USA > Ohio > Greene County > History of Greene County : together with historic notes on the Northwest, and the state of Ohio, gleaned from early authors, old maps and manuscripts, private and official correspondence, and all other authentic sources > Part 6
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The migration of the Miamis from the west of the Mississippi, eastward through Wisconsin and northern Illinois, around the south- ern end of Lake Michigan to Detroit, and thence up the Maumee and down the Wabash, and eastward through Indiana into Ohio as far as the Great Miami, can be followed through the mass of records handed down to us from the missionaries, travelers and officers connected with the French. Speaking of the mixed village of Maskoutens, situated on Fox River, Wisconsin, at the time of his visit there in 1670, Father Claude Dablon says the village of the Fire-nation "is joined in the circle of the same barriers to another people, named Oumiami, which is one of the Illinois nations, which is, as it were, dismembered from the others, in order to dwell in these quarters. It is beyond this great river that are placed the Illinois of whom we speak, and from whom are detached those who dwell here with the Fire-nation to form here a transplanted colony."
From the quotations made there remains little doubt that the Mi- amis were originally a branch of the great Illinois nation. This theory is confirmed by writers of our own time, among whom we may men- tion General William H. Harrison, whose long acquaintance and official connection with the several bands of the Miamis and Illinois gave him the opportunities, of which he availed himself, to acquire an intimate knowledge concerning them. "Although the language, manners and customs of the Kaskaskias make it sufficiently certain that they
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HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.
derived their origin from the same source with the Miamis, the con- nection had been dissolved before the French had penetrated from Canada to the Mississippi." The assertion of General Harrison that the tribal relation between the Illinois and Miamis had been broken at the time of the discovery of the Upper Mississippi valley by the French is sustained with great unanimity by all other authorities. In the long and disastrous wars waged upon the Illinois by the Iroquois, Sacs and Foxes, Kickapoos and other enemies, we have no instance given where the Miamis ever offered assistance to their ancient kins- men. After the separation, on the contrary, they often lifted the bloody hatchet against them.
Father Dablon, in the narrative from which we have quoted, gives a detailed account of the civility of the Miamis at Mascouten, and the formality and court routine with which their great chief was sur- rounded. "The chief of the Miamis, whose name was Tetinchoua, was surrounded by the most notable people of the village, who, assum- ing the role of courtiers, with civil posture full of deference, and keeping always a respectful silence, magnified the greatness of their king. The chief and his routine gave Father Dablon every mark of their most distinguished esteem. The physiognomy of the chief was as mild and as attractive as any one could wish to see; and while his reputation as a warrior was great, his features bore a softness which charmed all those who beheld him."
Nicholas Perrot, with Sieur de St. Lussin, dispatched by Talon, the intendant, to visit the westward nations, with whom the French had intercourse, and invite them to a council to be held the following spring at the Sault Ste. Marie, was at this Miami village shortly after the visit of Dablon. Perrot was treated with great consideration by the Miamis. Tetinchoua " sent out a detachment to meet the French agent and receive him in military style. The detachment advanced in battle array, all the braves adorned with feathers, armed at all points, were uttering war cries from time to time. The Pottawatomies who escorted Perrot, seeing them come in this guise, perpared to receive them in the same manner, and Perrot put himself at their head. When the two troops were in face of each other, they stopped as if to take breath, then all at once Perrot took the right, the' Miamis the left, all running in Indian file, as though they wished to gain an ad- vantage to charge.
" But the Miamis wheeling in the form of an arc, the Pottawat- omies were invested on all sides. Then both uttered loud yells, which were the signals for a kind of combat. The Miamis fired a volley
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SUBDIVISIONS OF THE MIAMIS.
from their guns, which were only loaded with powder, and the Potta- watomies returned it in the same way ; after this they closed, toma- hawk in hand, all the blows being received on the tomahawks. Peace was then made ; the Miamis presented the calumet to Perrot, and led him with all his chief escort into the town, where the great chief as- signed him a guard of fifty men, regaled him magnificently after the custom of the country, and gave him the diversion of a game of ball. The Miami chief never spoke to his subjects, but imparted his orders through some of his officers. On account of his advanced age he was dissuaded from attending the council to be held at Ste. Marie, between the French and the Indians ; however, he deputized the Pottawatomies to act in his name.
