Outpost in the Wilderness:
Fort Wayne,
1706-1828
by
Charles Poinsatte
Allen County, Fort Wayne
Historical Society
1976
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER I [The French and British Period] Page 1 CHAPTER II [The Establishment of Fort Wayne—Government Outpost of Defense, Diplomacy, and Trade] Page 27 CHAPTER III [The Impending Conflict] Page 50 CHAPTER IV [The Siege of Fort Wayne] Page 63 CHAPTER V [Evacuation of the Fort and the Increased Indian Trade] Page 79 CHAPTER VI [Platting of Fort Wayne and the First Local Government] Page 94 CHAPTER VII [The Treaty of 1826 and the Removal of the Indian Agency] Page 99 APPENDIX [Bibliography] Page 106 [Index] Page 111
FOREWORD
There was a time when the writer of local history and the academic professional were two different people; indeed, one is almost tempted to say, they were two different species. Fortunately for both, this is no longer true. Many academic historians now recognize local units as the fundamental units of historical study, presenting hard data in manageable quantities for precise conclusions. Charles R. Poinsatte was among the first to recognize this and merge the academic and local traditions of historical writing, the one supplying rigor and judgments based on cosmopolitan learning, and the other supplying the vividness and appeal of the familiar and relevant.
On the academic side, Charles R. Poinsatte got his undergraduate and graduate education at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend. Thomas T. McAvoy schooled him to precision in judgment and exhaustiveness in research. Poinsatte also had the good fortune to study under Aaron I. Abell, a student of Arthur Schlesinger, Senior, whose 1933 book, The Rise of the City, 1878-1898, initiated a new kind of American history. Professor Abell first got Poinsatte interested in what is now called urban history. In fact, however, Poinsatte’s career embodies still another great tradition in American historiography, that of frontier history as inspired by Frederick Jackson Turner. Frontier Outpost describes the site of an urban area to be, but it is not truly urban history, as Dr. Poinsatte’s book, Fort Wayne during the Canal Era, 1828-1855 (Indiana Historical Bureau, 1969), was. Thus Dr. Poinsatte writes in this book of Fort Wayne as an aspect principally of the history of the Old Northwest.
Higher education at Notre Dame, acquaintance with a student of the elder Schlesinger, and thoughts spurred by the Turner thesis are only part of the story, of course. The area Dr. Poinsatte decided to study was Fort Wayne and not Detroit or Chicago or Cincinnati. Here what Nathaniel Hawthorne called “a sort of home-feeling with the past” worked its magic. Born in Fort Wayne in 1925, Charles Poinsatte was stirred by the names he heard as a boy, Little Turtle, Anthony Wayne, and George Rogers Clarke. Some family property was part of the old Richardville estate, and in his youth he explored an old Indian burial ground there. He has never gotten over his fascination with those men, and now he examines them with his academic tools.
Dr. Poinsatte has always been able to reconcile seemingly conflicting movements in American historical writing. Urban history and frontier history, he argues, are in many ways complementary, for frontier historians can explain to urban historians why the entities they study are located where they are and how they got their start. Likewise, local history and history as most often written by academic professionals benefit from cross-fertilization. Local history always needs to be written from a broad perspective which keeps the local historian from claiming unique status for developments which took place in many other localities at the same time. Likewise, in-depth studies of certain localities provide tests for the larger generalizations of academic historians, generalizations that are too often based on unrepresentative samplings of evidence from national elites and large cultural and political centers like New York and Washington.
Still, one suspects it is the excitement of particular locality’s history which accounts for Dr. Poinsatte’s work. It has already taken him to England and France in search of the records and documents which explain the early history of Fort Wayne. He intends to return to Europe next year to explore still another aspect of history suggested by Fort Wayne’s story, the lives of French military officers who fought in the American Revolution. After that, he might consider a history of Fort Wayne in the railroad era, from 1855 (where Dr. Poinsatte’s work on the canal era ended) to the Progressive Era. Whatever the course of Professor Poinsatte’s future studies, Fort Wayne’s citizens will look forward to reading the results. He has already enriched our understanding of ourselves beyond measure.
September 4, 1975
Fort Wayne, Indiana
Mark E. Neely, Jr.
Preface
Early Fort Wayne played an important and definite role in the history of the old Northwest. Its unique position as a portage site between the Wabash and Maumee rivers made the Wabash route one of the natural waterways from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi river and brought Indians and fur traders to this spot at an early date. It is most likely the oldest continuous site settled by white men in Indiana. During the French, British, and American occupation of the region, forts were built here as outposts of defense in the Indian country. Its strategic importance was recognized in all the plans for military campaigns in the area between the Great Lakes and the Ohio river for almost a century. Here was located at a later date an important government Indian agency, and to the town on certain days of the year flocked hundreds of Indian traders. Fort Wayne was also situated in the heart of the rich Maumee-Wabash fur producing region.
While giving a comprehensive background of the French and British occupation of the site of Fort Wayne, I have stressed its importance in the early days of American settlement. The gradual decline of the fur trade, followed by the removal of the Indian agency in 1828 and the opening of the area to white settlement by the Indian treaties of that decade, all combined to usher in a new era in the history of Fort Wayne. By the 1830’s the people of Fort Wayne were feverishly making plans for the Wabash and Erie canal. This opened a new period in Fort Wayne’s history which has been studied in my previous work.[1] Since then the development of the city has been consistent and substantial.
From the modern growing city it is a far cry back to the time of the Miami Indians and the old fort in the wilderness with its little garrison of men puzzled at times, no doubt, to understand their choice of a life of loneliness in an environment which gave little opportunity for the refinements of life. The people of today are none too thoughtful of their obligation to the pioneer soldier, trader and settler. It is my hope that in addition to contributing to the annals of the Old Northwest, this work may create a deeper appreciation of these early builders. At the same time it has been my desire to treat all these people objectively rather than in the fictitious way of the sentimentalist.
Previous histories dealing with the early history of Fort Wayne, while furnishing valuable material, have either been incomplete or inaccurate, chiefly because many primary sources were not available to the writers or were not known to exist. I have made extensive use of primary material found in the Burton Collection at Detroit, the Chicago Historical Library, and the Fort Wayne Public Library as well as in the British Museum and the Public Records Office in London and the Archives des Colonies in Paris. Part of the European research was made possible by a summer grant from St. Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Indiana.
Acknowledgments are due to many individuals who have so kindly given assistance, especially to the staffs of the various archives and libraries which I have used in Chicago, Detroit, Paris, and London. Mr. Albert Diserens, chief of the Indiana collection of the Fort Wayne Public Library, aided me in every way. A special debt is due to the officers and members of the Allen County-Fort Wayne Historical Society and in particular Mr. Fred Reynolds who assisted immeasurably in arranging for the publication of this work. To the late Reverend Thomas T. McAvoy of the University of Notre Dame I owe deep gratitude for first encouraging me to study the history of my hometown.
While almost all early American cities which originated as military outposts later changed their names—Cincinnati (Fort Washington). Chicago (Fort Dearborn)—or simply dropped “fort” from their titles—Defiance, Ohio—for some reason the citizens of Fort Wayne never followed this common practice. The old “Fort Wayne” fell into ruins, but the name survives. Undoubtedly few individuals have even wondered why, but I believe, or would like to believe, that somehow the later citizens of Fort Wayne wanted to retain an identity with the past—a past that is worth knowing and remembering. It is to these citizens—past and present and to my own family that I dedicate this book.
