History of Berrien and Van Buren counties, Michigan. With biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 6

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 6
USA > Michigan > Berrien County > History of Berrien and Van Buren counties, Michigan. With biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 6

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

The trading-post on the St. Joseph at the time of the massacre of the garrison appears to have been owned by, or in charge of, Richard Winston, who, with one or two others besides the Canadians, escaped the slaughter. An extract from a letter written by him to the Detroit traders, and dated June 19, 1763, is given by Mr. Parkman, in his " Conspiracy of Pontiac," as follows : "Gentlemen, I ad- dress myself to you all, not knowing who is alive, or who is dead. I have only to inform you that, by the blessing of God and the help of M. Louison Chevalie, I escaped being killed when the unfortunate garrison was massacred, Mr. Hambough and me being hid in the house of the said

Chevalie for 4 days and nights. Mr. Hambough is brought by the Savages to the Illinois, likewise Mr. Chim. Unfortunate me remains here Captive with the Savages. I must say that I met with no bad usage; however I would that I was (with) some Christian or other. I am quite naked, & Mr. Castacrow, who is indebted to Mr. Cole, would not give me one inch to save me from death."

The slaughter of the garrison at the St. Joseph was the principal exploit of the Pottawattamies during the series of hostilities generally known as the siege of Detroit. They soon after professed to have become weary of fighting, and finally asked for peace, which was granted by Major Glad- wyn. They, with the Wyandots, pretended to withdraw from the struggle, but this was only an exhibition of their characteristic treachery, for in two weeks afterwards both Wyandots and Pottawattamies took part in the attack on Captain Dalzell's force, who were coming to aid Gladwyn ; and on the 31st of July they were again found in the sav- age ranks at the slaughter of Bloody Run. A little more than a month after that time they were engaged in the attack on the schooner " Gladwyn," and sustained very severe loss at the hands of the brave crew. After that affair they did very little fighting during the continuance of the siege, and probably very little if any ever afterwards under Pon- tiac. They did, however, fight most fiercely to avenge his death, which came by assassination at Cahokia, near St. Louis, in 1769. The murder was charged to the Illinois Indians, and when this became known among the warriors of the lakes all were eager to take revenge, for their fierce blood boiled at the thought that the contemptible Illinois, whom they had always looked on as their inferiors, should dare to slay their redoubtable chieftain. Ottawas, Potta- wattamies, Ojibwas, and several other tribes sent their war- riors on the errand of vengeance, and before they returned the Illinois were almost entirely exterminated. It was dur- ing this retributive campaign that a party of Pottawatta- mie warriors assailed a band of Illinois and drove them to their stronghold, which being unable to carry by assault, they besieged until the miserable inmates all died by star- vation. The place was afterwards from this circumstance called " Starved Rock." Its location is on the Illinois River.

In 1765, George Croghan-who had been a trader among the Western tribes, and who thoroughly understood their feelings and peculiarities-was sent forward from Niagara " to reason with the Indians as far as they were capable of reasoning ; to soften their antipathy to the English ; to ex- pose the falsehoods of the French, and to distribute presents among the tribes by way of propitiation ;" that is, to pre- pare them for the occupation of their country by a stronger English force than had yet been sent there. On this mis- sion he held a council at Detroit, on the 17th of August, with the confederated tribes of the Michigan peninsula. They had been completely humbled by the failure of Pon- tiac's scheme, and besides this, having acquired many arti- ficial wants since the white men came among them, they were suffering from the suspension of the fur trade, and were really so anxious for peace that they professed their repentance and submission in abject terms. Particular men- tion is made of a band of Pottawattamies from the St.

THE POTTAWATTAMIE OCCUPATION.

Joseph,* who were present at this council, and whose orator in the course of a speech made on that occasion said, "We are no more than wild creatures to you, fathers, in under- standing; therefore we request you to forgive the past fol- lies of our young people, and receive us for your children. Since you have thrown down our former father on his back, we have been wandering in the dark, like blind people. Now you have dispersed all this darkness which hung over the heads of the several tribes, and have accepted them for your children, we hope you will let us partake with them the light, that our women and children may enjoy peace. We beg you to forget all that is past. By this belt we remove all evil thoughts from your hearts. Fathers, when we formerly came to visit our fathers the French they always sent us home joyful ; and we hope that you, fathers, will have pity on our women and young men, who are in great want of necessaries, and not let us go home to our towns ashamed." This speech shows that though they had laid aside all thought of active hostility, they had by no means given up the inveterate propensity for begging, which was universal among all the Indian tribes.

