USA > Michigan > Hillsdale County > History of Hillsdale county. Michigan, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 6
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DOWN to the opening of the Revolutionary war, the Pottawattamies, like the other lake Indians, dwelt in com- parative peace with the white men, though occasional mur- ders on either side kept up the general feeling of uneasiness. The Indians of Michigan occupied a much more independ- ent position than their brethren to the southeast. The Iroquois claimed sovereignty over the whole northwest almost to the Mississippi, by virtue of previous conquests ; but while the Delawares and Shawnees of Ohio admitted their supremacy, and never attempted to sell land without their consent, the fiercer Ottawas, Ojibwas, and Pottawat- tamies defied their power, and were able to maintain their own independence.
We may mention, too, in passing that, in 1774, the act of Parliament known as the Quebec Act established the boundaries of Canada, so far as to include Michigan, and ex- tend west to the Mississippi, and south to the Ohio. The district of Michigan was established then, or previously, as a part of the province of Quebec, but it had no civil gov- ernment. The commandant of the post of Detroit exercised almost autocratic power over the white men of the district, while the vast forests of the interior knew no government save the vague authority exercised by Ottawa, Ojibwa, and Pottawattamie chietains. In time, these and their followers became pretty well reconciled to the English, and very strongly impressed with the power of the English king. Four years after the Quebec Act, the Captain-General of Canada divided that province into districts, giving that of Michigan the name of " Hesse," in honor of the Hessian troops then serving King George in America. But the fortunes of war determined that the people of Michigan should not be " Hessians."
Meanwhile the oppressions of Britain had roused the colonies to resistance, and in 1775 the bloody drama of the Revolution opened on the field of Lexington. With the first news of conflict, the warriors of the West snuffed blood in the air, and were eager to take part in the strife. The English authorities were very willing to employ them, and, having ample means and free communication with the savages, it was easy to enlist both their avarice and their passions on the royal side. It was easy to throw the blame of all the wrongs of which the Indians complained upon the colonists (who were by no means guiltless), and to represent that their great and good father across the ocean was determined to see that justice was done to his red chil-
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dren. An ample array of presents enforced this reasoning, and fully enlisted the sympathies of the red men.
Yet, although a few small bands were employed during 1775 and 1776, no considerable body of Indians took the war-path in behalf of the British during either of those years. Doubtless the invasion of Canada by the Amer- icans, who for a while carried everything before them, tended to repress the enthusiasm of the prudent aborigines. But in 1776 the Americans were driven out of Canada, and in the fall of that year an army began to be gathered in that province, designed to attack them by way of Lake Cham- plain. In the early spring of 1777 great efforts were made to collect a large auxiliary force of savages.
No one who knew anything of Indian character could have expected them to be of much benefit in open fighting, such as is usually carried on between civilized armies. It was supposed, however, that they would be useful in cutting off small parties, pickets, outposts, etc., and performing sim- ilar work. Moreover, it is plain from the proclamations of British commanders that, although they may have hesitated to actually hire the Indians to scalp American women and children (as our fathers believed they did), yet they relied largely on the terror with which the prospect of wide-spread Indian ravages would naturally inspire the people. To the chiefs and warriors they sometimes said, " You must only slay men in arms against us, not prisoners, nor women, nor children ;" but to the Americans on the frontier they al- ways said, in language more or less plain, " If you do not submit we shall be unable to restrain our Indians, and then you know what will happen." As the war went on, the passions of the English officers were inflamed by defeat ; they became less and less particular as to restraining their Indians, and at length coolly tolerated the most atrocious crimes.
It was arranged that the Six Nations should accompany Gen. St. Leger in his attack upon the Mohawk Valley, while the Western Indians were to be assembled near Mon- treal and join the main army of Lieut .- Gen. Burgoyne. Large amounts were expended in gathering these warriors, and ere long band after band made its way eastward. There were our old acquaintances, the Pottawattamies, Ottawas, and Chippewas, of Michigan ; Winnebagoes, Menomonees, Sacs and Foxes, from the territory now called Wisconsin ; and even a few Sioux from the western side of the " Father of Waters,-all painted and plumed for war, and thirsting for the blood of the " Boston men," as they called the Americans.