This confederacy called themselves "Miamis ," and by this name were known to the surrounding tribes. The name was not bestowed upon them by the French, as some have assumed from its resemblance to Mon-ami, because they were the friends of the latter. When Hennepin was captured on the Mississippi by a war party of the Sioux, these savages with their painted faces rendered more hideous by the devilish contortions of their features, cried out in angry voices, "'Mia-hama ! Mia-hama !' and we made signs with our oars upon the sand, that the Miamis, their enemies, of whom they were in search, had passed the river upon their flight to join the Illinois."
" The confederacy which obtained the general appellation of Miamis, from the superior numbers of the individual tribe to whom that name more properly belonged," were subdivided into three principal tribes or bands, namely, the Miamis proper, Weas and Piankeshaws. French writers have given names to two or three other subdivisions or families of the three principal bands, whose identity has never been clearly traced, and who figure so little in the accounts which we have of the Miamis, that it is not necessary here to specify their obslete names. The different ways of writing Miamis are : Oumiamwek, Oumamis, Maumees, Au-Miami (contracted to Au-Mi and Omee) and Mine-ami.
The French called the Weas Ouiatenons, Syatanons, Ouyatanons and Ouias ; the English and Colonial traders spelled the word, Quic- atanon, Way-ough-ta-nies, Wawiachtens, and Wehahs.
For the Piankeshaws, or Pou-an-ke-ki-as, as they were called in the earliest accounts, we have Peanguichias, Pian-gui-shaws, Pyan-ke-shas and Pianquishas.
The Miami tribes were known to the Iroquois, or Five Nations of New York, as the Twight-wees, a name generally adopted by the
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HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.
British, as well as by the American colonists. Of this name there , are various corruptions in pronounciation and spelling, examples of which we have in "Twich-twichs," "Twick-twicks," "Twis-twicks," " Twigh-twees," and "Twick-tovies." The insertion of these many names, applied to one people, would seem a tedious superfluity, were it otherwise possible to retain the identity of the tribes to which these different appellations have been given by the French, British and American officers, traders and writers. It will save the reader much perplexity in perusing a history of the Miamis if it is borne in mind that all these several names refer to the Miami nation or to one or the other of its respective bands.
Besides the colony mentioned by Dablon and Charlevoix, on the Fox River of Wisconsin, Hennepin informs us of a village of Miamis south and west of Peoria Lake at the time he was at the latter place in 1679, and it was probably this village whose inhabitants the Sioux were seeking. St. Cosme, in 1699, mentions the "village of the ' Peanzichias-Miamis, who formerly dwelt on the - of the Missis- sippi, and who had come some years previous and settled' on the Illinois River, a few miles below the confluence of the Des Plaines."
The Miamis were within the territory of La Salle's colony, of which Starved Rock was the center, and counted thirteen hundred warriors. The Weas and Piankeshaws were also there, the former having five hundred warriors and the Piankeshaw band one hundred and fifty. This was prior to 1687. At a later day the Weas " were at Chicago, but being afraid of the canoe people, left it." Sieur de Courtmanche, sent westward in 1701 to negotiate with the tribes in that part of New France, was at "Chicago, where he found some Weas (Ouiatanons), a Miami tribe, who had sung the war-song against the Sioux and the Iroquois. He obliged them to lay down their arms and extorted from them a promise to send deputies to Montreal."
In a letter dated in 1721, published in his "Narrative Journal," Father Charlevoix, speaking of the Miamis about the head of Lake Michigan, says: "Fifty years ago the Miamis were settled on the southern extremity of Lake Michigan, in a place called Chicagou, from the name of a small river which runs into the lake, the source of which is not far distant from that of the river of the Illinois ; they are at present divided into three villages, one of which stands on the river St. Joseph, the second on another river which bears their name and runs into Lake Erie, and the third upon the river
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A WAR WITH THE SIOUX.
