USA > Ohio > Auglaize County > History of western Ohio and Auglaize County, with illustrations and biographical sketches of pioneers and prominent public men > Part 26
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ARTICLE II. It is understood by the present contracting parties that any claims which Francis Duchouquet may have under former treaties to a section or any quantity of the lands herein ceded to the United States are not to be prejudiced by the present compact, but to remain as valid as before.
ARTICLE 12. In addition to the presents given in the ninth article of this convention, it is agreed that there shall also be given to the said Shawnees twenty-five rifle-guns, to be distrib- uted in the manner provided in said ninth article.
ARTICLE 13. At the request of the chiefs, there is granted to Joseph Parks, a quarter-blooded Shawnee, one section of land, to contain six hundred and forty acres, and to include his pres- ent improvements, at the old town near Wapaghkonnetta, in con- sideration of his constant friendship and many charitable and val- uable services towards the said Shawnees; and at the request of the chiefs it is also stipulated that the price of an average
18 HAC
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section of the lands herein ceded shall be reserved in the hands of the Government, to be paid to their friends, the Shawnees who now reside on the river Huron, in the Territory of Michi- gan, for the purpose of bearing their expenses should they ever · wish to follow the Shawnees of Wapaghkonnetta and Hog Creek to their new residence west of the Mississippi.
ARTICLE 14. At the request of the chiefs, it is agreed that they shall be furnished with two cross-cut saws for the use of their tribe; and also that they shall receive four grindstones annually for the use of their people, to be charged upon the sur- plus fund, and they shall further receive, as presents, ten hand- saws, ten drawing-knives, twenty files, fifty gimlets, twenty augers of different sizes, ten planes of different sizes, two braces and bits, four hewing-axes, two dozen scythes, five frows, and five grubbing-hoes.
Proclaimed April 6, 1832.
At the conclusion of the negotiations and signing of the treaty, Henry Harvey, by direction of the chiefs, requested the commissioner to furnish him a copy of the treaty. On the day following, Gardiner, while in a semi-drunken condition, prepared an extract from the treaty, purporting to be a true copy of the instrument, and which was so illegibly written that Harvey remarks, "I could make no sense out of it."
Immediately after the treaty had been signed, the traders presented their bills to the Indians, requiring them to certify that each bill was a true and just account of their indebtedness. After :all the bills had been certified in this manner, they were presented ito the commissioner, and approved by him. The aggregate of the bills approved, amounted to twenty thousand dollars. Harvey states that these transactions took place, "when nearly all the parties were in a state of intoxication, except some of those wily traders who had now got their large, and no doubt unjust demands secured, and who, lest their deeds should some day be brought to light, burnt up all their books, and fortified their claims behind the certificates of the Indians and these drunken government officers, and they got their pay, which will be seen in the sequel, and that, too, out of the Shawnees' money, and without their consent."
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"Before the departure of the commissioner for Columbus, rumors began to circulate among the Shawnees that they had been grossly deceived, and cheated in their treaty, in almost every particular, in regard to the sale of their land." From some source or other the Indians learned that, by the terms of the treaty, they would fall very far short of receiving what they had been led to expect for their land, and that they would not receive an acre more of land where they were going than was guaranteed to them by a former treaty. Great excitement over wrongs real and imaginary prevailed throughout the Shawnee nation. In their distress, they applied to the Quakers, who were holding their yearly meeting at Richmond, Ind., for assistance. A depu- tation of Friends was appointed to proceed forthwith to Wapagh- konetta, and investigate the deceptions of which the Shawnees complained so bitterly. The committee lost no time in the dis- charge of the duties imposed upon them. After a careful exami- nation, covering a period of three days, the committee reported to the Annual Meeting of Friends that the representations made by the Indians in their application for assistance were substan- tially correct. The report was referred to the Committee on Indian Affairs. After a mature deliberation, the committee rec- ommended that a petition to Congress be prepared and signed by the chiefs, setting forth their grievances and asking for an addi- tional compensation to be allowed the Shawnees for their land in Ohio. Such a petition was accordingly prepared, and a commit- tee of four chiefs appointed to present it to the proper authorities at Washington. The chiefs appointed were John Perry (head chief), Wayweleapy, Blackhoof (or Quasky), and Spybuck. Francis Duchouquet and Joseph Parks were also appointed to act as interpreters for the committee.
