur St. Clair, a distin- guished officer in the revolutionary war, was appointed governor, Winthrop Sargent, secretary, and three judges formed the executive council. The governor and judges were authorized to adopt for the new territory, laws from the other states not inconsistent with the ordi- nance, and under the laws so enacted the territory thrived for many years.
For the most part, the settlers of the northwest territory were men who were valiant soldiers and had spent much of their fortunes in the revolutionary war. Such was the character of a party of emigrants, under the leadership of General Rufus Putnam, which left New Eng- land in 1787-8, and descending the Ohio, began the settlement of Adel- phia, later named Marietta, bringing with them, and re-establishing there, many of the primitive habits and customs of their ancestors. First erecting substantial buildings for their families, they set about the
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organization of a church and a 'school, toward which all contributed " with a right good will"; and these were the first institutions of the kind established in the northwestern territory.
A year later, in 1789, the first settlement was formed at or near the present site of Cincinnati, Ohio, which was first called Losantiville. Fort Washington was established there, and it was from that point that the first movement under Gen. Harmar was made against the Indians at the present site of Fort Wayne, under the administration of General Washington, in October, 1790. It was also from that region, which, at an early period was known as " the settlements," that came most of the earlier settlers of Fort Wayne, then still known as the Miami village or Omi .* The subsequent expeditions of Gens. St. Clair and Wayne also started from Fort Washington.
During 1780, 1781, to 1785-6, difficulties had arisen between the colonial government and the Spanish on the lower Mississippi, as to the navigation of that river, and the possession of a large part of the western territory, and there was much trouble with the Indians of the west, more especially along the Ohio, which continued to embarrass the settlements for some time. In addition to these troubles people in the southwest, early in that period, began and continued for several years, to manifest considerable dissatisfaction. The government had permitted the Spaniards of the south to control the navigation of the Mississippi; many privations had come upon the people of the west in consequence, and distrust of the government had gradually given rise to a desire for dissolution, especially in Kentucky, which, at that period was yet a part of Virginia. Washington had recognized this, and soon presented im- portant suggestions, as he had done before the revolution, relative to the organization of commercial and navigation companies, as the best means of protecting and cementing the interests of the east and west. In a letter to Gov. Benjamin Harrison in the year 1784 he strenuously urged the importance of binding together all parts of the Union, and especially the west and east, with the indissoluble bonds of interest, with a view to prevent the formation of commercial and consequent political connec- tions with either the Spaniards on the south, or the English on the north. He recommended the speedy survey of the Potomac and James rivers; of the portage to the waters of the Ohio; of the Muskingum, and the portage from that river to the Cuyahoga; for the purpose of opening a water communication for the commerce of the Ohio and the lakes, to the seaboard, which he denominated as an object of great po- litical and commercial importance. To Richard Henry Lee, in the same year, Washington wrote: " Would it not be worthy of the wis- dom and attention of congress to have the western waters well explored, the navigation of them fully ascertained and accurately laid down, and a complete and perfect map made of the country, at least as far westerly as the Miamis running into the Ohio and Lake Erie, and to see how the
* " A corrupt orthography and abridgment of the French term Aux Miamis; as Au Cas is a corruption of Aux Kaskaskias."
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waters of these communicate with the river St. Joseph, which empties into Lake Michigan, and with the Wabash ? for I cannot forbear ob- serving that the Miami village points to a very important post for the Union."
It was not a custom with the French, at any of their settlements in the west, to make large purchases of lands from the Indians; small tracts about their settlements invariably served to supply their wants. At the treaty of Paris in 1763, these small grants about the forts of Detroit, Vincennes, Kaskaskia, Cahokia, etc., were all that they ceded to the British, and at the close of the revolution, in 1783, when Great Britain transferred her western claims to the United States, she might be said to have had no right to convey anything but what she had previously received from France, excepting the guarantee of the Six Nations and the southern tribes to a part of the land south of the Ohio; and it could be asserted that none of the territory claimed by the Miamis, western Delawares, Shawnees, Wyandots or Hurons, and some other tribes still to the west and north could be ceded to the United States by this treaty. But a different view of the matter was taken by congress. Concluding that the treaty guaranteed to the United States the full right to all terri- tory then transferred, and at the same time considering the right of the Indians to the territory as forfeited by acts of warfare against the colonial government during the struggle for independence, the govern- ment made no movement toward a purchase of the lands from the In- dians, but began to form treaties of peace with them, and to suggest its own boundary lines.
