History of Berrien and Van Buren counties, Michigan. With biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 4

Author: D.W. Ensign & Co. pub; Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885; Johnson, Crisfield
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia, D. W. Ensign & Co.
Number of Pages: 821

USA > Michigan > Van Buren County > History of Berrien and Van Buren counties, Michigan. With biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 4
USA > Michigan > Berrien County > History of Berrien and Van Buren counties, Michigan. With biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 4

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The Miamis, who had stood in the greatest dread of

THE MIAMI OCCUPATION.

their fierce visitors, were amazed at this result, and in the council which followed they readily yielded to the proposals of the French leader, whom they regarded as a superior being. After he had addressed them, in their own tongue, in a speech which was at once eloquent, complimentary, and convincing, and had further won their hearts by presents of clothing, hunting-knives, guns, and wampum belts, the whole assemblage gave vent to yells of satisfaction, and the chiefs replied to his overtures, " We make you the master of our beaver and our lands ; of our minds and our bodies. We cannot wonder that our brothers from the East wish to live with you. We should have wished it too, if we had known what a blessing it is to be the children of the great king." Finally, they agreed to make peace and an alliance with the Illinois, and to remove to the neighborhood of Peoria Lake, there to live under French protection. In accordance with this agreement they vacated their country, and removed to that place in 1681 .* Probably they stood in such dread of the vengeance of the Iroquois that they would not have dared to remain here longer if they had been so disposed.

It has already been mentioned that a band of Eastern Indians had built their bark wigwams near the mouth of the St. Joseph in the autumn of 1680, and passed the suc- ceeding winter there, evidently for the purpose of avail- ing themselves of the protection of Fort Miami and its French garrison. At the Miami village there was found a much larger band, in which there were a few Virginia In- dians, but of whom the majority were Narragansetts, from Rhode Island, intermixed with Mohicans, Abenakis, and other New England tribes, who had, perhaps, some of them, fought under King Philip, and all of whom, after the death of the great chieftain, had been compelled to flee from their native hunting-grounds to escape the retributive vengeance of the New England settlers. The band which had win- tered at the fort (having apparently been joined by a part of those found at the Miami village) remained there during the summer and fall ; and when the French started in De- cember on the Mississippi exploration, thirty-one of them (eighteen warriors and ten women, whom they insisted on taking with them to perform the labor, and three children, who necessarily accompanied their mothers) joined the ex- pedition and went with it to the Gulf of Mexico. These, on their return, remained on the Illinois. Those of the

# The strength of the Miamis in their new home on the Illinois, two years after their removal thither, was mentioned as being thirteen hundred warriors. This was based on the report of La Salle to the French minister on his return to France from the Illinois country. A few years afterwards they were occupying a rudely fortified village at Buffalo Rock, on the Illinois River,-a place which was visited by Charlevoix in 1721, and was mentioned by him as "Le Fort des Miamis," though the tribe had evacuated the place before that time.

While they remained on the Illinois River they became consider- ably weakened and demoralized, and upon the failure of La Salle's grand project of Indian colonization around the Rock of St. Louis (near the present Peoria), they, with other tribes, left the place. The Miamis (or at least a large part of them) returned to settle on their former possessions,-not, however, at the site of their old village on the Kankakee, but in the valley of the St. Joseph, and principally near its mouth, where, as we shall see, a mission was established among them a few years later. Before the opening of the mission, however, they were attacked by the Sioux and terribly punished. After this a part of them appear to have migrated to the south ward.

Eastern band who remained at the fort on the St. Joseph after the departure of the French, and those who were at the village of the Miamis, afterwards migrated with that tribe to the Illinois River.

Though the St. Joseph was named by its French discov- erers the " River of the Miamis," and the country through which it flows was included in the possessions of that tribe, it does not appear to have ever been very firmly held or thoroughly occupied by them. In the narrative, before quoted from, of the journey of La Salle's party across the peninsula in the spring of 1680, it is said of the region bordering, and to the eastward of, the St. Joseph River, that it was a " debatable ground, infested with war-parties of several adverse tribes, and none could venture here without risk of life," and that a war-party of the Mascoutins from Wisconsin were at that time roaming in the vicinity. Ac- counts are also given of Outagamies (Foxes) and other tribes from the northwest of Lake Michigan, traversing these forests in 1679 and 1680.