The council resulted in success. Presents were quite frecly distributed, and Pottawattamies, Ojibwas, and Otta- was returned to their villages well satisfied. Peace was secured, and with it a friendly feeling on the part of the savages towards their white " fathers." This friendship was never as thorough or as cordial as that which had ex- isted between the Indians and the French, but it was suffi- cient to hold the red men in alliance with the English until the power of the latter was finally expelled from Michigan.

In the war of the Revolution the Pottawattamies re- mained in sympathy with the British, but it does not ap- pear that they afforded much material aid in the struggle. Some of their warriors, as well as those of the Ottawas and other Western tribes (not exceeding six hundred, how- ever, in all), reported at Montreal, and joined the invading army of Burgoyne at the head of Lake Champlain about July 10, 1777. These accompanied the British forces to the Hudson River, and a few are said to have been with Baum at Bennington. But they became restive under the strict discipline which Burgoyne attempted to enforce (in the matter of indiscriminate slaughter for the collection of scalps), and they soon after deserted, almost to the last warrior.

In the winter of 1778-79, the Indian allies of the Eng- lish were notified to assemble at L'Arbre Croche (Little Traverse Bay), on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, for the purpose of holding a council and organizing an expedi- tion to set out from that point and proceed by way of the St. Joseph River and through the heart of the country of the Pottawattamies (the old route of La Salle and Mar- quette by way of the Kankakee portage), to reinforce Gov- ernor Hamilton, the British leader, who was marching against the American general, George Rogers Clark, the latter having taken possession of the whole Illinois country. The tribes did not appear willing to take any further part in the struggle between the white combatants, and

were not prompt in responding to the call. They were, however, finally induced to meet at the appointed rendez- vous, where a grand council was held, and after a great deal of opposition and heated debate, in the Indian style, a large expeditionary force was made up, under command of two French half-breeds, Charles de Langladet and Gautier de Vierville, and embarked in a great number of canoes on Lake Michigan. Skirting the eastern shore southward, the savage flotilla arrived early in the spring at the mouth of the St. Joseph, where Langlade learned that his mission was futile, for the reason that Hamilton had surrendered his force to Clark in the latter part of February and was himself a prisoner in the American camp. Upon the re- ceipt of this intelligence the expedition was abandoned, and the northern Indians returned (probably not unwil- lingly) to their homes. The Pottawattamies, laying aside the tomahawk, remained in quiet and peace in their villages along the banks of the St. Joseph, and appeared no more as participants in the conflict which ended in the independ- ence of the United States.

The trading-post at the mouth of the St. Joseph, which was broken up by the massacre of 1763, was probably not reopened ; but soon after the Revolution another was es- tablished here by William Burnett, who, as tradition says, was a native of the State of New Jersey. His trading- house was not exactly at the mouth of the river, but about a mile and a half (by its course) farther up the stream, upon its south bank, the spot being indicated by an old apple-orchard, supposed to have been planted by him. Some of Burnett's books of account are still in existence, and have been examined by the writer. They show that he did a very large business with the Indians, furnishing them not only strouds, blankets, utensils, brooches, and gewgaws, but also an abundance of ardent spirits, hatchets, and scalp- ing-knives ; in exchange for which he received great quanti- ties of furs of every kind, raccoon skins being largely in excess of all others. The trader's books which have been found cover the period from 1792 to 1802. The older one is entitled " Ledger B," dating from the commencement of 1792 and extending to 1799. If " Ledger A" (which is missing) covered a like period, this would place the date of Burnett's establishment here at 1785, which is doubtless about the correct date. At about the same time Joseph Bertrand located in trade among the Pottawattamies some fifty miles farther up the river, but the books above named indicate that the goods sold by Bertrand were owned by Burnett, and that the former was in the employ of the principal trader, Burnett. The presence of these traders among the Indians must have assisted them materially in their warfare by furnishing them with more and better weapons than they had before possessed.