[1]Fort Wayne during the Canal Era.
Chapter I
The French and British Period
To know the history of any town is to know the significance of its geographical position. This is particularly true of the early history of Fort Wayne (Known to the Indians as Kiskakon or Kekionga[1] and to the French and English as Fort Miami). Therefore, it is necessary to explain the significance of the site of Fort Wayne in an era of exploration and trade when wilderness was king and waterways were the arteries of communication. The story of Fort Wayne begins as the history of the Maumee-Wabash portage. Located at the confluence of rivers, St. Joseph and St. Mary’s, which together form the Maumee or Miami of Lake Erie, Fort Wayne is situated at the northeast starting point of the seven mile portage to the Little River, (see map on [page 2]) Twenty-two miles southwest of Fort Wayne, the Little River joins the Wabash, which, in turn, empties into the Ohio and then into the Mississippi. The Maumee-Wabash portage was from the early seventeenth century until the mid-nineteenth century a vital overland link that tied together the great waterway systems of the St. Lawrence and Mississippi. In other respects the site of Fort Wayne was at the “crossroads”. From this point the traveler could journey northeast up the St. Joseph river into the present state of Michigan, or turn southeast up the St. Mary’s river into the central portion of the present state of Ohio. This, then, is the significance of the words of Little Turtle, the great Miami chief, who once called the site of Fort Wayne, “that glorious gate ... through which all the good words of our chiefs had to pass from the north to the south, and from the east to the west.”[2]
Of the five great portage routes used by the French,[3] the Maumee-Wabash was the last to be exploited, for, unlike the more northern routes, it was along the line of “most resistance”. The Iroquois warfare in this region and as far west as the Illinois country made it virtually impossible for the French to use the routes extending through southern Lake Erie. With the establishment of the French posts along the lower Mississippi, however, the Maumee-Wabash portage gained importance, as it proved to be the shortest route connecting the settlements of New France (Canada) and Louisiana. The first white man to use this portage may have been some unknown French “coureur de bois”, pursuing his lawless life of adventure and fur-trading. There is some claim that LaSalle used the Maumee-Wabash portage in his explorations of 1670 or later, but it is based, for the most part, on conjecture and is still open to various interpretations.[4] In any event, LaSalle’s description of the territory between Lake Erie and Lake Michigan indicates a familiarity with the region, and it was he who first directed the attention of the French to this portage by pointing out the way to shorten the route to the lower Ohio river.[5] Whatever LaSalle’s plans were for opening up this easy channel of communications[6] they had to be abandoned because of the failure of the French to appease the Iroquois. This powerful confederacy had all but annihilated the Erie Indians earlier in the century and were now pressing their attacks upon the western tribes south of Lake Michigan. Out of fear of the Iroquois the area of Indiana was largely abandoned by the Miamis and other related tribes. Therefore by the 1670’s, when LaSalle set out to achieve his great objective, control of the Mississippi for the French, he found it necessary “to go to the Illinois [river] through the lakes Huron and Illinois [Lake Michigan] as the other routes which I have discovered by the head of Lake Erie and by the southern shore of the same, have become too hazardous by frequent encounters with the Iroquois who are always on that shore.”[7] That this route had become “too dangerous” is indicated by the letter of Jean de Lamberville to Count de Frontenac on Sept. 20, 1682, in which he expressed his fears that “an Iroquois army, twelve hundred strong ... would completely annihilate the Miamis and their neighbors the Siskakon [Kiskakon] and Ottawa tribes on the headwaters of the Maumee.”[8]
The events which took place near the turn of the eighteenth century completely altered the situation for the French in this region. Differences between the Fox Indians, located west of Lake Michigan, and the French alienated the former entirely. The result was to compel the French to seek a more direct line of communication with the Mississippi settlements than by the Wisconsin river-Lake Michigan route, and to encourage them to promote the trade in the less remote posts. This new policy was inaugurated by Cadillac’s plan to establish a post at Detroit, which met with the Crown’s approval and was carried out in 1701. At the same time, the French were able to conclude a temporary peace with the Iroquois and to induce the pro-French tribes of Miamis to begin migrating eastward and to re-establish themselves at the headwaters of the Wabash and Maumee rivers. This migration of the Miamis was a gradual process and can be traced from northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin around the head of Lake Michigan to their old settlements on the Wabash, Maumee, and Miami rivers. The Miamis were persuaded to move for a number of reasons—the hostility of the Fox Indians, the advantages in trade and protection furnished by their proximity to Detroit, and finally the abundance of fur, especially beaver, to be found in the area south and southwest of Lake Erie. By 1712, the Miamis had taken possession of the entire Wabash valley,[9] and the country as far eastward as the Big Miami river. Their principal village, Kiskakon, was situated where the present city of Fort Wayne now stands. Of the northern tribes the Miami confederacy was second only to that of the Iroquois. Father Marquette paid them high tribute, while LaSalle described them as “the most civilized of all nations of Indians—neat of dress, splendid of bearing, haughty of manner, holding all other tribes as inferiors.”[10]
Other tribes came to the Ohio valley about the same time. The Wyandots established themselves along the southern shore of Lake Erie about 1701. The Shawnee, a southern tribe, settled principally in the lower Scioto valley around 1730, while the Delaware were to be found in the Muskingum valley by 1750. A small group of Ottawas were located on the Auglaize river, a tributary of the Maumee, about fifty miles northeast of Kiskakon. The importance of this small tribe rests in their famous chief, Pontiac, and his “conspiracy” against the English in 1763. Altogether these tribes numbered about 15,000 people. For the most part, they were friends of the French, although at times they expressed discontent.