The Miamis themselves were from Wisconsin, where they and the Muscoutins were found located together, on the Fox River, by the Jesuits Allouez and Dablon, in 1670. In the account of the visit of those priests it was stated that the two tribes together numbered more than three thousand, and that the chief of the Miami's " was honored by his subjects like a king, and his demeanor towards his guests had no savor of the savage." In the same year the tribes on the Fox River were visited by St. Lusson, on which occasion the Miamis entertained him with a sham battle and the Indian game of la crosse. His in- terpreter, Nicholas Perrot, "gave a marvelous account of the authority and state of the Miami chief, who, he said, was attended day and night by a guard of warriors."

The circumstances above noticed point to the conclusion that the Miami tribe removed, soon after 1670, from the Fox River to the country bordering the waters of the Kan- kakee and the St. Joseph ; that their occupation of this region was of but recent date when the French first ex- plored the last-named river ; that they never became very firmly or thoroughly established here; and that the tribe emigrated from the lake region to the Illinois River in 1681, leaving their former domain unoccupied, and in truth "a debatable ground."

After about ten years' absence they returned to the St. Joseph Valley, and (as is believed, for reasons which will appear in succeeding pages) made their principal settle- ments on the lower part of that river. Here, a few years after their return, they were assailed by the ferocious Sioux, who slaughtered a large number of the less warlike Miamis. An account of this massacre is found in a report on Indian affairs, made by La Motte Cadillac to Count Pontchartrain, dated " Fort Pontchartrain [Detroit], Aug. 31, 1703," as follows : " From time immemorial our allies have been at war with the Sioux; and on my arrival at Fort Michillimackinac [in 1695], in conformity to the orders of Count Frontenac, I attempted to negotiate a truce between the Sioux and all our allies. Succeeding in this negotiation, I took the occasion to turn their arms against the Iroquois, with whom we were then at war; and, soon

HISTORY OF BERRIEN AND VAN BUREN COUNTIES, MICHIGAN.

after, I effected a treaty of peace between the Sioux and the French and their allies, which lasted two years. At the end of that time the Sioux came in great numbers to the villages of the Miamis, under pretense of ratifying the treaty. They were well received by the Miamis, and after spending several days in their villages departed, apparently perfectly satisfied with their good reception, as they cer- tainly had every reason to be.

" The Miamis, believing them already far distant, slept quietly ; but the Sioux, who had premeditated the attack, returned the same night to the principal village of the Miamis, where most of the tribe were congregated, and, taking them by surprise, slaughtered nearly three thousand and put the rest to flight. This perfidy irritated all the nations. They came to Michillimackinac with their com- plaints, begging me to join them and exterminate the Sioux. But the war which we then had upon our hands did not permit me to listen to their proposition, so it became necessary for me to hold a great council and play the orator in a long harangue. In conclusion, I advised them to 'weep their dead and wrap them up, and leave theni to sleep coldly till the day of vengeance should come,' telling them that we must sweep the land on this side of the Iroquois, as it was necessary to extinguish even their memory, after which the allied tribes could more easily avenge the atrocious deed that the Sioux had just committed upon them. In short, I managed them so well that the affair was settled in the manner that I proposed."

This account given by La Motte indicates the year 1697 as the date of the massacre. There is every reason to be- lieve that the number which he mentions as having been slain by the Sioux is a great exaggeration, but there is no reason to doubt that the loss of the Miamis was very severe. It was probably at this time that a portion of the tribe fled southward to the valley of the Wabash, which region they continued to occupy, as also the country border- ing the Maumee, a stream which was for many years known as the Miami River of Lake Erie.

If, as La Motte's account seems to imply, the entire body of the surviving Miamis fled before the onslaught of the bloody Sioux, it is certain that a part of the tribe after- wards returned to the St. Joseph ; and these were, in later accounts, frequently mentioned as " the Miamis of the St. Joseph" in distinction from " the Miamis of Ouyatanon" and other divisions of the tribe. The first named appear to have been principally located at the mouth of the river whose name they bore; and here, at about the commence- ment of the eighteenth century, the Jesuit mission of St. Joseph was established for the purpose of converting them to Christianity.