Notwithstanding the money employed and trouble taken, only about five or six hundred were brought together by the 1st of July, 1777. These joined Burgoyne's army at the head of Lake Champlain, about the tenth of that month. The warriors of each tribe had their own chiefs, but they were all under the direction of St. Luc la Corne de St. Luc, a Canadian partisan, who had frequently led Indians to deeds of blood for the French in the old wars, and had now offered his services to the English. Another French Canadian leader of the Indians was Charles de Langlade, before mentioned as having taken part in the defeat of Braddock.
The Americans were terribly frightened at their approach,
and thousands fled to the interior of the country, solely from fear of the Indians. These took part in some opera- tions around Skenesboro', now Whitehall, but were pretty closely watched by the British officers. When, in the latter part of July, Burgoyne's army began its advance towards the Hudson, the Indians thought their time had come. They spread out on both flanks, plundering the people who remained, burning houses, and occasionally, when there was a good opportunity, slaughtering a whole family. They were much more anxious about the number of scalps they could obtain than about the politics of the heads which wore them, and some Tory families who had remained, relying on their loyalty, were butchered to the youngest child by these devoted champions of King George.
On the 27th of July occurred the celebrated tragedy of Jane McCrea, in which a young girl was slain and scalped by a band of Indians who were taking her to the British camp. According to the common account, her lover, who was a Tory officer, had sent these strange ambassadors to bring Miss McCrea to camp, where he intended to marry her; they quarreled on the road about the reward, and to settle the difficulty slew their unhappy charge and divided the scalp. One account of the affair says the murderers were Pottawattamies, and we must confess that the act was entirely in accordance with their previous character.
The mingled romance and tragedy of this sad event at- tracted universal attention and cast the deepest odium on the British. Burgoyne arrested the murderer, but re- leased him on a promise from the Indians that if he were pardoned they would behave better in the future. He reprimanded them with great severity, and really seems to have set so a close watch on them that the more atrocious kind of outrages were prevented during the remainder of the campaign. But our Pottawattamie and Ottawa friends took great umbrage at these restrictions. A campaign with no scalps or plunder was not at all to their taste, and their leader, La Corne de St. Luc, encouraged their complaints. Many deserted and made their ways in small bands to the wilds of Michigan.
About a hundred and fifty of those who remained were sent with the Hessian troops to Bennington, and shared the severe defeat inflicted by the Americans at that celebrated battle, thirty or forty of them being killed or captured. Their brethren were very indignant against Burgoyne for not sending reinforcements in time. Band after band de- serted, and finally, at a general council, nearly all of them demanded permission to return. Burgoyne used every in- ducement he could to persuade them to remain, and they apparently yielded to his solicitations, but the very next day a large number of them left, and they continued to desert until scarcely one remained.
This, we believe, was the last time that any considerable number of Pottawattamies or other Michigan Indians were employed by the British during the Revolution, though per- haps a few were afterwards kept in pay along the northern border of New York. After 1777, too, the English author- ities no longer tried to use Indians as auxiliaries to regular troops. They fitted out bands of the Six Nations, and allowed them to ravage the frontiers at will.
At the close of the Revolution the treaty of peace gave
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HISTORY OF HILLSDALE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
Michigan to the United States, but England still continued to hold Detroit and the other posts of the Northwest, and all the Indians of this section were still under their influence.
In 1787 the old Continental Congress passed an ordi- nance, soon after confirmed by the Federal Congress, con- stituting Michigan a part of the great Northwest Territory, which extended from the Ohio River to the Canadian boundary, and from Pennsylvania to the Mississippi. Yet still the British held possession of the frontier forts ; still the Ottawas, Pottawattamies, and Shawnees looked up to the British officers as the representatives of their great father beyond the sea, who was the embodiment of all ter- restrial power and wisdom.