Grasping the new importance of the Maumee-Wabash trade route after 1712, the officials of New France were quick to suggest to the crown the construction of a chain of posts from the head of the Maumee to the mouth of the Wabash in order to protect this increasingly vital line of communication between Canada and Louisiana, and, equally, important, to counteract the English ever pressing closer to the Indians in the upper Ohio valley.[11] The idea was not new, as LaSalle had suggested such a policy to the home government previously, but the time was now ripe. Economic reasons for establishing these posts were not lacking. Fear of the English meant fear of their participation in the fur trade, which was exceedingly valuable in this area. Wild life had increased abundantly during the years of Iroquois warfare when the region was practically uninhabited. A French memorialist, writing at this time, pointed out that the New York traders, through the medium of the Iroquois agents, secured between 80,000 and 100,000 beaver skins annually from the area south and southwest of Lake Erie.[12] This almost equalled the amount taken annually from the whole of the land north of the Great Lakes. Cadillac, the founder of Detroit, reported in 1707 that the Maumee valley was “the finest land under heaven—fishing and hunting are most abundant there.”[13]
The revitalized village of Kiskakon became the location of one of the earliest posts established in the French chain along the Maumee-Wabash route, and was known as Post or Fort Miami. The exact year of the founding of Port Miami by the French is uncertain. Although some writers believe the post was established as early as 1680 or 1686,[14] there is no evidence to support such suppositions. Some confusion seems to arise from a misinterpretation of those French colonial documents which refer to the Fort Miami built by LaSalle at the mouth of the St. Joseph river of Lake Michigan, and not, as these writers believed, to the Fort Miami at the headwaters of the Maumee. A careful reading of these documents is necessary in each instance to determine which Fort Miami is meant. About the same time that the eastward migration of the Miamis began 1697 Jean Baptiste Bissot, Sieur de Vincennes, was appointed attache to the Miamis.[15] At first he was obviously at the Miami fort on the southeastern shore of Lake Michigan, although, as the Miami village, Kiskakon, grew in importance, Vincennes found it increasingly necessary to visit the Miami village from 1702 to 1719. It is possible that in 1706 he built a small post primarily for trading purposes at Kiskakon.[16] By 1715 a new element, the English fur trader had entered the picture and Vincennes, as well as the French colonial government, was convinced that it was no longer feasible to encourage the Indians to migrate eastward. From Kiskakon, Vincennes reported to the royal officials that the English of Carolina were having recourse to every sort of expedient to persuade the Miamis to join them against the French.[17] The increased English efforts to gain footholds in the Wabash and Maumee valleys, determined Vincennes upon a course of action approved by the Marques de Vaudreuil, governor of Canada. Vincennes’ plan called for the removal of the Miamis at the headwaters of the Maumee to a new center on the St. Joseph river of Lake Michigan, near the present city of South Bend.[18] It is possible that the plan might have succeeded as Vincennes was “much loved” by the Miamis; however, with his death at Kiskakon in 1719, the Miamis “resolved not to move to the River St. Joseph, [but] to remain where they are”.[19] The Miamis preserved for a long time the memory of Vincennes. Thirty years after his death, Celeron de Bienville, while urging a group of Miamis to return to Kiskakon, used the name of Vincennes to work upon their minds, speaking of him as the one “whom you loved so much and who always governed you, so that your affairs were prosperous.”[20]
On hearing of the Miamis’ decision, Governor de Vaudreuil resolved, with the approval of the Council of Marine, to establish a strong post at the headwaters of the Maumee. For this purpose he sent Captain Dubuisson, the former commander at Detroit, who had already achieved success on one occasion with the Miamis, to build the fortifications.[21] Finished in May, 1722, the fort was located on the right bank of the St. Mary’s at a latitude later given by Father Joseph Pierre de Bonnecamps (professor of hydrography at the Jesuit college of Quebec who visited Fort Miami in 1749) as 41 degrees, 29 minutes. Other information Father de Bonnecamps gives indicates that the fort was about one-half mile down the river from the Maumee-Wabash portage road.[22] Writing the Council of Marine on October 24, 1722, de Vaudreuil stated:
The log fort Fort Miami which he Dubuisson had build is the finest in the upper country. It is a strong fort and safe from insult from the savages. This post which is of considerable worth ought to have a missionary. One could be sent there in 1724 if next year the council will send the four Jesuits which I ask.[23]
It is unlikely that the priest requested was ever stationed at Fort Miami, as there is no indication from the Jesuit Relations or other sources of one being here, although it is possible that some missionaries visited this spot on occasion.
Fort Miami proved of value to the French for various reasons. After its construction, it soon became a military post of consequence, with a garrison of twenty to thirty men.[24] It was the policy of the French to locate their garrisons and trading posts wherever there existed a sufficiently large village of friendly Indians or wherever the strategic importance of a place itself made it necessary to erect a fort. Fort Miami combined both of these advantages. Once the Miamis determined to remain at Kiskakon, they would benefit the French not only by their fur trade but would be a means of protection against hostile tribes and the English. The strategic position for a fort at the Maumee-Wabash portage was recognized even by the English as early as 1717.[25] Pouchet, a French historian, writing shortly after the French and Indian War was of the opinion that the French would have been wiser to have strengthened their fortifications in the Miami region than establish their line of defense in the upper Ohio.[26]
Perhaps Fort Miami’s greatest importance was as a center of French activity among the Indians. Being at the principal village of the Miami confederacy, this outpost was used as a counter-balance to the English intrigue from New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the Carolinas. It is to be noted that Dubuisson was sent to Kiskakon “to counteract the effect of all those Belts it [the Miami nation] was but too frequently receiving and which, as they caused eight or ten Miami canoes to go this year to trade at Orange, might finally induce all that nation to follow their example.”[27]
In 1734, the Sieur de Noyelles was entrusted with the task of gathering the scattered Miamis in their village, where they would be protected from English intrigue. In this affair he was seconded by the Sieur Darnaud who was in command at Fort Miami.[28] The French had good reason to fear the English trader, who had strong economic advantages. The goods furnished by the English in exchange for the furs of the Indians were produced more cheaply than the French items. Also British virtual control of the sea trade meant these goods were transported for less. Finally rum one of the principal factors in the English trade was produced in the colonies, while the French traders had to import brandy from the mother country. As early as 1716, de Vandreuil reported to the Council of Marine that the Iroquois were sending belts to the Miamis and Ouiatenons, an allied tribe on the Wabash, to induce them to seek the necessities of life at the English post on the “Oyo river”. Here the Indians were offered merchandise “a half cheaper than among the French.”[29] The following year the king replied through the Council that he was well pleased to learn that M. de Vincennes, apparently at Kiskakon, had prevented the Miamis and Ouiatenons from accepting the belts of the English. His majesty hoped that the sending of scarlet cloth would turn the savages away from the English trade.[30]
Other accounts show the wide-spread influence the French maintained from Fort Miami. There were considerable outlays for the savages in food, merchandise, and the repairing of arms. From here important chiefs were sent to conferences in Detroit and Montreal, with interpreters and guides and all expenses paid. One Miami chief, Cold Foot, was paid handsomely for his loyalty in putting an end to a hostile movement.[31] The expenses for messengers were especially numerous during the year’s 1748-1749, when English influence was particularly active. Between December 25, 1747, and July 25, 1748, 1,894 livres were spent at Fort Miami for presents for the Indians.[32] The high expenditures at Fort Miami of those years, of which we have records, gives some indication of the value the French ascribed to the post at the Maumee headwaters. Some years the annual expenses for the Indians at Fort Miami almost equalled those of Detroit.[33]
Fort Miami had its economic “raison d’etre” as the center of the thriving fur trade of the surrounding region. The furs were brought westward from the northwestern and central parts of the present state of Ohio, as well as northward from the Wabash valley, and eastward from the Illinois country. In his “Memoir of 1757”, Bougainville points out that the Miami post, like many of the French posts, was one “removed from free commerce”.[34] That is, Fort Miami was leased for a period of three years to the commandant or “farmer” who secured exclusive rights to the fur trade. The price of the lease was twelve hundred livres per year. Moreover the farmer was charged with the cost of the presents to the savages as well as the wages of the interpreters. There were extraordinary expenses, however, that the government paid. For instance, Sieur Charly, the farmer at Post Miami in 1747, collected 2,007 livres for the use of twenty-four horses by a party of Indians being led to Detroit for conferences.[34a] These expense accounts had to be approved by the governor and the “intendant”, the financial representative of the crown, who oftentimes scaled the figures down as they saw fit. An example of a most drastic reduction is found in the case of a bill of Sieur Charly for December, 1744. In this instance, Hocquart, the royal intendant moderated the bill from 1,491 livres to 100 livres.[35]
In an ordinary year there issued from Fort Miami 250 to 300 packages of furs. These furs were shipped by way of Detroit to Montreal, as Fort Miami by its geographical position belonged politically and economically within the colony of New France rather than Louisiana. Nevertheless, by its proximity to the Wabash there was frequent communication and trade with the Louisiana settlements, particularly Vincennes and those of the Illinois country. For example, in 1749, 200 livres were paid at Fort Miami to Jean Baptiste Riddey de Bosseron, “voyageur” who had just returned from the Illinois country.[36] Grain and livestock were sent to Fort Miami from the French settlements along the lower Wabash and Ohio rivers. For this reason the price of corn, flour, and beef was generally lower at Fort Miami than at Detroit and the northern posts such as Michilimackinac.[37]
The Maumee-Wabash portage became the scene of increased activity as the French and English rivalry in the upper Ohio country grew more tense during the decade preceding 1756. From the year 1719 when ten canoes of Miami Indians passed down the Maumee on their way to Albany, New York, with furs and returned with firearms, ammunition, and trinkets, the English endeavored to bring the Miamis under their influence. During the 1740’s, there was a notable expansion of English trade with the Indians of this region. Twice—in 1739 and again in 1744—the French commander of Detroit, M. de Longueuil, led strong expeditions along the Maumee-Wabash against British traders on the White river near the center of the present state of Indiana. While he succeeded in his immediate objective, this display of military power no longer held the Indians in check. In 1747, the Wyandot chief, Sanosket, also known as Nicolas, under the influence of the English led an uprising against the French. The Miamis at Kiskakon believing that Detroit had been captured, set fire to Fort Miami and captured the eight men within the stockade at the time.[38] The temporary commander, Ensign Douville, was at Detroit when the Indians committed the pillage. He had been sent to the Miamis in order to invite them to a conference at Montreal, and two of their chiefs, Cold Foot and Porc Epic had accompanied him as far as Detroit when they received the news that the post had been taken.[39] Douville journeyed on to Montreal alone, while Ensign Dubuisson hastened to Kiskakon with the two chiefs and a force of some sixty men, “with a view to deprive the enemy [the British] of the liberty of seizing a post of considerable importance.”[40] Dubuisson found the fort and buildings only partially destroyed, but he was able to do little more than hold his position, without attempting to repair the place.
