The only means that occurs to my mind, of stopping this career of vice and immorality, is the speedy survey and sale of the lands from the mouth of the Maumee to this place; and from hence down and along the banks of the Wabash.... Thus, a cordon of hardy and respectable settlers ... would be formed along the Maumee and Wabash.... At present, there is no security to him who locates himself on the public lands, nor do I wish there should be; because every citizen ought to enjoy equal advantages. This place, if laid out as a town and sold by the government, would bring a large sum of money. The St. Mary’s has been covered with boats, every freshet, for several years past. This is a central spot, combining more natural advantages to build up and support a town of importance, as a place of deposit and trade ... than any point I have yet seen in the western country.[8]
This letter of Riley, which also contained a strong recommendation for the careful survey of a canal route connecting the Wabash and the Maumee, became a part of the official records of the surveyor-general’s office, and through this channel found its way into the congressional debates concerning the Wabash and Erie canal.
Lest James Riley’s severe arraignment of the white traders present during the time of the annuity payments appear unjust, let us compare it with the opinion of Reverend J. B. Finney, who visited the village during the same period in the previous year. He writes:
This was an awful scene for a sober man to look upon ... men and women, raving maniacs, singing, dancing, fighting, stabbing and tomahawking one another—and there were the rum-sellers watering their whiskey until it was not strong grog, and selling it for four dollars a gallon, their hired men gathering up all the skins and furs and their silver brooches ... and their guns, tomahawks and blankets, till they were literally stripped naked, and three or four were killed.... The reader may set what estimates he pleases, or call him by what name; yet, if there were ever a greater robber, or a meaner thief, or a dirtier murderer than these rum sellers, he is yet to be seen.[9]
The laws for preventing the introduction of alcoholic drinks among the Indians, though very severe, were ineffectual. A person might have remained in the woods within five or six miles of Fort Wayne for a year without being discovered by any government agent. It was the custom of the traders to bring whiskey in kegs and hide it in the woods about half a mile from the fort, a short time previous to the paying of the annuity, and when the Indians came to the fort, to give information to such of the Indians who could be confided in that there was whiskey to be had at those places. As soon as the Indians received their money they would go off to the appointed places.
Another reason that the Trade and Intercourse Act was so ineffectual at Fort Wayne was the fact that it was almost impossible to bring any offender to trial. The nearest court was at Winchester, Indiana, eighty miles away. A few of the better traders of the region formed a society to prohibit this illegal trade, but it soon dissolved when they found that their regulations could be inforced only by action of the courts. When John Hays, Indian agent at Fort Wayne reported that all the traders were guilty of selling whiskey to the Indians, and asked for special authority to deal with them as he saw fit, the government officials replied that they did not believe such authority was necessary. No action was taken.
But these conditions at Fort Wayne prevailed to a large extent only during the periods of the annuity distributions. It is of interest, then, to quote the words of a man who made a “between-times” visit to the village. We find him in the person of Major Stephen H. Long, a topographical engineer, who visited the village in 1823. Wrote Major Long:
At Fort Wayne we made a stay of three days, and to a person visiting the Indian country for the first time, this place offers many characteristic and singular features. The village is small—it has grown under the shelter of the fort.... The inhabitants are chiefly of Canadian origin, all more or less inbued with the Indian blood. The confusion of tongues, owing to the diversity of the Indian tribes which generally collect near a fort, make the traveler imagine himself in a real babel.[10]
From the fort, a cart track angled down to the river bank and boatlanding, the bustling center of the town’s traffic in furs; and three embryonic roads, boggy and stump filled, let respectively northeast to Detroit, northwest to Fort Dearborn and Lake Michigan, and southeast to Fort Recovery, Ohio. Thomas Scattergood Teas, who visited the village in 1821, wrote
The settlement at this place consisted of about thirty log cabins and two tolerably decent farm houses. The inhabitants are nearly all French-Canadians. The fort stands at the lower end of the village ... the barracks are occupied by the Indian agent, the Baptist missionary and some private families.[11]