Ouabache, which empties its waters into the Mississippi. These last are better known by the appellation of Ouyatanons."
In 1694, Count Frontenac, in a conference with the Western Indians, requested the Miamis of the Pepikokia band who resided on the Maramek, to remove and join the tribe which was located on the Saint Joseph, of Lake Michigan. The reason for this request, as stated by Frontenac himself, was, that he wished the different bands of the Miami confederacy to unite, " so as to be able to execute with greater facility the commands which he inight issue." At that time the Iroquois were at war with Canada, and the French were endeavoring to persuade the western tribes to take up the toma- hawk in their behalf. The Miamis promised to observe the Gor- ernor's wishes and began to make preparations for the removal.
"Late in August, 1696, they started to join their brethren settled on the St. Joseph. On their way they were attacked by the Sioux, who killed several. The Miamis of the St. Joseph, learning this hostility, resolved to avenge their slaughter. They pursued the Sioux to their own country, and found them entrenched in their fort with some Frenchmen of the class known as coureurs des bois (bushlopers). They nevertheless attacked them repeatedly with great resolution, but were repulsed, and at last compelled to retire, after losing several of their braves. On their way home, meeting other Frenchmen carrying arms and ammunition to the Sioux, they seized all they had, but did them no harm."
The Miamis were very much enraged at the French for supplying their enemies, the Sioux, with guns and ammunition. It took all the address of Count Frontenac to prevent them from joining the Iroquois; indeed, they seized upon the French agent and trader, Nicholas Perrot, who had been commissioned to lead the Maramek band to the St. Josephs, and would have burnt him alive had it not been for the Foxes, who interposed in his behalf. This was the commencement of the bitter feeling of hostility with which, from that time, a part of the Miamis always regarded the French. From this period the movements of the tribe were observed by the French with jealous suspicion.
We have already shown that in 1699 the Miamis were at Fort Wayne, engaged in transferring across their portage emigrants from Canada to Louisiana, and that, within a few years after, the Weas are described as having their fort and several miles of cultivated fields on the Wea plains below La Fayette. From the extent and character of these improvements, it may be safely assumed that the
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HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.
Weas had been established here some years prior to 1718, the date of the Memoir.
When the French first discovered the Wabash, the Piankeshaws were found in possession of the land on either side of that stream, from its mouth to the Vermilion River, and no claim had ever been made to it by any other tribe until 1804, the period of a ces- sion of a part of it to the United States by the Delawares, who had obtained their title from the Piankeshaws themselves.
We have already seen that at the time of the first account we have relating to the Maumee and the Wabash, the Miamis had vil- lages and extensive improvements near Fort Wayne, on the Wea prairie below La Fayette, on the Vermilion of the Wabash, and at Vincennes. At a later day they established villages at other places, viz., near the forks of the Wabash at Huntington, on the Mississin- ewa, on Eel River near Logansport, while near the source of this river, and westward of Fort Wayne, was the village of the "Little Turtle." Near the mouth of the Tippecanoe was a sixth village. Passing below the Vermilion, the Miamis had other villages, one on Sugar Creek and another near Terre Haute.
The country of the Miamis extended west to the watershed between the Illinois and Wabash rivers, which separated their possessions from those of their brethren, the Illinois. On the north were the Potta- watomies, who were slowly but steadily pushing their lines southward into the territory of the Miamis. The superior numbers of the Miamis and their great valor enabled them to extend the limit of their hunting grounds eastward into Ohio, and far within the territory claimed by the Iroquois. "They were the undoubted proprietors of all that beautiful country watered by the Wabash and its tributaries, and there remains as little doubt that their claim extended as far east as the Scioto."
Unlike the Illinois, the Miamis held their own until they were placed upon an equal footing with the tribes eastward by obtaining possession of fire-arms. With these implements of civilized warfare they were able to maintain their tribal integrity and the independence they cherished. They were not to be controlled by the French, nor did they suffer enemies from any quarter to impose upon them without prompt retaliation. They traded and fought with the French, English and Americans as their interests or passions inclined. They made peace or declared war against other nations of their own race as policy or caprice dictated. More than once they compelled even the arro- gant Iroquois to beg from the governors of the American colonies
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A WARLIKE PEOPLE.
that protection which they themselves had failed to secure by their own prowess. Bold, independent and flushed with success, the Mi- amis afforded a poor field for missionary work, and the Jesuit relations and pastoral letters of the French priesthood have less to say of the Miamis confederacy than any of the other western tribes, the Kicka- poos alone excepted.