In the spring of 1748, Dubuisson returned to Detroit leaving Captain Charles DeRaymond in charge of the post, which Father de Bonnecamps, arriving the next year, described as being “in a very bad condition”.[41] DeRaymond was probably the most colorful figure to command Fort Miami during the French period. He had been one of the chief proponents of the policy of destroying the English influence in the Ohio, as he saw the danger of tolerating the English traders in the Miami region. In a memoir he presented in 1745 he gives one of the best analyses of the whole Ohio question from the French point of view.[42] Writing from Fort Miami in 1747 to the crown, he pointed out that had the growth of English influence been checked immediately, the uprising under Nicolas could never have occurred.[43] Now in command of a partially ruined fort, DeRaymond had good reason to fear further trouble. Although the Miamis had given assurances of loyalty after the arrival of Dubuisson, most of them under the leadership of a Miami chief, “La Demoiselle” (so termed because of his fondness for dress and ornaments) had moved to Pickawillany, an English trading post on Loramie’s Creek at the start of the portage to the St. Mary’s river, northwest of the present town of Piqua, Ohio.
The French, determined to make a strong impression on the savages of the Ohio country, and to find out the true conditions existing there, sent the veteran officer, Pierre Joseph Celoron Celoron, Sieur de Bienville, with a force of 230 men down to the Great Miami river. Journeying up the later river to its headwaters, Celoron stopped at the village of “La Demoiselle” and urged the Miamis to return to Kiskakon. Celoron was disappointed bitterly when the wily “La Demoiselle” would merely promise to return to Kiskakon sometime in the future. Crossing the portage to the St. Mary’s, Celoron’s expedition continued up that river to Fort Miami. Here they stopped only long enough to buy provisions and canoes to continue to Detroit.[44] Celoron and Father de Bonnecamps, the chaplain and hydrographer of the expedition, found the energetic DeRaymond dissatisfied with his “decaying” fort. Moreover, he “did not approve the situation of the fort and maintained that it should be placed on the bank of the St. Joseph, a scant league from the present site.”[45] DeRaymond wished to show them the spot that he had selected for the new fort and obtain their opinion of it, but Celoron was in haste to depart. DeRaymond received some consolation from the fact that Father de Bonnecamps, an expert, could trace a plan for the proposed fort.[46]
Early in the year 1750, DeRaymond completed the new fort on the left bank of the St. Joseph. It stood on rather high ground (at the present St. Joe Boulevard and Delaware Avenue), less than a mile from the junction of the St. Joseph and St. Mary’s.[47] Chief Cold Foot, a staunch friend of the French, occupied the discarded buildings of the old fort, which became the center of an Indian settlement known as Cold Foot Village. Half a mile to the south of the new fort, where the Maumee turns in its course toward the east, lay the village of Kiskakon. Most of its inhabitants had joined the English at Pickawillany. Writing to Governor LaJonquiere in September, 1749, DeRaymond reported that the attitude of all the nations was very bad and apparently was becoming worse.[48] Again in 1751, he reported:
My people [the French traders] are leaving me for Detroit. Nobody wants to stay here and have his throat cut. All of the tribes who go to the English at Pickawillany come back loaded with gifts. I am too weak to meet the danger. Instead of twenty men, I need five hundred.... The tribes here are leaguing together to kill all the French.... This I am told by Cold Foot, a great Miami chief, whom I think an honest man.... If the English stay in this country, we are lost. We must attack and drive them out.[49]
To add to the distress of the French, a smallpox epidemic in the winter of 1751, carried away many of the inhabitants of Cold Foot’s Village, including their good friend, Cold Foot, and his son.[50]
That not all of the French traders at Fort Miami were scurrying to Detroit is evident from the fact that in the year 1750 one of the most noted traders of the area, Joseph Drouet de Richerville, came to Kiskakon.[51] Richerville was a scion of French nobility who either was seeking a life of adventure or was engaged in the fur trade for the mere sake of a livelihood, as the family wealth had dwindled. Shortly after his arrival, Richerville married Tahcumwah, the daughter of the reigning Miami chief, Aquenochqua, and sister of the future chief, Little Turtle. Tahcumwah was later known as Marie Louisa,[52] apparently the name she received in baptism. All who came in contact with her at a later date speak of her as a clever and intelligent woman, and it was largely through her efforts that her son, Jean Baptiste de Richerville, arose to such high prominence as the last civil chief of the Miamis.[53]
The arrival of Joseph Drouet de Richerville at Fort Miami was an isolated case, however, and what DeRaymond had said of the traders leaving for Detroit remained true. In all likelihood, DeRaymond, despite his zeal, was glad to be relieved in 1751 by a new commandant, Neyon De Villiers. De Villiers had hardly assumed command when an English trader, John Pathin, was captured within the fort itself. As France and England were then at peace, Governor George Clinton of New York demanded an explanation of the incident. The French governor, the Marquis de la Jonquiere, replied sharply:
The English, far from confining themselves within the limits of the King of Great Britain’s possessions, not satisfied with multiplying themselves more and more on Rock River ... have more than that proceeded within sight of Detroit, even unto the fort of the Miamis.... John Pathin, an inhabitant of Willensten, has been arrested in the French fort of the Miamis by M. de Villiers, commandant of that post ... he entered the fort of the Miamis to persuade the Indians who remained there, to unite with those who have fled to the beautiful river [the Ohio.] He has been taken in the French fort. Nothing more is necessary.[54]
A short time later, two men of de Villiers’ garrison were scalped by “La Demoiselle’s savages.” Indeed the English seem to have laid claim to the very fort itself, for on Mitchell’s “Map of North America”, drawn in 1755, Fort Miami is referred to as “the Fort usurped by the French”.[55]
In June, 1752, a French and Indian force, coming by way of the Maumee and St. Mary’s rivers, fell on Pickawillany, completely destroying the English post, so annoying to the French at Fort Miami. Four years later, during the French and Indian War, Lieutenant Bellestre, the commandant of Fort Miami, led a party of 25 French and 205 Indians from his post to the head of the James River, where they captured a blockhouse and some ten Virginia “Rangers”. After his release, one of the captives, Major Smith, proposed to lead a force of 1,000 woodsmen and a sufficient number of Indians across the Ohio and over the Shawnee trail from old Pickawillany to Fort Miami and then on to Detroit.[56] Although nothing came of Major Smith’s plans, the site of the future Fort Wayne was to figure prominently in all the military campaigns north of the Ohio river for the next half century, that is throughout the dramatic events marked by Pontiac’s conspiracy, the American Revolution, the Indian wars, and the War of 1812.