The stipulations of the treaty of October, 1783, had contemplated one great council of all the tribes; but in March, 1784, this plan was changed to that of holding councils with each separate tribe or nation; and the commissioners appointed by the government to superintend these affairs, refusing to pay further attention to the subject of a general council with the northern tribes, in October, 1784, against the wishes of Red Jacket, Brant, and other chiefs of the Iroquois, terminated the treaty of Fort Stanwix.
It was in this way that the United States obtained the right possessed by the Iroquois to the western territory, north and south of the Ohio. Though publicly and honorably concluded, the legality was questioned by.many of the Iroquois, who claimed that the treaty was with only a part of the Indian tribes; and that it was the desire of the tribes that the United States government should treat with them as a body, includ- ing all the Indians bordering upon the lakes of the north. In January of the following year (1785), a treaty was concluded with the Wyandots, Delawares, Chippewas and Ottawas; but the legality of the former treaty seems not then to have been questioned, by the Wyandots and Delawares, at least; and yet it was asserted at a general council of some sixteen tribes of northwest Indians, in 1793, that the treaties of Forts Stanwix, McIntosh, and Finney (the latter at the mouth of the Miami), were the result of intimidation, and held only with single
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tribes, at which, they asserted, the Indians had been invited to form treaties of peace, but instead forced to make cession of land. In January, 1786, a third treaty was held by the United States, at Fort Finney, with the Shawnees; and the Wabash tribe being invited to be present, would not go. In 1789, confirmatory of preceding treaties, the ยท fourth and fifth treaties were held at Fort Harmar, one with the Six Nations; the other with the Wyandots, Delawares, Ottawas, Chippewas, Pottawatomies, and Sacs; and it seems, from speeches made at a subse- quent council of the confederated tribes, more particularly of the lake (1793), that they would not accept these treaties as at all binding upon them. Said one of the chiefs at this latter council:
"Brothers: We are in possession of the speeches and letters which passed on that occasion [council convened by Gov. Arthur St. Clair, in 1788], between those deputied by the confederate Indians, and Gov. St. Clair, the commissioner of the United States. These papers prove that your said commissioner in the beginning of the year 1789, after having been informed by the general council of the preceding fall that no bar- gain or sale of any part of these lands would be considered as valid or binding, unless agreed to by a general council, nevertheless persisted in collecting together a few chiefs of two or three nations only, and with them held a treaty for the cession of an immense country, in which they were no more interested than as a branch of the general confederacy, and who were in no manner authorized to make any grant or cession whatever.
" Brothers: How then was it possible for you to expect to enjoy peace, and quietly to hold these lands, when your commissioner was in- formed, long before he held the treaty of Fort Harmar, that the consent of a general council was absolutely necessary for the sale of any part of these lands to the United States."
From these facts it will be seen why the expeditions of 1790-91 and 1793-94, with the efforts of 1811-12 and '13, met with such stubborn and relentless resistance from the Miamis and other tribes, as detailed in subsequent pages. The impression that they would without remuner- . ation or mercy, be despoiled of their lands and at length driven away, seems to have gained possession of the tribes of the northwest before and during the early campaigns of Harmar, St. Clair and Wayne; and the Miamis -though, as it would seem from Gamelin's journal, a strong spirit of unity did not prevail among the different tribes before and dur- ing 1780-led the way under Little Turtle, with formidable effect.