The country of the Miamis was accessible, by way of the lakes, to the fur trader of Canada, and from the eastward, to the adven- turers engaged in the Indian trade from Pennsylvania, New York and Virginia, either by way of the Ohio River or a commerce car- ried on overland by means of pack-horses. The English and the French alike coveted their peltries and sought their powerful alli- ance; therefore the Miamis were harrassed with the jealousies and diplomacy of both, and if they or a part of their several tribes be- came inveigled into an alliance with the one, it involved the hostility of the other. The French government sought to use them to check the westward advance of the British colonial influence, while the latter desired their assistance to curb the French, whose ambitious schemes involved nothing less than the exclusive subjugation of the entire countries westward of the Alleghanies. In these wars between the French and the English the Miamis were constantly re- duced in numbers, and whatever might have been the result to either of the former, it only ended in disaster to themselves. Sometimes they divided, again they were entirely devoted to the interest of the English and Iroquois. Then they joined the French against the Brit- ish and Iroquois, and when the British ultimately obtained the mastery and secured the valley of the Mississippi-the long sought for prize- the Miamis entered the confederacy of Pontiac to drive them out of the country. They fought with the British-except the Piankeshaw band-against the colonies during the revolutionary war. After its close their young men were largely occupied in the predatory warfare waged by the several Maumee and Wabash tribes upon the frontier settlements of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Kentucky. They likewise entered the confederacy of Tecumseh, and, either openly or in secret sympathy, they were the allies of the British in the war of 1812. Their history occupies a conspicuous place in the military annals of the west, extending over a period of a century, during which time they maintained a manly struggle to retain possession of their homes in the valleys of the Wabash and Maumee.
The disadvantage under which the Miamis labored, in encounters with their enemies, before they obtained fire-arms, was often overcome
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HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.
by the exercise of their cunning and bravery. "In the year 1680 the Miamis and Illinois were hunting on the St. Joseph River. A party of four hundred Iroquois surprised them and killed thirty or forty of their hunters and captured three hundred of their women and children. After the victors had rested awhile they prepared to return to their homes by easy journeys, as they had reason to believe that they could reach their own villages before the defeated enemy would have time to rally and give notice of their disaster to those of their nation who were hunting in remoter places. But they were de- ceived; for the Illinois and Miamis rallied to the number of two hundred, and resolved to die fighting rather than suffer their women and children to be carried away. In the meantime, because they were not equal to their enemies in equipment of arms or numbers, they con- trived a notable stratagem.
After the Miamis had duly considered in what way they would at- tack the Iroquois, they decided to follow them, keeping a small dis- tance in the rear, until it should rain. The heavens seemed to favor their plan, for, after awhile it began to rain, and rained continually the whole day from morning until night. When the rain began to fall the Miamis quickened their marchi and passed by the Iroquois, and took a position two leagues in advance, where they lay in an am- buscade, hidden by the tall grass, in the middle of a prairie, which the Iroquois had to cross in order to reach the woods beyond, where they designed to kindle fires and encamp for the night. The Illinois and Miamis, lying at full length in the grass on either side of the trail, waited until the Iroquois were in their midst, when they shot off their arrows, and then attacked vigorously with their clubs. The Iroquois endeavored to use their fire-arms, but finding them of no service be- cause the rain had dampened and spoiled the priming, threw them upon the ground and undertook to defend themselves with their clubs. In the use of the latter weapon the Iroquois were no match for their more dexterous and nimble enemies. They were forced to yield the contest. and retreated, fighting until night came on. They lost one hundred and eighty of their warriors.