As to which of the Jesuit fathers was the founder of this mission, there is as much doubt as there is concerning the exact date of its commencement. In some historical accounts it has been stated that it was begun by Father Claude Jean Allouez during the first Miami occupancy (and by some placed as early as 1675), and that about the same time, a trading-post was opened and a small force of French soldiers was stationed here; but this statement is clearly erroneous. In the account of the numerous jour- neyings of La Salle up and down the St. Joseph River

(written by Francis Parkman, who has had access to the original narratives of La Salle, Hennepin, and Tonty) no mention is made of any such mission, post, or garrison then existing at this point,* nor is there any allusion which can lead to another conclusion than that the great explorer found a complete solitude at the mouth of the St. Joseph (although it was known, through previous discoveries, to be the base of a feasible route to the country of the Illinois), and that this solitude remained uninvaded, or at least un- occupied, by any Europeans, except those of the parties under his command, during the period of his operations here, which extended beyond the time of the removal of the Miami tribe to the Illinois River in 1681. This seems to be strong evidence against the supposition that any mission was commenced by Allouez or any of the other Jesuits during the first occupancy of the Miamis. It is mentioned in the narrative of La Salle's explorations that Allouez was among the Illinois in 1676 to 1679, and that in 1680 he was with the Miamis on the Kankakee (not, however, having a permanent mission there) ; and it is therefore possible, that, in journeying to or from the Miami village, he may have passed by way of the St. Joseph River. Even this, however, is not probable, for an ill-feeling existed between him and La Salle, and the priest, who always showed a disposition to avoid his enemy, would not have been likely to take a route which would lead him past Fort Miami if he could avoid it. A few years later he was stationed at the mission on the Illinois, and died in 1690 ; so that, beyond all reasonable doubt, he had lain several years in his grave before the founding of the first mission on the St. Joseph.

Of this mission,-which, as before stated, and as nearly all well-informed writers agree, was established about the year 1700,-the earliest mention which is found recorded is contained in a letter dated Michillimackinac, Aug. 16, 1706, and addressed to the Governor-General by the Jesuit father Joseph T. Marest. This letter, after mentioning the discovery of an Ottawa plot in which " a party of war- riors were to leave Michillimackinac, and, having engaged the Sacs and Foxes to join them, intended to attack the Miamis on the river St. Joseph," and that the plot had been temporarily frustrated, proceeds : " I asked the sav- ages if I could send a canoe manned with Frenchmen to the river St. Joseph with any degree of safety. They re- plied that I could, and urged me to do so, seeming to take an interest in the fathers who are there. The truth is, they do not feel at liberty to make war upon the Miamis while the missionaries remain there, and for that reason would prefer that they should come to us. I had previously engaged some Frenchmen to carry the news to the river St. Joseph, and to relieve our fathers if they were in any dif- ficulty ; but one of them has been so much intimidated by the representations of his friends that he dare not trust himself among the savages.

" As affairs are at present, I do not think the removal of

# But, on the contrary, Parkman does say, "He [La Salle] led his followers to the banks of the river now called the St. Joseph. Here he built a fort, and here, in after-years, the Jesuits placed a mission, and the government a garrison."-Conspiracy of Pontiac, vol. i. p. 59.

THE POTTAWATTAMIE OCCUPATION.

the fathers is advisable, for that [St. Joseph] is the most important post in all this region, except Michillimackinac ; and, if the Ottawas were relieved from the restraint im- posed upon them by the existence of the mission, they would unite so many tribes against the Miamis that in a short time they would drive them from this fine country. . . . I have at last found another Frenchman who is willing to go to the river St. Joseph, and I hope the four will now de- part immediately. We have reason to feel anxious concern- ing the safety of the fathers, on account of so many war- parties going down on that side. At least we shall have news from St. Joseph, unless our men find too many dan- gers in the way." In another letter from Marest to the Governor, dated August 27th, he says, " We are impa- tiently awaiting the return of M. Boudor and the Ottawa chiefs. I have not yet sent to the river St. Joseph, but hope to very soon."

It is noticeable, in the above extract from the letter of Father Marest, that the river on which the mission was located is called the St. Joseph, instead of the Indian name which had been given to it by its discoverers, and which had been adhered to in the earlier writings. This leads to the conclusion that at the time of the establishment of the mission of St. Joseph its name was also given, for the first time, to the stream which had previously been known as the " River of the Miamis." It is also shown almost con- clusively by Marest's letter that there was then no military post on the St. Joseph. If there had been, he would cer- tainly have felt less anxiety than he here exhibits for the safety of his priests, and at all events he would have known that the garrison at St. Joseph (if there had been one there) would afford the missionaries much better protection than could be given them by the four men whom he purposed sending in a canoe to their assistance. It seems clear, therefore, that the French had established no military post on the St. Joseph prior to August, 1706.