An Indian War Cloud .- With a feeling of bitterness toward the United States, small bands of Indians had begun in the spring of 1789 to attack the settlements along the western borders of Virginia and Kentucky. The secretary of war, General Knox, in a report to the president, June 15, 1789, presented this subject as follows:
" By information from Brigadier-General Harmar, the commanding officer of the troops on the frontier, it appears that several murders have been lately committed on the inhabitants, by small parties of Indians,
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probably from the Wabash country. Some of the said murders having been perpetrated on the south side of the Ohio, the inhabitants on the waters of that river are exceedingly alarmed, for the extent of six or seven hundred miles along the same. It is to be observed that the United States have not formed any treaties with the Wabash Indians; on the contrary, since the conclusion of the war with Great Britain, hos- tilities have almost constantly existed between the people of Kentucky and the said Indians. The injuries and murders have been so reciprocal that it would be a point of critical investigation to know on which side they have been the greatest. Some of the inhabitants of Kentucky during the past year, roused by recent injuries, made an incursion into the Wabash country, and possessing an equal aversion to all bearing the name of Indians, they destroyed a number of peaceable Piankeshaws who prided themselves in their attachment to the United States. Things being thus circumstanced, it is greatly to be apprehended that hostilities may be so far extended as to involve the Indian tribes with whom the United States have recently made treaties. It is well known how strong the passion for war exists in the mind of a young savage, and how easily it may be inflamed, so as to disregard every precept of the older 'and wiser part of the tribes who may have a more just opinion of the force of a treaty. Hence, it results that unless some decisive measures are immediately adopted to terminate' those mutual hostilities, they will probably become general among all the Indians northwest of the Ohio.
" In examining the question how the disturbances on the frontiers are to be quieted, two modes present themselves by which the object might perhaps be effected -the first of which is by raising an army and extirpating the refractory tribes entirely; or secondly, by forming treaties of peace with them in which their rights and limits should be explicitly defined, and the treaties observed on the part of the United States with the most rigid justice, by punishing the whites who should violate the same.
" In considering the first mode, an inquiry would arise, whether, un- der the existing circumstances of affairs, the United States have a clear right, consistently with the principles of justice and the laws of nature, to proceed to the destruction or expulsion of the savages on the Wabash, supposing the force for that object easily attainable. It is presumable that a nation solicitous of establishing its character on the broad basis of justice, would not only hesitate at but reject every proposition to benefit itself by the injury of any neighboring community, however contemptible and weak it may be, either with respect to its manners or power. When it shall be considered that the Indians derive their subsistence chiefly by hunting, and that, according to fixed principles, their popula- tion is in proportion to the facility with which they procure their food, it would most probably be found that the expulsion or destruction of the Indian tribes have nearly the same effect; for if they are removed from their usual hunting-grounds, they must necessarily encroach on the hunt- ing-grounds of another tribe, who will not suffer the encroachment with
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impunity - hence they destroy each other. The Indians, being the prior occupants, possess the right of the soil. . It can not be taken from them unless by their free consent, or by the right of conquest in case of a just war. To dispossess them on any other principle, would be a gross vio- lation of the fundamental laws of nature, and of that distributive justice which is the glory of a nation. But if it should be decided, on an ab- stract view of the question, to be just to remove by force, the Wabash Indians from the territory they occupy, the finances of the United States would not at present admit of the operation.
" By the best and latest information, it appears that on the Wabash and its communications, there are from 1,500 to 2,000 warriors. An ex- pedition against them, with a view of extirpating them, or destroying their towns, could not be undertaken with a probability of success with less than an army of 2,500 men. The regular troops of the United States on the frontiers are less than 600; of that number not more than 400 could be collected from the posts for the purpose of the expedition. To raise, pay, feed, arm, and equip 1,900 additional men, with the neces- sary officers for six months, and to provide every thing in the hospital and quartermaster's line, would require the sum of $200,000, a sum far exceeding the ability of the United States to advance, consistently with a due regard to other indispensable objects."
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