In 1789 the Pottawattamies and other Michigan tribes were represented by their principal chiefs in a great council held by Gen. St. Clair, Governor of the Northwest Territory, on the Muskingum River, in the present State of Ohio, where they made a treaty of peace with the United States. None the less they still hated the Americans, and, as the latter believed, were encouraged in this feeling by the British officials. And when, a little later, two American armies, under Gens. Harmar and St. Clair, were successively de- feated by the Shawnees, Delawares, and other tribes of what is now Ohio and Indiana, the Pottawattamies and Ottawas lost what little respect they might previously have had for the new Republic, and were quite ready to go upon the war-path against it.
They soon had an opportunity. In 1794, Gen. Wayne, familiarly known as " Mad Anthony," led a small but well- appointed army into the wilderness of Western Ohio, to chastise the red men in their native fastnesses. Lithe messengers sped with flying feet to all the tribes of the Northwest, and in a short time bands of painted Pottawat- tamies and Ottawas, well equipped with guns and ammu- nition obtained at the British posts, were on their way to join their Shawnee and Miami brethren in destroying the presumptuous Yankee. The clans gathered rapidly in the northwestern part of the present State of Ohio, under the leadership of the celebrated Miami chieftain, Little Turtle, and for a while contented themselves with watching Wayne's approach, in the hope of surprising him.
But Anthony Wayne was not the man to be surprised, and at length Little Turtle and his chiefs determined to attack him. When the army had moved about five miles southward from the head of the rapids of the Maumee, the whole great horde of Miamis, Delawares, Shawnees, Chip- pewas, Ottawas, and Pottawattamies, two thousand strong (including about seventy white men, mostly from Detroit), advanced against the Americans. But Wayne was well prepared, and after a brief but well-contested battle the Indians gave way at every point, and fled in utter rout from the field. Many were left dead on the ground, and beside every one was found a musket, with bayonet and equipments, from a British armory, showing but too plainly one of the chief sources of their hostility. A trader who not long afterwards met a Miami who had fled before the terrible onslaught of Wayne's soldiers, said to him,-
" What made you run away ?" With gestures corre- sponding to his words, and endeavoring to represent the effect of the cannon, he replied,-
" Pop, pop, pop,-boo, woo, woo,-whish, whish, boo, woo,-kill twenty Indians one time,-no good, by dam !"
As had so often been the case before, as soon as defeated the various bands hurried away to their respective villages. In a short time the Pottawattamie warriors were pursuing their customary avocations along the banks of the St. Joseph. But they were deeply impressed both with Wayne's vigor and the strength of the United States, and began seriously to think that all the power in the world was not embraced within the walls of the British forts.
When, soon afterwards, Wayne sent messengers sum- moning the chiefs to council, they were very willing to respond. The principal men of the Miamis, Delawares, Shawnees, Chippewas, Ottawas, and Pottawattamies met the general at Fort Greenville, and concluded a treaty of peace and friendship with the United States, which was quite faithfully observed for over fifteen years. The Shaw- nees and others made a large cession of land in Ohio to the government, but the Michigan Indians were still left in undisturbed possession of their old hunting-grounds. The treaty was signed on the part of the Miamis and Shawnees by Little Turtle and Blue Jacket, who were both leaders in the battle against Wayne. On the part of the Pottawattamies there appeared the name and mark of " Topinabi," their head chief, who was also probably, but not certainly, in the same combat, and who was recognized as head chief of that tribe until his death, forty years later. It is evident from the treaty that the Pottawattamies were ranked among the more important tribes, as they received a thousand dollars as gratuities, which was the amount awarded to the Miamis, the Delawares, the Shawnees, the Chippewas, and the Ottawas respectively, while the Kicka- poos and other tribes received only five hundred dollars each. When the time came for signing the treaty, it was twice read and every section explained by Gen. Wayne, through an interpreter, to the assembled chiefs and war- riors. Then he said,-
" You Chippewas, do you approve of these articles of treaty, and are you prepared to sign them ?" A unanimous " yes," was the response.
" And you Ottawas, do you approve of these articles of treaty, and are you prepared to sign them ?" Again a unanimous affirmative.
" And you Pottawattamies, do you approve of these articles of treaty, and are you prepared to sign them ?" " Yes, yes, treaty good," said or grunted all the dark war- riors of Southern Michigan. After obtaining similar re- sponses from the other tribes, the treaty was considered to be approved and the work of signing concluded the nego- tiations.
