Outpost in the Wilderness: Fort Wayne, 1706-1828

by Charles R. Poinsatte

By this time, the procedure in negotiating Indian treaties had become fairly stereotyped. The Indians were gathered together by agents who made glowing promises of good things to come. At the meeting place preparations were made for feeding great numbers of people; traders were encouraged to attend with attractive selections of goods, numerous barrels of whiskey were imported; and every precaution was taken to satisfy the appetites and desires of the Indians. At the proper time the agent in charge assembled the braves, to whom he read a stilted and pompous message from the Great White Father in which the Indians were upbraided for their depredations, drunkenness, and other misconduct, and reminded of the forbearance, generosity, and friendliness of the whites. Then the Indians were asked what lands they would surrender and if they would move farther west.

Neither the Miamis nor the Potawatomies wanted to leave their lands in 1826, but after food and whiskey had been consumed and goods given out to the value of $61,588, they showed signs of weakening. However, it was apparent that the commissioners could get nowhere unless they could secure the support of the traders. The latter desired to have their claims—sometimes two or three times the actual amount of credit they had extended to the Indians—allowed and paid for out of the annuities. They also wished to gain control of more desirable land through the treaty, thus obtaining it without the land being put up at public auction as was the legal requirement.

There had grown up in the administration of Indian affairs a way of passing Indian lands to the whites without subjecting them to the land laws of the United States. The proper legal procedure of land disposal was for the Indians to cede land to the United States, whereupon it became subject to the administration of the General Land Office. The land would then be surveyed and sold at auction to the highest bidder. The remaining land was sold for $1.25 an acre. This method was fair and democratic. The nonstatutory method of land disposal worked in this way; trader and Indian agents, who generally cooperated closely with one another, would include in the Indian treaties provisions authorizing the patenting of certain lands to the chiefs, half-breeds, or ordinary members of the tribes. In turn these individuals conveyed their rights to traders in payment of real or imaginary debts before the treaty was signed or shortly thereafter. Although presidential approval for such conveyances was necessary, in most cases the approval could be secured easily, provided the agents would report that the Indians had received a fair price for their land. As the agents were either under obligation to the traders for support in treaty negotiations or were personally interested in some of the reserves, they could usually be induced to send in a favorable report even though the Indians might have bartered their land away for some trinkets or a few drinks.

The Ewings, Hanna, Coquillard, Hamilton, Taber, Tipton, and Vermilya, all acquired interests in individual reserves to the amount of thousands of acres. All of these men were involved in the promotion of certain projects (towns, roads, canals) for which their land was valuable.

Thus we see the traders were in full force at the treaty grounds in 1826, fighting for their interests. They worked through the chiefs and headmen of the tribes to whom they gave gifts and loans. To take care of the traders claims, present and prospective, it was necessary to increase the annuities and agree to pay the Indian debts. In addition, goods to the value of $41,259 were to be distributed to the Miamis for two years following the treaty. For these stipulations the Indians surrendered 976,000 acres, the main part of which was along the Wabash and Maumee rivers. From this cession, the Miamis were permitted to retain 81,800 acres for special groups and 13,920 for individual reserves.[3]

The primary importance of this treaty, aside from the surrender of land wanted by actual settlers, is that it opened the way for the construction of the Wabash and Erie canal. The treaty of 1826 and the enlarged annuities it provided also made the ultimate removal of the Indians from this area even more difficult. The frontier community of Fort Wayne could not be disdainful of payments of specie which ran as high as $100,000 in some years. The payments of annuities, the distribution of gifts bought from traders and the assumption of Indian debts were followed by a period of prosperity for agents, traders, and land speculators.

It is no wonder that when the people of Fort Wayne learned that Tipton had applied to the government officials to move the Indian agency from Fort Wayne, many protested vigorously. For a long time, Tipton had desired to remove the agency to a more central location in the Indian country. The exploitation of the Indians at Fort Wayne was reason enough, but Tipton had to wait for a while as the opposition was too strong. The attitude of the traders at the treaty of 1826 gave Tipton plenty of excuse to push the project of removal once more. In a letter written February 7, 1827, which eventually found its way onto the Senate floor, Tipton listed seven reasons why the agency should be removed from Fort Wayne.[4] Not only was the agency too remote from the Indians, argued Tipton, but it was also too close to numerous grog shops and to the traders who sold his wards whiskey, encouraged them to run up debts which must later be deducted from annuities, and cheated them in a hundred different ways. Tipton cited one case in which a white woman at Fort Wayne had purchased a shawl from a drunk squaw for seven apples and 12½ cents. This shawl had cost the squaw $3.50.

Since the removal of the Indian agency would destroy their highly lucrative business, the traders at Fort Wayne put aside petty quarrels and joined in common defense to prevent it. John McCorkle, as a principal owner of real estate at Fort Wayne, wrote to Representative William McLean from Indiana:

This settlement has been formed in consequence of the establishment of the agency at that place. Reserves were made for the use of the agent, thereby holding out a guarantee to the purchasers of public lands and property, that this agency would be continued at that place until the Indians should be removed from that country. Among others, I became a considerable purchaser of considerable public lands, for which I paid an extravagant price. One tract, near and adjoining the reservation for the agency, I paid $26 per acre for.... If a removal should take place, the Indians, as well as the inhabitants at Wayne, who have expended their all there, will be greatly disobliged.[5]

Judging from an earlier letter of McCorkle to Tipton, the former believed that the agent had misled him at the time the Fort Wayne lands were sold by the government. McCorkle sincerely believed that the agency would remain at Fort Wayne when he purchased the original plat.[6] After the agency was removed from Fort Wayne, McCorkle and Tipton became bitter enemies.