[5]Treasurer’s Report for Allen County, 1824, Allen County Historical Society Archives.
[6]Judge Allen Zollars, “Bench and Bar of Allen County” quoted in Charles Slocum, Valley of the Upper Maumee River, II, p. 439.
[7]Tipton Papers, I, IHC, XXIV, p. 405.
Chapter VII
The Treaty of 1826 and the Removal of the Indian Agency
The year 1825 found the village of Fort Wayne had developed to a town of nearly one hundred and fifty people—that is to say of persons considered more or less permanently settled. The town was in the pathway of many who traveled by way of the rivers, passing chiefly to the southwest; so there was a closer business and social connection with the busy eastern centers than had prevailed during the earlier years.
In many respects the growth of Fort Wayne was typical of what was happening elsewhere in the West. The Indian country, opened to the whites by the treaties between 1795 and 1818, was being speedily settled. The “New Purchase” acquired from the Miami and Potawatomie in 1818 was carved into twenty-two counties and a flood of settlers rushed in to take up the choice locations. In 1829 it was estimated that a hundred thousand people were living in the New Purchase. In 1820, but four years a state, Indiana boasted a population of 147,178 people, and the next census revealed the addition of 195,853. In 1826, the northern third of Indiana was held by less than three thousand Indians while the southern two-thirds was settled by one hundred times as many whites. Within a short time pressure of the whites, who lusted for the rich land north of the Wabash-Maumee line, led to an inexorable demand for Indian removal.
Fort Wayne as a central point along this line of the Maumee and Wabash river, and at the edge of the white civilization, while touching the Indian country, held a unique and paradoxical position. The traders and land speculators at Fort Wayne—the Ewings, Hamilton, Hanna, Barnett, Hood, Comparet, Coquillard, and others—were making a handsome profit in their dealings with the Indians. As long as the Indian agency remained at Fort Wayne, and as long as the Indians remained in this area and received ever-better annuities, these men profited. Removal of the Indians, as William G. Ewing pointed out, would deprive the area of many thousands of dollars distributed annually. This money, he maintained, contributed to the upbuilding of the area.[1]
However, it must be remembered that there was a factor, especially important at Fort Wayne, which made the removal of the Indians very desirable. The craze for internal improvements had struck throughout the West in the eighteen-twenties. In Indiana the most-discussed and most-promising project was the proposed Wabash and Erie Canal, for which the portage at Fort Wayne was the focal point. Many of these traders at Fort Wayne had through their astuteness in business with the Indians acquired valuable property along the route of the proposed canal. Nevertheless, the Indians still held the territory north of the Wabash and Maumee, and their removal was necessary for the work to be able to proceed. In the final analysis, it became a question of which interest was more powerful, the Indian traders and fur companies or the larger group of land speculators, town-site promoters, merchants, and settlers of the Wabash and Maumee valleys. It was inevitable that the latter group should win out, but at Fort Wayne the struggle was a bitter one. Here we see some of the traders, such as Hanna, placed in the paradoxical position of agitating for the removal of the Indians, while at the same time eager to retain their trade. Others, in particular the Ewings, opposed their removal. Both groups had acquired valuable property along the proposed canal line, but those who sided with the Ewings had more money invested in their trading operations with the Indians and usually dealt in the fur trade also.[2]
Somewhere between both groups stood John Tipton, Indian agent. Tipton never doubted that Indiana was destined to be a white man’s country. He thoroughly agreed with the popular demand for internal improvements and for the removal of the Indians. He himself was one of the major holders of choice land, which he had acquired from the Indians and which he hoped to develop. But as Indian agent he had to account for his acts to the Washington officials as well as to opinion in Indiana. Moreover, he was not callous to the sorry plight of the once powerful Miami and Potawatomie, whose contact with the white traders had reduced them to pitiful tribes. Then, too, Tipton could not openly flaunt the powerful traders, who wanted the Indians to remain. Tipton’s position as Indian agent was recognized as one of the best political appointments in Indiana. His hold on his position depended on his ability to keep in the good graces of the Indiana delegation in Congress, and this in turn necessitated making as few enemies as possible. Moreover, Tipton realized that the traders could prevent the negotiation of any treaty and the cession of land by the Indians by reason of their powerful influence with the chiefs. Failure to secure these cessions periodically would ruin any Indian agent.
By 1826 Tipton was ready to act. He felt that the Miamis and Potawatomies were sufficiently softened by their growing dependence on government annuities and on the whiskey and other goods furnished by the traders to be amenable to proposals for another land cession. Accordingly, a commission of Tipton, Lewis Cass, and Governor James Ray of Indiana was appointed to deal with the Indians.