About this time an attempt was made by Indians or dis- affected Frenchmen to burn the fort at the newly-estab- lished post of Detroit ; and in an account which was subse- quently given to Count Pontchartrain by La Motte Cadillac, the commandant of the post, there is found a clue as to the time of the final evacuation of the St. Joseph Valley by the Miamis. In the course of his account, Cadillac said, " Soon after the attempt to burn the fort, the Miami's of Ouyatanon came to Detroit and made an attack on the sav- ages there. They killed an Ottawa, two Hurons, and a Pottawattamie. This act of hostility exasperated all the nations at Fort Pontchartrain, and warlike preparations were immediately made. I succeeded in persuading them to wait a few days, and then dispatched a messenger to the camp of the Ouyatanons, who were four hundred strong, telling them, if they did not come promptly and make repa- ration for this insult, I would go myself and exterminate them. They immediately sent their chiefs to Detroit, re- placed the dead with the living, according to their cus- tom, and made large presents to the relatives of those who were killed. Thus a bloody war was prevented. Father Mermet, a Jesuit, is missionary to the Ouyatanon Miamis. This attack was made after the Miamis of the river St. Joseph had left their villages, and had come to settle at

Detroit." The last sentence in this extract seems to fix the departure of the Miamis from the St. Joseph River at about the year 1706.

The post of Detroit had been established in 1701, by Cadillac, who immediately began to use great efforts to in- duce the remote tribes of Indians to leave the territory they were then occupying, and to locate their villages in the vicinity of the new military post. In this he succeeded to some extent, though against a determined opposition from all the influence and power of the Jesuits, who were his bitter enemies. That the feeling of enmity was recipro- cated by Cadillac is clearly enough shown in a letter written by him to Count Pontchartrain from Detroit, Aug. 31, 1703, in which he said, " Thirty Hurons of Michillimackinac arrived here on the 28th of June to unite themselves with those already established here. There remain only about twenty-five at Michillimackinac. Father Carheil, who is missionary there, always remains firm. I hope this fall to pluck out the last feather of his wing, and I am persuaded that this obstinate old priest will die in his parish without having a single parishioner to bury him." Cadillac never realized all his hopes in this direction, but he succeeded in drawing a large number of Hurons, Ottawas, Pottawattamies, and other Indians to the neighborhood of Detroit ; and it was largely, no doubt, through his persuasions, though probably still more through fear of the threatened attack on them by Ottawas and other tribes, as mentioned by Marest, that the Miamis were led to take their final departure from the St. Joseph and re- move to the neighborhood of Fort Pontchartrain.

CHAPTER III. THE POTTAWATTAMIE OCCUPATION.

Possession of the St. Joseph Valley taken by the Pottawattamies- Their previous Occupation of the Green Bay Country-Continuance of the St. Joseph Mission among the Pottawattamies-Military Post and Canadian Village at the Mouth of the St. Joseph-Relig- ious Instruction of the Pottawattamies-Their Warlike Spirit, and long Alliance with the French-Surrender of the French Posts to the English, and Indian Hatred of the Latter-Alliance of the Pot- tawattamies with Pontiac against the English-Massacre of the English Garrison at the Mouth of the St. Joseph by the Pottawat- tamies in 1763-The Trader Winston-The Pottawattamie Alliance with the British in the Revolution-Langlade's Expedition in 1779 -The Trading-Posts of Burnett and Bertrand-" Mad Anthony" Wayne's Punishment of the Indians and subsequent Treaty with them-First appearance of the name of Topinabe as head chief of the Pottawattamies-Alliance with Tecumseh-Pottawattamies at Tippecanoe-The killing of John Chandonais near the Mouth of the St. Joseph-The Pottawattamies fight with England in the War of 1812-15-Their last Battle and complete Subjugation by the United States.

THE successors of the Miami's were the numerous and warlike Pottawattamies, who spread themselves not only over the lands of the former tribe on the St. Joseph and Kankakee, but also over a vast area of additional territory, stretching from the vicinity of Chicago, around the head of Lake Michigan, northward at least as far as the mouth of the Kalamazoo, eastward far enough to include the valleys of that stream and the St. Joseph, as well as the head-

HISTORY OF BERRIEN AND VAN BUREN COUNTIES, MICHIGAN.

waters of Grand River, and southward into Indiana and Illinois. They held firm possession of this broad domain for nearly a century and a quarter, being the dominant tribe of Southern Michigan at the coming of the first English-speaking settlers, and a remnant of them lingering here until within the memory of many persons now living.

