"Your friend, X Mischecanocquah or LITTLE TURTLE.
"For the Miami and Eel-River tribes of Indians.
"Witness, Wm. Turner, Surgeons Mate, U. S. Army. I certify that the above is a true translation.
"W. WELLS."
But the Turtle was destined to take no part in the Conflict. He died at Fort Wayne—probably on a visit to the Commandant—July 14, 1812, of a disorder which the army surgeon announced to be the gout. He endured the pains of his disease, it is stated, with great firmness, and came to his death, on the turf of his open camp, with the characteristic composure of his race. His friend, the Commandant, buried him with the honors of war.
He was said to be sixty-five years of age, by those who had the opportunity of learning the fact from himself. That account would make him forty-five,—the same age with the Mississaga chieftain,—at the date of his great victory over St. Clair; and about thirty at the breaking out of the American Revolution, during which he no doubt laid the foundation of his fame. The Miamies are understood to have given as much trouble during that period as any other tribe on the continent ever did in as few years.
Mr. Schoolcraft, who speaks of the Turtle in very handsome terms, gives him the credit of doing at least as much as any other individual on the continent "to abolish the rites of human sacrifice." The existence, certainly the prevalence, of the custom apparently referred to here, is not, we apprehend, perfectly well authenticated; but that circumstance itself may perhaps be attributed to the successful efforts made in modern times to put an end to the practice. If the language we have quoted is intended to include generally all wanton destruction of life—such as torture of prisoners, for example—there can be little doubt of the justice of the praise, for the Turtle uniformly enjoyed the reputation of being as humane as he was brave.
Nor was this the only case in which he acted the part of a reformer, so much needed among his countrymen. He was the first man to originate an efficient system of measures for the suppression of intemperance among them. And never was a similar system so loudly called for the condition of any people. Their appetite for ardent spirits is stronger than that of the whites—owing in a great measure to their manner of living, and especially to their diet. They have also fewer and feebler inducements to counteract the propensity; and by public opinion and fashion—as expressed in common practice, and in the declarations of the leading men—they are confirmed in the evil quite as much as our citizens are restrained by similar causes. But worse than all, their ignorance, their indolence, and their poverty have made them the prey of legions of civilized scoundrels,—particularly traders in peltry,—who have supposed themselves interested in making them as sordid and stupid as possible, to induce them to hunt in the first instance, and to rob them of their furs in the second.
The Turtle was no less mortified than incensed by these abuses. He saw his countrymen destroyed and destroying each other every day in peace—and no tribe was more besotted than the Eel-River Miamies—and he saw hundreds, of them in war, at one time, surprised and massacred in their cups without resistance, on the very ground still red and wet with his victories. Possibly chagrin was as strong a motive with him as philanthropy. But however that might be, he devoted himself with his usual energy to the correction of the evil. In 1802 or 1803, he went before the legislature of Kentucky, attended by his friend and interpreter, Captain Wells, and made his appeal to them in person. A committee was raised to consider the subject, and we believe a law passed to prevent the sale of whiskey to the Indians, as he desired. He also visited the Legislature of Ohio, and made a highly animated address, but in that case obtained nothing but the honor for his pains. His description of the traders was drawn to the life. "They stripped the poor Indians," he said, "of skins, gun, blanket, every thing,—while his squaw and the children dependent on him lay starving and shivering in his wigwam." [FN]