Up to this time no attempt had been made either by the government or by private individuals to obtain title to any of the land of Michigan, except in the case of the few set- tlers around Detroit. But in 1795 an effort was made by what would now be called a " ring" to obtain some twenty million acres, situated between Lakes Erie, Huron, and Michigan. One Robert Randall, of Pennsylvania, Charles Whitney, of Vermont, and some Detroit merchants formed a company, dividing the lands they expected to obtain, and which included Hillsdale County, into forty-one shares, of
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HISTORY OF HILLSDALE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
from half a million to a million acres each. Of these shares, five were to go to the Detroiters, six to Randall and his associates, while the very liberal proportion of thirty shares was to be assigned to members of Congress, in return for their assistance in securing the passage of the necessary laws. The part assigned to the Detroit men was to procure the needful treaties granting the lands to them, which they thought they could obtain by their influence over the Potta- wattamie and Ottawa chiefs, with whom they were in the habit of trading.
Thus it will be seen that some very illegitimate schemes were concocted even in the " good old times " eighty years ago. It must be admitted, however, that this one was not as successful as some later ones have been, for it was thor- oughly exposed, and some of the parties were brought before Congress and fined.
In 1796 the British, after long negotiations, surrendered Detroit and the other posts in the West, and then, and not till then, did the Americans obtain any real power over Michigan.
The same year Governor St. Clair formed by proclama- tion the county of Wayne, which extended from the Cuya- hoga River in Ohio to the Mississippi, and northward to Lake Superior. This was the first county which included the present territory of Hillsdale within its limits, but its jurisdiction here was entirely nominal, and the Pottawatta- mie chiefs still continued the magnates of this region.
The Pottawattamies were always a warlike tribe, and although awed into peace with the United States were much engaged in hostilities with other tribes, especially with the Shawnees, who lived to the southward. Many interesting legends regarding these tribes near the close of the last cen- tury are related by Judge Littlejohn in his work entitled " Legends of Michigan and the old Northwest." The ad- mixture of the romantic, however, is so great that we could hardly give them a place in our sober history.
This county in rapid succession passed through several changes of jurisdiction at this period, all merely nominal, and in nowise interfering with the supremacy of the abo- riginal lords of the soil. In 1800 the Territory of Indiana was formed from the Northwest Territory. The east line of the new Territory was the same as that of the present State of Indiana, but it was continued northward through the present State of Michigan to the Strait of Mackinaw. The present county of Hillsdale was thus left in the North- west Territory, except a strip a mile wide on the west side of the townships of Camden, Reading, Allen, and Litchfield, which was in Indiana. In 1802 the State of Ohio was formed, at which time the eastern part of the present Michi- gan was also annexed to Indiana.
In February, 1805, the Territory of Michigan was or- ganized, with Gen. William Hull as the first Governor, and thus the ancient lands of the Pottawattamies became a por- tion of a Territory destined to become one of the great and powerful States of the American Union.
In 1807 a treaty was made by Gen. Hull on the part of the United States with the Ottawas, Pottawattamies, Chip- pewas, and Wyandots, by which those tribes ceded to the government their claim to all the land east of a line drawn north from the mouth of the Auglaise River (which empties
into the Maumee at Defiance, Ohio), to a point near the present south line of Michigan. This north and south line was afterwards extended and made the principal meridian for the government surveys in Michigan, finally becoming the line between Lenawee and Hillsdale Counties.
Several other treaties were made with the Pottawattamies and other tribes between 1800 and 1810. Most of them were of little importance, though several provided for the payment of annuities and goods of the United States to the Indians. Nearly every treaty was headed by the name of Topenabee (sometimes spelled " Tuthinepee" or " Topeni- pee"), who was always recognized as the head chief of the tribe.
Two or three years later the Pottawattamies again began to grow restless and hostile towards the people of the United States. The Shawnee chief, Tecumseh, a forest hero of as great ability as Pontiac, though less ferocious in disposition, had, like him, conceived the idea of stopping the advancing war of emigration, which seemed likely ere long to over- whelm the original inhabitants of the land, or drive them into unknown deserts far beyond the Father of Waters. Like Pontiac, he too hoped for foreign assistance; but the hatred felt for the English by the great Ottawa had been changed to love and admiration in the heart of his modern imitator.