"A memorial was also prepared by the Society of Friends, asking relief from Congress for the Shawnees. In addition to the memorial, a committee, consisting of David Bailey and Henry Harvey was appointed to escort the Indian delegation to Wash- ington City, and to give what information they possessed touch- ing the manner in which the treaty had been conducted and to press the claim of the Shawnees on Congress and the Executive.
"The deputation left Wapaghkonnetta about the Ist of December, 1831, going by way of Columbus, Pittsburg and Cum- berland. At the latter city Francis Duchouquet became sick, and
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was unable to proceed further. He was left in the care of friends, but before the return of the deputation he died and was interred in a cemetery near the city."
On arriving at Washington City the deputation was intro- duced to Lewis Cass, Secretary of War, by General Joseph Vance, a representative in Congress from Ohio.
"After a statement of their business to the Secretary, the deputation gave him an account of the manner in which the treaty was managed, and of the fact that the Shawnees, who were a party to that transaction and deeply interested therein, as their all was at stake, had never heard the treaty read, neither had they been furnished with a copy.
"General Cass at once ordered a clerk at the Indian Bureau to furnish the deputation with a copy in full of the treaty and requested the committee to take time to fully examine it, and to compare the amount they were actually to receive by the treaty with the amount offered them by the commissioner at his first council with them, when he produced his instructions from the War Department. He also requested the committee to report to him the results of their estimates and calculations on the sub -- ject, in order that he might lay the same before the President so that another treaty might be made with the chiefs in attendance."
After a careful examination of the treaty, as requested by the Secretary, the committee reported that the amount which the commissioner offered the Shawnees for their lands at Wapagh- konnetta and Hog Creek exceeded the amount which they were to receive, as shown by the treaty, in the sum of one hundred and fifteen thousand dollars.
"The Secretary was so thoroughly convinced, after examin- ing the evidence in the case, that he applied to the President for authority to set the treaty aside and to make a new one with the chiefs then present. The President, however, declined to do so, remarking that the Shawnees should fare no better than the Cher- okees did.
"Being unsuccessful in their attempt with the Executive Department, the committee applied to Congress. The business was placed in the care of Joseph Vance, a representative from Ohio, a man of stern integrity, who was well acquainted with the Shawnees and who had great experience in and out of Congress. General Vance failed in his first and second attempts in bringing
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the subject before the House, but succeeded at length in having the subject referred to the Committee of Ways and Means. When the petition of the chiefs, and the memorial of the Society of Friends, was taken up by the committee, Henry Harvey and Joseph Parks were summoned to testify with regard to the man- ner in which the treaty had been conducted at Wapaghkonnetta. Several sittings of the committee were held, resulting in their reporting a bill in favor of the petitioners for thirty thousand dol- lars, to be paid in fifteen equal annual installments.
"The bill presented by the chiefs called for a hundred thou- sand dollars, but the committee, fearing that if they reported an allowance for that amount that it would be vetoed by the Presi- dent, it was therefore reduced to thirty thousand and became a law. A bill was afterward presented by Thomas Corwin, of Ohio, and passed in 1853, allowing the Shawnees an additional amount for their lands of sixty-six thousand dollars.
"Thus, after a delay of more than twenty years, the govern- ment complied with the demands of justice so far as to grant the amount demanded by the Shawnees and Society of Friends on their behalf, demanded for them in 1832. This satisfied the Indians, and government was none the loser, as the interest at five per cent. would overreach the debt in that time.