In 1794 the red warriors of Southern Michigan were again on the war-path. Five years before, they had made a treaty of peacet with the Americans, but this did not

t The same who, in command of the Indian auxiliaries, fought on the French side against the English at the battle of the Monongahela, in 1755, and who was mentioned as "the person who planned and executed the defeat of Gen. Braddock."

# In 1789 the Pottawattamies and other Michigan tribes were repre- sented by their principal chiefs in a great council held on the Mus-

* Conspiracy of Pontiac, vol. ii. p. 293.

HISTORY OF BERRIEN AND VAN BUREN COUNTIES, MICHIGAN.

deter them from joining the Indian hordes who collected, in the year above named, to oppose the force which the American leader, " Mad Anthony" Wayne, was marching into the wilderness of Ohio for the chastisement of the Shawanoes and other tribes who had previously violated their pledges by raising the hatchet against General Har- mar. The Indian host, to the number of about two thou- sand (made up from the three principal nations of the Michigan peninsula and several other tribes, with about seventy white men), gathered on the Maumee River and attacked Wayne's forces at a place about five miles south of the head of the rapids of that stream. But the veteran was well prepared for their reception, and, after a short but hotly contested battle, the Indians gave way at every point, fled in utter rout from the field, and, as was usually their custom when defeated, abandoned the campaign, and re- turned to their villages humbled, crestfallen, and deeply impressed by Wayne's vigorous manner of fighting and the power of the United States. A great number of In- dian warriors were left dead on the battle-field in the val- ley of the Maumee, and beside every one was found a mus- ket, bayonet, and equipments bearing the mark of a British armory, and of course issued to them from British forts ; for it was not until 1796 that Detroit and the other posts in the West were surrendered by England to the United States.

In regard to the military post of St. Joseph very little mention is found of later date than 1763. The forts at Michillimackinac and Green Bay had in the Pontiac war suffered the same fate as this at St. Joseph ; but in the account of the re-establishment of the former, by order of Gen. Bradstreet, in 1764, no mention is made of the re- occupation of the latter, nor does it appear to have been garrisoned by the British during the Revolutionary war. Its history must, therefore, be considered as virtually closed* by the massacre of its garrison by the Pottawattamies.

After the deserved punishment administered to the In- dian tribes at the Maumee by Gen. Wayne, in 1794, that commander sent messengers summoning their chiefs to council, to which they very readily assented. The head men of the Pottawattamies, Chippewas, t Ottawas, and nine other tribes met the general in council at Greenville in 1795, and there concluded a treaty of peace and friend- ship with the United States, which was quite faithfully kept for about fifteen years. The Shawanoes and other tribes made a large cession of land in Ohio to the United States, but the Michigan Indians were left in undisturbed possession of their territory (except some inconsiderable tracts in the vicinity of Detroit and Michillimackinac), and it was declared on the

part of the government that " the Indian tribes who have a right to those lands are quietly to enjoy them, hunting, planting, and dwelling thereon as long as they please, with- out any molestation from the United States." Among the Indian signatures to this treaty there appears, on the part of the Pottawattamies, the mark and name of Topinabe, who was then the head chief of the tribe, and continued to hold that position and dignity until his death, nearly forty years afterwards.

In the autumn of 1810 the villages of the Pottawatta- mies received a visit from an Indian personage scarcely less famed than the great Pontiac himself. This visitor was none other than the Shawanoe chieftain, Tecumseh, who came " accompanied by three other chiefs, all mounted on spirited black ponies,"¿ bound on a mission to this and other Western tribes for the purpose of enlisting them in a league, similar to that in which they had joined with Pontiac nearly a half century before, for the destruction of the whites. His fiery eloquence prevailed, and the Pottawat- tamie chiefs, with Topinabé at their head, promised to enter the combination. We do not find them engaged in actual hostilities, however, until the fall of the following year, when three hundred warriors of this tribe-some from the southwest of Lake Michigan and some from the St. Joseph -attacked Gen. Harrison at Tippecanoe before daybreak, in the morning of the 7th of November. For two or three hours the battle raged furiously ; the Shawanoes and Pot- tawattamie braves fought with desperation, and many of the Americans were slain. But at length the steady valor of the whites prevailed over the fierce energy of the In- dians, and the latter gave way at all points, fleeing for their lives. Being wholly defeated, the Pottawattamies, of course, returned with all speed to their villages; and these were so far distant that they escaped all further pun- ishment for the part they had taken.