The reason is plain. In Pontiac's time the English were one nation with the Americans, and together they were the great colonizing, emigrating people of the world. Pontiac hated them, largely because they wanted land, and preferred the French, not only on account of their pleasant ways but because they were poor colonizers, and did not want much land. In Tecumseh's day the Americans were the ones who threatened to overwhelm the Indians by emigration ; while the English, confined to a narrow belt of habitable land in Canada, appeared far less dangerous. .
Tecumseh knew that there were difficulties between the United States and Great Britain which portended war ; and it is believed by many that he was directly encouraged by the British officials to engage in hostilities against the Americans. However that may be, about the year 1810 the brave and eloquent Shawnee made desperate efforts to form an alliance against the Americans of all the Indian tribes from the Gulf of Mexico to Lake Superior, and from the frontier settlements of the whites to or beyond the Mississippi. From tribe to tribe he made his rapid way, gathering the chiefs and warriors in council, kindling their passions by fierce invectives against the Americans, ex- citing their hopes by portraying the scalps and booty to be obtained from the hated pale-faces, and quelling their fears by promising them the protection of their father, the king of Great Britain, who was ready to join hands with his red children in punishing the insolence of the Yankees.
The Pottawattamies were quite ready to believe the flat- tering story, and they, like all Indians who live in the vicinity of the whites, had had more or less difficulty with them, which they were glad to avenge in the bloodiest manner.
But the Indian policy was not deep enough to keep the warriors quiet until all was ready for a deadly blow. Their restive spirits showed themselves by frequent outrages, the
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HISTORY OF HILLSDALE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
whites retaliated, and the Americans could not help seeing that they must prepare for an Indian war.
In the fall of 1811, Gen. William H. Harrison, Governor of Indiana, took the field to chastise the unruly warriors. Tecumseh had been greatly aided in his efforts to form an Indian confederacy by his brother Elkswatawa, a prominent " medicine-man," commonly known as the Prophet. At the time when Harrison's army approached the Shawnee villages on the Wabash, the chieftain himself was in the far South, endeavoring to persuade the Cherokees, Choc- laws, and other Southern Indians to take up arms, and Elkswatawa was left to exercise supreme authority. Either thinking there was no time to spare, or desiring to acquire for himself the glory of defeating Harrison, Elkswatawa prepared to make an attack on the Governor's army with all the warriors he could collect together. Messengers were sent to the nearest tribes, and several small bands came in to help the Shawnees. The dread of the Americans, caused by Wayne's victory, was, however, not yet entirely dissipated, and many hung back.
But about the first of November he was cheered by the arrival of band after band of the fierce Pottawattamies, some from the head of Lake Michigan, and some from the valley of the St. Joseph, numbering in all about three hun- dred warriors. Having this powerful accession to his force, he determined at once to attack.
Before daybreak on the morning of the 7th of November, just as Harrison had given orders for the arousing of his little army by the sound of the trumpet, a fierce outburst of yells was heard, and hundreds upon hundreds of Shawnee and Pottawattamie warriors, with some from other tribes, came rushing to the attack, lighting up the darkness with the fire of their guns, and stripping the scalps from what- ever victims they could reach with all of their old-time energy. But Harrison's men were sleeping upon their arms, and scarcely had the first demoniac shrieks sounded in their ears ere they were on their feet, ranged in order of battle, and returning with steady aim the fire of the assail- ants. For two or three hours the battle raged with great violence; both Shawnees and Pottawattamies fought with furious energy, and many of the Americans were slain or wounded. But at length the steady valor of the regulars and the Indiana militia prevailed over the fierce desperation of the Indians, and the latter gave way at all points. They speedily fled the field, and Harrison marched unopposed to the destruction of the Shawnee villages.
After the battle the Pottawattamie warriors returned to their own homes, and these were so far distant that they escaped all punishment for the part they had taken. If there had been any intention on the part of the American officials to follow them to their retreats and chastise them the next spring, the former were effectually precluded from doing so by the approach of war with Great Britain.
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