"A lawyer, on the arrival of the money in the Shawnees' country, arrived there, too, with a demand of fifty per cent. of the whole sum, as his fee for urging the claim at Washington before the Department and the committees of Congress, although the testimony on which the claim was based had been in the Department ever since 1832; but he received only a few thousand dollars, and that from individuals; the superintendent refusing to allow his claim to be taken from the money, on the grounds, that by Congress granting the amount, the demands of the In- dians was recognized as just, and therefore, they were not bound to pay this man his claim to this large fee.
"At the conclusion of the treaty at Wapaghkonnetta, Gard- ner informed the Shawnees that he would remove them early the next spring to their new homes, and as they had a large number of cattle and hogs, beside a great deal of other property, that they could not take with them to their new homes, that they had better sell all except what would do them through the winter, and settle up their affairs; then in the spring their money for
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their improvements, and their annuity of three thousand dollars, would be paid them as they would be about to start west.
"They took the advice of the commissioner, and sold about two hundred head of cattle, about twelve hundred hogs, and many other things, and with the proceeds, purchased clothing, some wagons, guns, provisions, and the like, and many of them settled up their debts with their white neighbors, so as to be in readiness to leave early in the spring following. But instead of receiving their money and starting on their journey early in the spring, as they expected, they did not receive any of their money until fall, and did not start on their journey until the 20th of the next November."
"The Indians, through their improvidence, began to suffer greatly for want of food before spring. Many of them were at the point of starvation before relief could be obtained from the Society of Friends, and from the government. Henry Harvey went a distance of over eighty miles over exceedingly bad roads to Waynesville on the Miami river, and begged a load of pro- visions for the children and old people. The evening before he started, two aged women from Hog Creek came to the Quaker Mission, and begged for bread for some little sick children in their neighborhood, and who would die if they did not receive assistance soon. The Friends gave them a portion of what they had, reserving barely enough for their own sustenance, until Harvey should return from Waynesville. A meal was prepared and set before the two exhausted, hungry women. They objected to eating anything, saying that 'we could not spare more than we had given them to carry to their children.' After repeated solicitation by Mrs. Harvey, they partook of the food, and stayed over night at the Mission."
Nothing further, occurred at Wapaghkonnetta, until October, when Gardner and the Indian agent, McLvaine appeared to pay the Shawnees their annuity and a small pittance of the amount that was promised them at the treaty. Judge Benjamin Linzee, then a small boy, came over from St. Marys, with his father to see the Indians, and to participate in the festivities on the occa- sion of the payment of the annuities. An incident that occurred at the time made a lasting impression on the mind of young Linzee. Along with the four hundred or more Indians there came a Miami warrior, having a string of scalps in his possession,
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that he asserted were scalps of white people. Being short of money to purchase fire-water for the festal occasion, he made numerous efforts to sell the scalps. His persistence, so enraged the Shawnees, that he was killed on the night following - his body being found the next morning, on the bank of the race, in the rear of the building known at the present time, as Taeusch's store.
The money used by the disbursing agent in the payment of the Indians was transported in ten wooden kegs, on horseback from Piqua, and paid out from Gardner's headquarters, in the Jones' woods, in the north-eastern part of Wapakoneta.
After receiving their annuity, the Indians entered upon a round of festivities and dissipation, that lasted in most instances until their money was spent. After recuperating from their dissi- pations, they began making preparations for their removal to their western home.
During the summer, they leveled the graves of their dead, over the entire reservation, and destroyed or buried the property they could not sell.
On the 20th of November, 1832, they commenced their jour- ney of eight hundred miles, and proceeded as far as Piqua the first day, where they remained two days to visit the graves of their ancestors. While they were encamped near the village, James Skinner, then a lad ten years of age, went out to visit them. During his visit he was persuaded by the Indian boys to cut buttons from his pantaloons, which . the young archers used for targets. He was so liberal with his buttons that he experi- enced some difficulty in occupying his trowsers on his way home. From him we learn that there were many old Indians among their number. He saw one squaw who was a hundred and five years old, and other members of the tribe whose ages ranged from ninety to one hundred and three years. The old Indians and children rode in wagons, and the women on horseback, while the men and larger boys traveled on foot.