When war was declared between England and the United States, in 1812, there could have been but little reasonable doubt as to which side the Michigan Indians would join, yet both British and Americans appear to have felt con- siderable anxiety in regard to the matter, and both parties sent emissaries to the Pottawattamies on the St. Joseph to observe their movements, and to do what might be done to secure them as allies. The American commandant at De- troit sent Robert Forsyth with a small party, among whom was Jean Baptiste Chandonais,§ a French half-breed, who had lived among these Indians for a number of years, having been employed here by William Burnett, || the trader, as early as 1792, and from that time until 1799 at least. He was, therefore, well known here, and on that account an excellent man for the business then in hand. He was usually called simply Baptiste, or more nearly " Batteese." The agent sent by the English was John Chandonais, an uncle of Baptiste, and equally familiar with

kingum River by Gen. St. Clair, Governor of the Northwest Terri- tory ; and there they concluded a solemn treaty of peace with the government of the United States.

# About the commencement of the present century the United States government sent commissioners to the St. Joseph to negotiate with the Indians for land on which to establish a fort at the mouth of the river (the lands of Southwestern Michigan not having been ceded at that time), but the red proprietors refused, and the commis- sioners then selected the location at Chicago, upon which Fort Dear- born was erected in 1804.

t The name of that tribe was originally and properly Ojibwa, but in the treaties of the United States it is spelled Chippeway or Chip- pewa, which latter is the usual orthography of later years.

# Wisconsin Hist. Soc. Collections.

¿ This Chandonais received a pension from the government during his life for services to the United States in the war of 1812-15. He also received (at the request of the Indians in the treaty of 1821) a grant of two sections of land on the north side of the St. Joseph River.

| Burnett's books of accounts show this fact.

THE POTTAWATTAMIE OCCUPATION.

Indian life and at home among them. He was then in the service of the British, and had come up from Michilli- mackinac on this errand, having with him a party of about thirty Chippewa Indians.

In the account which is given of this occurrence, it is stated that the Pottawattamies were about to hold a council to determine the course they would pursue in the impend- ing war, and that the British and American agents had come for the purpose of being present on the occasion. It is not probable that such was the case, but however this may have been, it is certain that the two parties met at or near Burnett's trading-house, and that the elder Chandonais, enraged at finding his nephew there in the interest of the Americans, demanded of him that he should join the British side or surrender himself a prisoner. In short, he was determined that he should go to Michillimackinac by fair means or by foul. Baptiste told his uncle that it was useless to parley, that he would not abandon the American cause nor would he be taken prisoner; and, cocking a double- barreled gun which he held in his hand, he added that if he-the uncle -should attempt to approach him for that purpose, and should pass a certain line which he indicated on the ground between them, he would do so at the peril of his life.

John Chandonais, being a brave and determined man, and probably having no thought that Baptiste would exe- cute his threat, drew his sword and boldly advanced, but the instant he stepped beyond the limit a ball from his nephew's gun entered his heart, and he fell dead on the fatal boundary. The Chippewas of the British party rushed to the spot and set up a hideous yelling ; but Bap- tiste Chandonais-who spoke their language as well as his own-met them coolly, and told them that he was sorry he had been compelled to kill his uncle, but that he was determined not to be captured, and that the first one who crossed the line would be a dead Indian ; that he did not fear them, for his Pottawattamie friends would stand by him and never see him injured (in which he was no doubt correct) ; and finally that if they would be quiet and make no trouble, and would help bury his uncle, he would give them plenty of fire-water, which would be much pref- erable to being incumbered with a troublesome prisoner,- even if they were able to take him. Upon this a consulta- tion was held, and they finally agreed, for the consideration of ten gallons of rum, to make no disturbance about the matter, but to allow him and his companions to depart in peace. The dead man was buried near where he fell (the spot being on the farm of the late Capt. Samuel G. Lang- ley, in St. Joseph township), a cross erected over his grave, and then Chandonais and Forsyth left without delay for Detroit. An arrangement had been made with the trader Burnett, by which (as a precautionary measure) the Chip- pewas were not to receive the ten gallons of rum until the next morning. It was delivered to them at that time, and, upon receiving it they set out on their return to the North .*