When de Vaudreuil, governor of Canada, capitulated at Montreal in 1760, he issued orders for the surrender of the posts—Michilimackinac, Detroit, Green Bay, St. Joseph, Ouiatenon, and Miami—as dependencies of Canada.[57] On November 29, 1760, Detroit was surrendered to Major Robert Rogers in command of the “Rangers”. Eight days later, Lieutenant John Butler with a detachment of twenty men set out from Detroit to receive the formal transfer of Fort Miami from the French commander, thus bringing to an end French rule at the headwaters of the Maumee.[58]
Although of strategic importance, Fort Miami never became more than a military outpost and trading center during the French period of occupation. Father de Bonnecamps wrote in 1749 of the French village in and around the fort, “The French there number twenty-two; all of them ... had the fever ... There were eight houses, or to speak more correctly, eight miserable huts which only the desire of making money render endurable.”[59] “The desire of making money” is of course a reference to the fur trade, the only occupation, outside of the military, of those French living there. The large Indian villages surrounding the fort naturally brought the trader and soldier, but, at the same time, this uncertain element of Indian friendship probably excluded any sizable French settlement. Whatever the reasons we must conclude that, unlike Vincennes, Fort Miami did not attract any type of French settler, outside of those connected with the fur trade.
Lieutenant Butler of the “Rangers” had been chosen by Col. Henry Bouquot to receive the surrender of Fort Miami since he could speak French and seemed “very intelligent”. He had orders to hold the post, as it was of great importance to Detroit and being at the “carrying place of nine miles into the waters of the Ouabache Wabash ... it would prevent a surprise in the Spring.”[60] Lieutenant Butler found the savages destitute and sent a French trader to Fort Pitt for the necessary supplies.[61] In the spring, Butler was relieved by Ensign Robert Holmes, who was destined to become one of the first victims of the Indian uprising of 1763, known as “Pontiac’s conspiracy”. Ironically, Holmes was also one of the first to learn of the impending danger and passed the information on to Major Gladwyn, the English commander at Detroit, adding, however, “this affair is very timely stopt”.[62] A month later he allowed himself to be lured from the fort by a false request on the part of his Indian mistress to aid a sick Miami woman. Holmes was instantly killed by the savages concealed nearby, and the small garrison surrendered upon the demand of Jacques Godefroy and Money Chene, two Frenchmen who were implicated with the Miamis in the scheme. Godefroy, after leading another successful attack on Ouiatenon, journeyed to Sandusky where he fell into the hands of Colonel Brandstreet who had arrived from Niagara with a large force to quell the uprising. Godefroy had been a prominent citizen of Detroit and had taken the oath of allegiance to the British crown; consequently, he expected death at the hands of the British. Instead he was given his freedom on condition that he would guide and protect an English officer, Captain Thomas Morris, who was being sent to the Illinois Indians by way of the Maumee. Captain Morris, was a man of culture and literary tendencies. Being such, he kept an excellent diary of experiences, which he was later persuaded to publish.[63]
Almost any man would have failed in an attempt to go through hundreds of miles of hostile Indian country, and Captain Morris was no exception. Having journeyed up the Maumee as far as Kiskakon, Morris met such a dangerous reception at this place that he was forced to turn back. In fact he was fortunate to escape with his life, as the Indians intended to burn him at the stake, and he was saved by the intercession of Godefroy and the young chief Pecanne. Morris was also befriended within the fort by two French traders, Capucin and L’Esperance and a Jewish trader, Levi. L’Esperance concealed the English officer within his house until it was safe for him to leave. Captain Morris, despite the ill-treatment by the Indians, clearly saw the reason for their dissatisfaction. He observed that the French policy, or custom, of intermarriage with the Indians had been more beneficial than that of English, as the Indians felt that they and the French were one people. Moreover, he noted that the French prohibited, “the sale of spiritous liquors to Indians under pain of not receiving absolution; none but a bishop [could] absolve a person guilty of it.” He went on to point out, “This prevented many mischiefs too frequent among the unfortunate tribes of savages who are fallen to our lot.”[64]
The failure of Captain Morris to get past Kiskakon, demonstrated beyond doubt that as long as the Indians at this spot were unfriendly, they could prevent any intercourse with those tribes to the south and southwest. Consequently, Colonel George Croghan, a famous English trader in the Ohio valley, was sent to the Maumee-Wabash area to pacify the tribes. Croghan was received with a display of enthusiasm by the Indians at Kiskakon, who hoisted an English flag he had given them at Fort Pitt. Croghan reported as follows:
The Twightwee village [the English called the Miamis “twightwees”] is situated on both sides of a river called St. Joseph. This river where it falls into the Miami [Maumee] river about a quarter of a mile from this place is one hundred yards wide, on the east side of which stands a stockade fort, somewhat ruinous. The Indian village consists of about forty or fifty cabins, besides nine or ten French houses, a runaway colony from Detroit during the late Indian war; they were concerned in it, and being afraid of punishment came to this post, where ever since they have spirited up the Indians against the English. All the French residing here are a lazy indolent people, fond of breeding mischief ... and should by no means be suffered to remain here.... The country is pleasant, the soil rich and well watered.[65]
Croghan’s judgment of the French at Kiskakon seems rather harsh, although his opinion of the French at Vincennes is no better. Apparently in the eyes of the austere English and colonists, the more carefree life of the French “habitants” of the western posts seemed to be an indication of indolence on the latter’s part.[66] Furthermore, it is difficult to explain why the same French people who had saved the life of Captain Morris in the previous year would now be “spiriting up” the Indians against the English, especially since Pontiac’s plans had collapsed. On the other hand, it was not to be expected that these French people would immediately cast aside all hostility toward their recent enemies. By 1765, it is likely that these French traders, weary of the warfare that had ruined their business, were ready to assume a neutral attitude, while the Indians themselves grudgingly came to terms with the English.
From the day Fort Miami fell to Pontiac’s Miami allies in 1763 until General Anthony Wayne built the American fort on the side of the modern city of Fort Wayne in 1794, there was no permanent[67] garrison stationed at the headwaters of the Maumee. Over this period of thirty-one years—during which time the American nation came into being—the region of which we speak gradually became the rendezvous of a defiant mixture of Indian warriors and lawless renegades of the frontier, such as the Girties. It was also the home of a heterogeneous population of English and French traders and their families, French “engages”, and Miami, Delaware, and Shawnee tribes. In 1790, General Harmar’s men counted seven distinct villages in the immediate area. All together, they formed a considerable settlement or settlements, known near the end of the Revolution as the Miami Towns, the Miami Villages, or simply, Miamitown. In a sense such a place was the forerunner of the lawless frontier towns of the next century.