On the evening of November 23, they encamped at Hamil- ton. After a sojourn of three days at this point, they departed under the leadership of David Robb and D. M. Workman, gov- ernment agents, on their western journey. They traveled until Christmas of that year, when they encamped at the junction of the Kansas and Missouri rivers. They suffered much on the
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journey, from the severity of the winter. They immediately commenced the construction of cabins, and by the latter part of February, they were so far completed as to protect them from the cold western winds. The Shawnees and Senecas who made the winter journey numbered about eleven hundred. They were joined the next spring by the Hog Creek tribe under the direc- tion of Joseph Parks, and fared much better than those who pre- ceded them, as they had the advantage of season, and a leader who gave them the proper care. The next year, (1833) Henry Harvey and other Quakers visited them, and obtained permission to establish schools and continue the work of the mission. The schools and mission were continued until 1842, when Mr. Harvey and his family returned to Ohio.
The system of schools and missions inaugurated by the Society of Friends at Wapakoneta, is still in operation in the Shawnee and Cherokee nations of Indian Territory.
Harvey states that when it became known among the In- dians that he and his family were about to leave them, "we were visited almost daily by some of them. One of the chiefs visited us, and brought an interpreter with him. He told us that they had held a large council on the subject, at which many of the women were present, and that they had sent him to us with their last farewell. He had my family all collected in the house to themselves. After having been seated in silence for some time, he shook hands with us all, and then said: 'My brother and my sisters, I am now about to speak for all our young men, and for all of our women and children, and in their name to bid you farewell. They could not all come - it would be too much trouble to you to have them all here at one time - so I have been sent with their message. I was directed to tell you that all their hearts are full of sorrow, because you are going to leave them and return to your home again. Ever since you have been living with us, we can all see how the Quakers and our fathers used to live together in peace. You have used our children well, and have been kind to us all; your doors were always opened to us. We were sometimes in distress, and you helped us; many times our people were hungry, and you gave them victuals. You were always kind to us, and we loved you. Your children and our children lived together in peace at school, and learned together, and they loved one another. And now,
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my brother and sister, I bid you farewell; and Caleb and his sisters, and the little boys and their little sisters, farewell.' He then came to me, and taking me by my left arm, close to the shoulder, and holding on for some time, crying like a child, in broken English said: 'Farewell, my brother !' then bid my wife farewell, calling her his good sister, and asking that the Lord might bless her for her kindness to them. Next he bid all our children farewell, and talked to each in Shawnee, knowing they could understand him. All wept bitterly, and our least children cried aloud as he held them by the hands and gave them his parting adieu, telling them never to forget him and the little Shawnee children, with whom they had lived in peace so long. When he had gone around the family in this manner, and, after again taking each one of us by the hand, he left us with- out saying another word.
"A few days afterward, all the chiefs, except George Will- iams, came early in the morning to see me. They told us, on their arrival, that George Williams had been sent a few days before to deliver a message and bid us farewell, on behalf, and in the name of the whole nation; but now they had come on their own account, as the chiefs, to pass the day with us, and to talk over all their old matters with me, as we were going to leave them, for which they were very sorry, because we had been with them so much; but they supposed we wanted to go to our home, and our friends and they must give us up. They then proposed to me that we should go into the yard to talk, as it was a pleasant day, and they would spit so much in the house. .
"I had their horses put up and fed. There were about twenty chiefs and counselors present. We spent a happy day to- gether, and I gave them a good dinner. In the afternoon they saddled their horses, and tied them near the bars, and then re- turned to where we had been sitting. When evening drew near I observed them become very solemn and thoughtful, and con- versing among themselves, about returning home. Soon they divided something among themselves, that looked like fine seeds, which John Perry had wrapped in a cloth.