The fight lasted about an hour, and would have continued through the night, were it not that the Miamis and Illinois feared that their women and children (left in the rear and bound) would be exposed to some surprise in the dark. The victors rejoined their wonen and children, and possessed themselves of the fire-arms of their enemies. The Miamis and Illinois then returned to their own country, without taking one Iroquois for fear of weakening themselves.
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DEFEAT OF THE IROQUOIS.
Failing in their first efforts to withdraw the Miamis from the French, and secure their fur trade 'to the merchants at Albany and New York, the English sent their allies, the Iroquois, against them. A series of encounters between the two tribes was the result, in which the blood of both was profusely shed, to further the purposes of a purely commercial transaction.
In these engagements the Senecas-a tribe of the Iroquois, or Five Nations, residing to the west of the other tribes of the confederacy, and, in consequence, being nearest to the Miamis, and more directly exposed to their fury-were nearly destroyed at the outset. The Miamis followed up their success and drove the Senecas behind the palisades that inclosed their villages. For three years the war was carried on with a bitterness only known to exasperated savages.
When at last the Iroquois saw that they could no longer defend them- selves against the Miamis, they appeared in council before the Gover- nor of New York, and, pityingly, claimed protection from him, who, to say the least, had remained silent and permitted his own people to precipitate this calamity upon them.
" You say you will support us against all your kings and our enem- ies; we will then forbear keeping any more correspondence with the French of Canada if the great King of England will defend our people from the Twichtwicks and other nations over whom the French have an influence and have encouraged to destroy an abundance of our people, even since the peace between the two crowns," etc.
The governor declined sending troops to protect the Iroquois against their enemies, but informed them: "You must be sensible that the Dowaganhaes, Twichtwicks, etc., and other remote Indians, are vastly more numerous than you Five Nations, and that, by their continued warring upon you, they will, in a few years, totally destroy you. I should, therefore, think it prudence and good policy in you to try all possible means to fix a trade and correspondence with all those nations, by which means you would reconcile them to yourselves, and with my assistance, I am in hopes that, in a short time, they might be united with us in the covenant chain, and then you might at all times, without hazard, go hunting into their country, which, I understand, is much the best for beaver. I wish you would try to bring some of them to speak to me, and perhaps I might prevail upon them to come and live amongst you. I should think myself obliged to reward you for such a piece of service as I tender your good advantage, and will always use my best endeavor to preserve you from all your enemies.
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HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.
The conference continued several days, during which the Iroquois stated their grievances in numerous speeches, to which the governor graciously replied, using vague terms and making no promises, after the manner of the extract from his speech above quoted, but placed great stress on the value of the fur trade to the English, and enjoining his brothers, the Iroquois, to bring all their peltries to Albany; to maintain their old alliance with the English, offensive and defensive, and have no intercourse whatever, of a friendly nature, with the rascally French of Canada.
The Iroquois declined to follow the advice of the governor, deeming it of little credit to their courage to sue for peace. In the meantime the governor sent emissaries out among the Miamis, with an invitation to open a trade with the English. The messengers were captured by the commandant at Detroit, and sent, as prisoners, to Canada. However, the Miamis, in July, 1702, sent, through the sachems of the Five Nations, a message to the governor at Albany, advising him that many of the Miamis, with another nation, had removed to, and were then living at, Tjughsaghrondie, near by the fort which the French had built the previous summer ; that they had been informed that one of their chiefs, who had visited Albany two years before, had been kindly treated, and that they had now come forward to inquire into the trade of Albany, and see if goods could not be purchased there cheaper than elsewhere, and that they had intended to go to Canada with their beaver and peltries, but that they ventured to Albany to inquire if goods could not be secured on better terms. The governor replied that he was extremely pleased to speak with the Miamis about the establishment of a lasting friend- ship and trade, and in token of his sincere intentions presented his guests with guns, powder, hats, strouds, tobacco and pipes, and sent to their brethren at Detroit, waumpum, pipes, shells, nose and ear jewels, looking-glasses, fans, children's toys, and such other light articles as his guests could conveniently carry ; and, finally, assured them that the Miamis might come freely to Albany, where they would be treated kindly, and receive, in exchange for their peltries, everything as cheap as any other Indians in covenant of friendship with the English.
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