If the Pottawattamies had not already determined on the course they would pursue in the impending hostilities, they

arrived an an instant conclusion when, immediately after this occurrence, runners appeared in their villages bearing the announcement from Tecumseh that war had been declared, and asking them to take part with him against the United States. They acceded to the proposal at once, and a band of warriors were soon on the war-path, marching towards the southeast, where, on the 5th of August, they took part, with Ottawas and Shawanoes, in the attack and slaughter of Maj. Van Horn's command on the river Raisin. Ten days later the Illinois branch of the tribe attacked the garrison of Fort Dearborn (sixty-six men and several families, who had already evacuated the work and were marching eastward), massacred about one-half their number, and took the rest prisoners. Probably there were but few, if any, of the St. Joseph Indians concerned in this atrocious affair.

Late in the fall of the same year a force of about five hundred Indians of the Northwest, under command of the afterwards famous chief Black Hawk, and accompanied by a small band of Illinois Pottawattamies, under their chief Shaubena, f passed along the southern shore of Lake Mich- igan, and through a part of the valley of the St. Joseph, on their way to join Tecumseh on the river Raisin. No doubt the sight of this large body of warriors inflamed the ardor of the Pottawattamies, and caused their braves to flock to the English standard in still larger numbers, for it is stated by Auchinleck, the Canadian historian of the war of 1812-15, that at the battle of the Raisin, which was fought not long afterwards (Jan. 22, 1813) between the American forces under Gen. Winchester and the English under Gen. Proctor, there were two hundred Pottawattamies engaged on the Brit- ish side, under Tecumseh. They fought with great bravery in that battle, but afterwards enacted a part which might put devils to shame, in the frightful butchery of the prisoners who had been captured there.}

In the force which, under Proctor and Tecumseh, moved against the American post of Lower Sandusky (now Fre- mont, Ohio) in the following summer, the Pottawattamies were still more numerously represented, about three hun- dred and fifty of their warriors being present, out of a total of some twelve hundred Indians of all tribes. The assault on the fort was made on the 2d of August by about five hundred British troops, while the Indians surrounded the work and kept up an unintermitted fire on the defenders wherever they could be seen. But the attacking column was completely repulsed by the one hundred and sixty Americans within the fort, commanded by the gallant Maj. Croghan, and soon the red and white assailants retired from the field, defeated. Afterwards, the Pottawattamies took

* Many of the facts relating to this killing of the elder Chandon- ais were related by Maj. Forsyth himself to Mr. Jehial Enos, who is now living in Benton.

t " Sketch of Shaubena, a Pottawattamie chief," in Wisconsin Hist. Soc. Collections, vol. vii.

¿ The Pottawattamies and other tribes engaged at this battle are charged with deeds even more horrible than that of massacre, and that, too, by those whose testimony carries great weight. Rev. Isaac McCoy, long a missionary among the Indians of the St. Joseph, says, "From well attested facts we are compelled to believe that the Potta- wattamies, Ottawas, Chippewas, and Miamis have all been guilty of cannibalism. . . . If the accounts of the Indians can be credited, the last war with England, in which Indians were mercenaries on both sides, was disgraced by cannibalism, the last instance of which we have been informed having occurred near Fort Meigs, on the Maumee River, in 1813."

HISTORY OF BERRIEN AND VAN BUREN COUNTIES, MICHIGAN.

part in several other engagements, of which the principal and the last was the battle of the Thames, which occurred on the 5th of October, 1813. In this battle they, and all the Indian allies, fought with unusual desperation, for they felt that all their hopes of final success were staked on the success of the day. After the British infantry had given way, the savages still fought on with fierce determination, though against overwhelming odds, until at length Tecum- seh fell, and then, knowing that all was lost and further fighting useless, they yielded and fled.

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History of Berrien and Van Buren counties, Michigan. With biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 6

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