"They then loosened their hair and clothes. Henry Clay, one of the chiefs, who acted as interpreter, informed me, that they were now ready to return home. They wanted me to have everybody but my wife and children, to leave the house, and for
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us to arrange ourselves in order, according to our ages, so they could take a last look at each of us, and bid us farewell. Henry came to the door, looked in, saw us all standing in order on the floor, and then returned to the others, when they came into the house, one after another, according to their stations. John Perry came first. Each one, as he reached the door, put some- thing into his mouth, (the seed I suppose), and chewed it. John Perry first took my hand, and said, 'Farewell, my brother.' Then taking my wife by the hand, said, 'My sister, farewell.' Tears streamed down his aged cheek, as he bid our children adieu, talk- ing all the time in the Shawnee language. The others followed in the same way. Some of them were crying; and trying to talk. to our children, as they held them by the hand. The children cried the whole time, as if they were parting with one another. The ceremony lasted for some time. When they were through,. every one started directly, and mounted their horses, John Perry leading, and the others following in order, one after another, they set off for their homes across the prairie. Not one looked back, but they observed the same order as if they were return- ing from a funeral. This was a solemn time to us. Here were the celebrated Shawnee chiefs, great men among the Indians, some of them called in time past, brave warriors, now here in mourning - in tears, and all this in sincerity, and for nothing more than parting with us. They surely did love us. Whether we were deserving of their heartfelt love and confidence or not, they thought we were. They were several times brought to great · straits, and to use their own term, I helped them. Sometimes some of their pepole were hungry, and we fed them. This they knew, and did not forget. After some poor little child was nearly naked, and they saw our own children's clothes on it, they would not soon forget that. In a few days from this time, we took leave of the school children, about forty in number. These chil- dren had been given to us on our arrival among the Indians, several of them being the children of those who had attended our school in Ohio. They had lived in our family two years ; had lived very peacefully with our children, had interchanged languages with them, and had become very much attached to- one another; and the parting scene was very affecting indeed. We took leave of them in the school-house - all wept, from the- smallest to the largest. Some of the little girls followed us to
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the wagon, and begged to ride across the fields with our girls. We let several of them ride, but when we stopped for them to get out of the wagon, they refused to leave our children. We had to put them out by force. They clung fast to our little girl, and screamed as loud as they could, and so did our own poor little girl. We had to tear them apart, and put them out of the wagon, and go off and leave them in this situation, which was a very hard trial to us.
"We confess that the gratitude so abundantly manifested by these poor souls toward us, and the consciousness of having done our duty, is a great, a rich, and lasting reward, which will con- sole us now in our declining years, and, we hope, will continue to do so, till the end of our pilgrimage here."
No apology need be offered for presenting Harvey's minis- trations among the Shawnees, as narrated by himself. His unassuming manner and simple language enlist our sympathies. in his Christian work to which he devoted the best years of his life.
In the twenty-one years, dating from 1833, there was no occurrence of any kind to disturb the steady advancement of the Shawnees toward civilization. At the end of that time the work of the missions became perceptible in their manner of living and thought. The changes in their social conditions brought with them desires for a higher form of government. In 1850 they began to discuss the propriety of adopting a constitution and a code of laws for the government of themselves, and the pro- tection of their persons and property. After discussing the subject for several months, it was referred to a council, consist- ing of Joseph Parks, the head chief, and eleven other influential men of the nation.
When the council convened, Parks in his opening address remarked that he should not say much to them on the purposes for which they were called together, but would leave the mat- ter very much to them, as they knew he had urged them, for years, to make laws for their government, and in this way to alter their manner of getting along. He said he had been head chief now for several years, that strangers often visited the different missions among the Shawnees, and would ask him what kind of laws they had - the answer was, none; they would ask if they had any chiefs, and who was their head chief - the
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