In 1772, Sir William Johnson, in charge of Indian affairs in America, pointed out to the British government the advisability of reoccupying and strengthening the Miami post, as it was “a place of some importance”.[68] Since the Indians were pacified, the home government for the sake of economy, did not see fit to carry out his suggestion at the time. A memorandum of the same year speaks of the “fort being inhabited by Eight or Ten French families”.[69] A census, apparently taken in 1769 by the English, lists the names of nine French families living at Fort Miami.[70] These French residents were nearly all traders, though some of them had been located here for many years. By 1772, most of them were willing to accept the friendship of their former foes, the English—primarily for mercenary reasons. British policy kept the colonists from occupying the land north of the Ohio, which meant the preservation of the Indian fur trade. Moreover practically all their furs were sold through the London market. Thus, with the outbreak of the American Revolution, the French traders at Fort Miami felt they had more to lose by being friendly with the American cause than their neighbors, the French inhabitants of Vincennes and the Illinois settlements who were primarily interested in farming.[71]
With the outbreak of the Revolution, British troops could not be spared for the post at Miamitown, but it was placed under strict supervision by Lieutenant-Governor Henry Hamilton at Detroit. Hamilton appointed Jacques Lasselle, an officer in the Canadian militia, to the super-intendency of this post as an agent of Indian affairs. Lasselle arrived with his family in 1776 from Montreal.[72] His duties were to see that the Indians maintained their active friendship for the British cause and to check the passports of all persons going from Detroit to the Wabash and lower Ohio.[73] None but those holding a license issued by the British authorities were permitted to engage in trade.
The year that brought Lasselle to Miamitown gave also to the region Peter LaFontaine and Charles (John?) Beaubien from Detroit.[74] Both settled in the Spy Run area of modern Fort Wayne. In his marriage with a Miami woman and the identification of his interests with those of the Indians, LaFontaine declared his loyalty to the red men. LaFontaine’s grandson, Francis LaFontaine, was the last chief of the Miamis to hold any real authority over the tribe. To Charles Beaubien there attaches greater interest. He was very active in the English cause and was a favorite of both Hamilton and Major Arent S. DePeyster, who succeeded Hamilton as Lieutenant-Governor of Detroit. From Miamitown, Beaubien, with a young Frenchman named Lorimer and a band of some eighty Indians, made a raid into Kentucky, where they captured an American party under Daniel Boone at Blue Licks in 1778. In the same year he served as a scout for Hamilton’s army, preceding it to Vincennes. DePeyster, in 1780, proposed to recall all the traders, but Beaubien, from Miamitown. Because of his pro-British activities, Beaubien was cordially hated by the people of Vincennes, who “wish[ed] to hang” him.[75]
On September, 26, 1778, Hamilton received from Beaubien at Miamitown the first news that Colonel George Rogers Clark and his Virginians had taken Vincennes.[76] Hamilton prepared for his ill-fated expedition to Vincennes by ordering the militia to prepare the Maumee-Wabash portage route and strengthen the defenses at Miamitown. Supplies, valued at $50,000, were left there to be sent to Vincennes later. Concerning the portage, Hamilton wrote:
The waters were so uncommonly low that we should not have been able to have passed but that at the distance of four miles from the landing place the beavers had made a dam which kept up the water; these we cut through to give passage to our boats.... The beaver are never molested at that place by the traders or Aberigines, and soon repair their dam.[77]
Clark constantly thought the capture of Detroit to be his ultimate goal in the northwest campaign. The first step in his proposed expedition was to be the reduction of Miamitown; however, he was prevented from making any move toward Miamitown and Detroit, as he lacked men and supplies. While the subject was still fresh in the minds of the inhabitants along the lower Ohio, another individual made his appearance to undertake what even the daring Clark considered imprudent. This man was Augustus Mottin de LaBalme, a lieutenant-colonel in the French cavalry who had come to America to offer his services to the colonies. In July, 1777, he was commissioned inspector general of cavalry by Congress, but feeling himself slighted in not being placed in command of that division of the army, he resigned in October and engaged in private business. Late in the spring of 1780, he was sent west to arouse the French in Illinois. The antipathy of the Indians and French toward the Virginians hindered him a great deal and in order to accomplish his purpose, he abandoned the Virginians and promised the French and Indians that royal troops of France would soon be on the Mississippi.[78]
Map carried by Colonel LaBalme at the time of his death. Courtesy British Library.
At Vincennes and Kaskaskia he gathered a force to lead against Miamitown, with the ultimate objective being Detroit. Four hundred men were to have joined him at Ouiatenon, but as these reinforcements did not appear, he was obliged to strike at Miamitown on November 3, 1780, with but 103 men, before the news of the expedition reached there. The initial blow was successful as the traders and Indians were taken by surprise and barely had time to flee the village. The Lasselle family was forced to escape by way of the Maumee, and in their haste, their small daughter was drowned. LaBalme’s men fell to plundering the traders’ goods and Indian villages, then retired to Aboite creek, a few miles to the southwest. Beaubien and LaFontaine, whose goods had been destroyed, incited the Indians to attack LaBalme, as the Indians, learning the party was French, were not disposed at first to retaliate. The red men, led by their famous war chief, Little Turtle, in his first major engagement, completely defeated LaBalme’s force, all but a few being either killed or captured. LaBalme himself was killed and his personal papers, along with the news of the victory, were sent to DePeyster at Detroit. Among these papers was the intelligence LaBalme had gathered about Miamitown and its traders. The goods at Beaubiens’ store, which was “kept by Mr. LaFontaine, and old man” was valued at 50,000 livres. Another store, kept by Mr. Mouton, a partner of Beaubien, was also valued at 50,000 livres. These goods were “equally well disposed” to “Mr. Barthelemy [listed in the census of Fort Miami in 1769], Mr. Rivard, Mr. Lorrance, Mr. Gouin of Detroit, Mr. Lascelle [Lasselle?], Mr. Pottevin, Mr. Paillet, Mr. Duplessy, & others ... & an American called George, a partner of Israel [possibly the Jew, Levi, who aided Captain Morris in 1764].”[79]
DePeyster was thoroughly alarmed upon learning of LaBalme’s expedition, and he immediately dispatched the “Rangers” to Miamitown with orders to cover the cannon there, until it was possible to send them to Detroit.[80] Captain Thompson of the “Rangers” reported to DePeyster on March 14, 1781, that he was taking immediate action to alter the old fort. A false rumor that the French of Vincennes were heading for Miamitown, brought the Indians flocking to their villages. Their spirit was very high, and several times they asked Captain Thompson for assistance “to go and destroy Post St. Vincent, as it is the only place that gives them any uneasiness.”[81] Within a year, however, DePeyster reported that the Miamis and other tribes in the area were growing fearful of being too closely allied with the British.[82] It is possible that they had received some information concerning Cornwallis’ surrender at Yorktown.