The Pottawattamies, like the Miamis, were first found within the present State of Wisconsin, their location being in the territory bordering the shores of Green Bay. The party under La Salle found them a short distance above the mouth of that bay, on the west shore of Lake Michigan, in 1679, and to him, as to other French leaders, they proved very friendly. Mention is made of one of their principal chiefs, " who in his enthusiasm for the French was wont to say that he knew but three great captains in the world,- Frontenac, La Salle, and himself." This is the first re- corded instance of the display by a Pottawattamie of that spirit of boastfulness which was a marked characteristic of the tribe in later years.

The time of the Pottawattamies' migration from the northwestern to the southeastern shore of Lake Michigan* is not precisely known, but such facts as have been brought to light in reference to the matter show that it was within the first decade of the eighteenth century. They, as well as the other Indian nations of the Green Bay and Fox River regions, had roamed through the "debatable ground" of Southwestern Michigan for many years, and they were among the first of the tribes who sent colonies to Detroit in response to the invitation of Cadillac, mention being made in official documents of a Pottawattamie village near Fort Pontchartrain as early as 1702. A part of the tribe at least appears to have been temporarily located within the territory of the Miamis before the final emigration of the latter.

The Pottawattamies were fast and faithful alliest of the Ottawas, and nothing is more probable than that the offen- sive combination against the Miamis to which Father Marest alludes in his letter of Aug. 14, 1706, was formed with a view to the very object which it accomplished, viz.,

# At the time of the removal of the Pottawattamies from Wisconsin to their later home, at the head of Lake Michigan, a small part of the tribe was, for some reason, left behind at Green Bay. It is stated on the authority of Dr. Lapham, of Wisconsin, that the strength of the Pottawattamie tribe in what is now the territory of that State was, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, only twenty warriors. This was evidently the remnant of the tribe who remained after the migra- tion of the main body.

+ Sakima, the second chief of the Ottawas, having secured pardon for an unprovoked attack on the Miamis at Detroit and the murder of a French priest, made a speech of thanks to the Governor-General, at Montreal, June 23, 1707, in which he said, "The Sacs, the Menom- inies, the Mascouting, the Kickapoos, the Outagamies, and the Potta- wattamies are people who will like to hear the good news. They are our allies, and are those to whom our old men will give notice, that the land may be united." The feelings which were entertained by the Miamis towards the Ottawas at that time are shown by this passage in a letter written at Detroit by Cadillac to the Governor-General : " The Hurons, Ouyatanons, and some of the Miamis are here, and have in all the councils expressed the following sentiments : ' We will never listen to a treaty of reconciliation with the Outawas. We will hear, on this subject, neither the Governor nor you. Onontio might give us all the goods in Quebec and Montreal, and we would reject them. . . . We do not wish for peace. It must not be spoken of. If you make peace with the Outawas, we shall have bad thoughts.'"

the removal of the Miamis and the occupation of their country by the Pottawattamies. This gave nearly the whole of the lower peninsula of Michigan to the three tribes, Pottawattamies, Ottawas, and Ojibwas (Chippe- was), all of whom were leagued together in a sort of con- federation, and of whom the first and last named were also allied by consanguinity. The hunting-grounds of the Ot- tawas and Ojibwas joined those of the Pottawattamies on the north and northeast, and extended thence to the shores of Lake Huron, and along Lake Michigan to the Straits of Michillimackinac.

It was not long after the Miami's left the valley of the St. Joseph before the Pottawattamies had full possession. It appears almost certain that their occupation commenced immediately after the departure of the first-named tribe, and that the Jesuit mission which had been established for the Miami's was continued, without break, for the conver- sion of their Pottawattamie successors. For it was only a few years later (1712) that we find the mission of St. Joseph reported by Father Marest as being in a very flour- ishing condition, and the most important of all the missions on the lakes excepting that at Michillimackinac. A mili- tary post had also been established here, and around the post and mission there had clustered a small settlement of Canadians, some of whom were without doubt engaged in traffic with the Indians, for in those days, and under the French rule, the trader always accompanied the soldier on his advance into the wilderness.

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History of Berrien and Van Buren counties, Michigan. With biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 4

Author: D.W. Ensign & Co. pub; Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885; Johnson, Crisfield Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Philadelphia, D. W. Ensign & Co. Number of Pages: 821

Author: D.W. Ensign & Co. pub; Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885; Johnson, Crisfield
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia, D. W. Ensign & Co.
Number of Pages: 821