The treaty of Paris in 1783, which formally brought to an end the Revolutionary War, transferred the sovereignty of the land south of the Great Lakes to the United States. Actually this transfer made little impression on conditions at Miamitown, for, in truth, the Revolution in the West closed only with the Jay and Greenville treaties. Great Britain, in violation of the treaty of Paris, continued to hold Detroit together with other posts along the southern shore of the Lakes. By this means they maintained effective control of the fur trade of the Northwest, and, thereby, to a great extent, influenced the Indians. Just how much the British officials were responsible for the Indian warfare from 1783 to 1794 is a debatable question. At times the action of the British officials seems to have been a case of the right hand not letting the left hand know what it was doing. Most present-day students of the subject are inclined to acquit the British government of any positive agency in the matter. They point out that the constant warfare injured the fur trade of the area which was in a state of decline during this period anyway.[83] Nor did the Indians need much encouragement to take the warpath, as the ever-increasing tide of immigration coming down the Ohio and across the mountains threatened to engulf them. But the American settler did not reason this way; to him the English government was responsible. Milo Quaife, historian of the Northwest, correctly observes:
The present day scholar, possessing sources of information denied to contemporaries and entire immunity from the gory scalping knife and tomahawk, may consider the subject calmly and philosophically; the American borderer’s opinions were based upon the acts of Great Britain’s agents in America and the visible facts of the situation on the frontier.[84]
A concrete example of the condition of the Indian fur trade and warfare during this period and their connection with the British trader and his government is given in the history of Miamitown between 1783 and 1794. Strong evidence indicates that despite the general decline in the fur trade, the region southwest of Detroit, and Miamitown especially, was extremely important for the British fur trade. In 1790, the British commander at Detroit, Major Smith, wrote to his superiors:
How far the loss of the Miamis Country, to the protection of His Majesty, will effect this Post and its trade, is a matter it would be presumptive in me to comment on. I think it however my duty to observe that it is a considerable mart of Indian Commerce uniting in this place.[85]
A month later Dorchester, Governor of Canada, warned the authorities in London that the loss of Miamitown to the Americans would bring grave hardships to the trade at Detroit.[86] In an earlier document he had estimated that 2000 packs of furs were taken yearly from the Miami region, bringing an income of some 24,000 pounds sterling. This far exceeded any other area south of the Great Lakes, doubling in fact the number of packs taken from the next most important area, that from Detroit north to Lake Huron.[87]
In the heart of the Indian country, Miamitown was also the principal point from which the Indian raiding parties harassed the frontier. Twenty-six war parties left Miamitown in a period of six months during 1786.[88] There is a strong tradition and some evidence to show that a secret society of Miami warriors of necessary courage and cunning met at stated intervals at Miamitown for the purpose of burning a captive and eating his flesh.[89] By its proximity to Detroit, Miamitown remained within the British orbit of trade. The merchants at Miamitown formed a loose association for their mutual benefit called the “Society of the Miamis”.[90] Business was carried on not only with Detroit and other English controlled stations, but also with Vincennes and the Illinois settlements, until Indian warfare and the animosity of the American settlers toward the traders made it virtually impossible to go to the lower Wabash.
Low market prices, bad fur seasons, and almost constant warfare by the Indians threatened to ruin the fur trade in the years immediately following the Revolution. Many of the small companies failed and the larger ones had difficulties. David Gray, a prominent trader at Miamitown, was advised not to come to Detroit, as his creditor, William Robertson, was awaiting Gray’s arrival.[91] The previous year, 1785, the same Gray had been requested to aid in collecting a long-standing debt from two of his fellow villagers, Rivard and LaBerche.[92] Larimier, another trader at Miamitown, failed because he could not meet the claims of his creditors.[93] There was constant danger that the British traders might lose all the export trade of the region to the Spanish at New Orleans. In 1787, the “Society” found it necessary to send “the Grandmaster to Vincennes to keep the trade from going to New Orleans.”[94] The Indians were also an uncertain quantity and at times were hostile even to the traders. Chapeau, a member of the “Society”, was killed by the Indians and George Ironside reluctantly told Gray at Vincennes to send the goods to New Orleans rather than risk shipping them up the Wabash.[95] Gray was repeatedly warned by Ironside to be most cautious on his return trip to Miamitown as he was in danger of losing his life. It is to the credit of the Miamitown traders that they traded only sparingly in liquor with the Indians. Their reasons were not altogether altruistic, however, as the price of liquor was exceptionally high.
The most candid description of the character of the trade at Miamitown has been left to us by Henry Hay, who wrote in his journal of 1790:
... but few skins comes in, and almost every individual (except the engages) is an Indian trader, everyone tries to get what he can either by fowle play or otherwise—that is by traducing one another’s characters and merchandise. For instance by saying such a one has no Blankets another no strowde or is damned bad or he’ll cheat you & so on—in short I cannot term it in a better manner than calling it a Rascally Scrambling Trade &c &c.[96]
Henry Hay, the writer, was an English trader and partisan who sojourned in Miamitown for a period of four months during the winter of 1789-90. His day-by-day account, obviously not intended for publication, gives us a cross section of life at Miamitown in all its aspects, both civilized and savage. Hay seems to have been in the employee of William Robertson, the Detroit merchant, although there is good reason to believe that he was also employed by Major Murray, the English commander at Detroit. Set off against the hard life of a trading post among Indian villages was the characteristic vivacity and gaiety of the French atmosphere prevalent in the town. The daily routine was by no means dull; drinking, dancing, and parties formed a constant round of entertainment in which the visitors gladly take part. Hay and John Kinzie (later the founder of Chicago) played the flute and fiddle for parties and dances, as well as for the ladies alone, and at Mass in the home of one of the oldest residents, Barthelemy. Their religion was an intricate part of the lives of the French inhabitants. During the four months Hay was at Miamitown, Mass was celebrated at Barthelemy’s house by Father Louis Payet, a missionary from Detroit. After playing at Mass on one occasion, Hay wrote, “The French settlers of this place go to prayers of a Sunday, morning and evening, ... the people are collected by the Ringing of three cow bells, which three boys runs about thro’ the village, which makes as much noise as twenty cows would.”[97]
Miamitown in 1790 had certain refinements not to be expected behind its rough exterior. Afternoon coffee and lunch was served in the home of Mrs. Adhemar on numerous occasions. Dinners were given in grand style. For the parties the men and women dressed in their finest apparel. Mr. Adhemar and Mr. DeSeleron made their appearance at a ball wearing very fine fur caps, “adorned with a quantity of Black Ostridge Feathers” and “Cockades made with white tinsell Ribbon, amasingly large.”[98] Less refining was the constant drinking. At different times, Hay and his companions became “infernally drunk”, “very drunk”, and “damned drunk”. One affair was memorable in that none of the men became drunk, “which is mostly the case in this place when they collect together”.[99] Dancing was also a favorite pastime, so much so, that after dancing three nights in succession, Hay found his feet too swollen to continue. It appeared as if dancing was never enjoyed more by anyone than by these French “habitants”. It became almost a passion; when they grew weary of the old steps, new ones were devised. The almost annual springtime flood seems to have been more severe than usual in the year 1790. But not even the flood dampened the gaiety, for before the waters had subsided, the ladies were taken for a row on the river to be serenaded by the flute and fiddle. Not all was fun and frolic, however, as business was transacted regularly by the traders.
In strange contrast to the minuet and “dance ronby” were the wild war dances of the Indians across the river in celebration of a victorious raid on the American settlements.[100] From the French village situated on the St. Joseph river where it meets the St. Mary’s, Hay could easily see these spectacles. Behind the traders’ houses, northward to Spy Run Creek, lived the band of Miamis under LeGris, one of the most prominent and intellectual chiefs of his time. Across the river, in the present Lakeside area of Fort Wayne, was the principal village of the Miamis under Pacan, who in his youth had saved Captain Morris.[101] Frequent discussions were held by the traders with Pacan, LeGris, Blue Jacket, and Little Turtle; LeGris and Little Turtle often ate and stayed at Hay’s house. The three Girty brothers, the terrors of the frontier, visited Miamitown on a number of occasions during Hay’s sojourn. James and George Girty lived only three miles from Miamitown, and came more often than their brother, Simon. It is noteworthy that Hay obligingly wrote a letter for George Girty to Alexander McKee, the British Indian agent, informing McKee that the Miamis had upbraided the Delawares by “telling them that the Ground they occupied now is not theirs and that ... the Delawares answered, they were great fools to fight for lands that was not theirs and consequently would not go to war against the Americans any more.”[102] Girty asked McKee to check the Delaware dissatisfaction.
It is clear that the inhabitants of Miamitown were, for the most part, English partisans. Hay could not venture his “carcass” among the “parcel of renegards” [sic] at Vincennes.[103] When Antoine Lasselle did venture southward and was captured by the Indians who thought him to be sympathetic with the Americans, Major Murray intervened and the people of the village certified that Lasselle was “a good loyalist” and “always for supporting his King”.[104] When Lorraine, an inhabitant of Miamitown for forty years, died and was buried, “the young Volunteers of the place gave him three Vollies ... in Honor to his services rendered to the King of Great Britain.”[105] Evidently the time Lorraine had aided Pontiac’s Indians in capturing the British post at Ouiatenon was forgotten at this late date. Not all of the traders at Miamitown were good loyalists, however. James Abbott is described as being “one of our dis-affected subjects.” He refused to obtain the necessary permit for trading and spoke to the Indians of “Major Murray & Capt. McKee in so disrespectfull a manner that they ... determined to send Strings of Wampum into Detroit immediately to informe them of it.”[106]
On the first of April, 1790, Hay departed for Detroit, “much regretted by every one in the village”.[107] Less than seven months later Miamitown lay in ashes, ravaged by an American army which left 183 of its men dead in the vicinity. There is nothing in Hay’s journal to indicate that the French, English, or Indian occupants of the villages anticipated the blow which was to be dealt them by Harmar’s army, although they were fully aware of the movements which preceded the coming of Harmar. “John Thompson [107]
This and other councils were held. St. Clair, governor of the newly created Northwest Territory, following Washington’s instructions, offered peace to the Indians. Antoine Gamelin, a merchant from Vincennes favorably known by the Indians, was sent with the Governor’s overtures to the hostile Indians. The tribes along the Wabash would give Gamelin no answer until he conferred with those at Miamitown. Here, the Indians, as well as the traders, assembled to hear Gamelin’s speech. Their reply was evasive and unsatisfactory, while their true attitude was revealed by the burning of an American prisoner only three days after Gamelin’s departure.[108]
War was now inevitable, and during the five years of bloody conflict that followed, Miamitown was the principal goal of the American forces. As early as 1784, Washington had confided in his future Secretary of War, Henry Knox, that the establishment of a strong post at Miamitown was desirable for the welfare of the new nation in the West.[109] The following year, Washington wrote to Richard Henry Lee for the benefit of the Continental Congress, advocating a strong western policy. In his letter Washington said:
Would it not be worthy of the wisdom and the attention of congress to have the western waters well explored, the navigation of them fully ascertained, and accurately laid down, ... at least as far westerly as the Miamis running into the Ohio [the Great Miami] and Lake Erie [the Maumee] ... for I cannot forbear observing that the Miami village points to an important post for the Union.[110]
St. Clair, while in Philadelphia during 1790, talked to both Secretary of War, Henry Knox and President Washington, and suggested that an American fort be established on the site of Miamitown.[111] Writing to Knox on November 26, 1790, St. Clair again urged that General Harmar in the forthcoming campaign be empowered to carry out this plan, concluding his argument by saying, “we [will] never have peace with the Western Nations until we have a garrison there.”[112] Knox, after conferring with Washington, rejected the idea. In doing so, he wrote to the disappointed St. Clair, the following explanation:
In contemplating the establishment of military posts northwest of the Ohio, to answer the purposes of awing the Indians residing on the Wabash, the west end of Lake Erie, St. Joseph’s, and the Illinois ... and, at the same time, exhibiting a respectable appearance to the British troops at Detroit and Niagara, the Miami village presents itself as superior to any other position. This opinion was given to me by the President in the year 1784, and has several times been held forth by me to Brigadier Harmar. But at the same time, it must be acknowledged that the measure would involve a much larger military establishment than perhaps the value of the object or disposition of the United States would admit, and that it would be so opposed to the inclinations of the Indians generally ... as to bring on inevitably an Indian war of some duration. In addition to which, it is supposed that the British garrison would find themselves so uneasy with such a force impending over them as not only to occasion a considerable reinforcement of their upper posts, but also fomenting ... the opposition of the Indians.[113]
It would appear that the government did not wish to offend Great Britain, a policy which was not too strong perhaps, but one that kept the young republic at peace at a crucial time in her history. The proposed attack on Miamitown had to be under the guise of punishing the Indians. To do this and retire was permissible, but the establishment of an American fort there would have been considered by the British as a dagger pointed at Detroit. Consequently, when Harmar finally moved from Fort Washington with his army of 1,600 men, he had orders to destroy Miamitown and, if possible, its Indian occupants. Harmar himself promised that, in the event of a successful campaign, he would attend to “the villanous traders”.[114] Interestingly the British officials at Detroit and Canada believed that Harmar fully intended to build a fort at Miamitown although they expressed surprise at the “imprudence” of such action. Their spies, such as the Girties and Alexander McKee, kept them well informed of the strength and movement of Harmar’s army. They even noted Harmar’s tendency to be intoxicated.[115]
Forewarned by the British agents of the impending attack, the Indians adopted a “scorched earth” policy. The traders were forced to give their stores of ammunition to the Indians and were aided in fleeing with what goods they could carry. What was not destroyed by the Indians at Miamitown was burned by the Americans (20,000 bushels of corn, among other things). In two major engagements, the first at Hellar’s Corners, eight miles north of Miamitown, and the second, a three-pronged attack within the heart of the village and on the banks of the Maumee and St. Joseph rivers, the Indian forces, under Little Turtle, were victorious.[116] Although their crops and towns were destroyed and the trade ruined, the Indians were elated over their victories, and their frontier raids continued.
Knox now felt that, despite possible British disapproval, the only means of checking the Indians was to establish the fort at Miamitown for which St. Clair had asked. To carry this out, the Secretary of War asked Congress to increase the size of the army. The force contemplated for the intended post was 1,000 to 1,200 men. St. Clair argued that a strong fort at Miamitown “would curb the Wabash Indians, as well as the Ottawas and Chippewas, and all other northern tribes”; that it would “more effectually cover the line of frontier along the Ohio, than by a post any other place whatever (excluding Detroit)”; and “would afford more fully security to the territory of the United States northwest of the Ohio.”[117] For an economy-minded Congress, he pointed out that “it would assist in the reduction of the national debt, by holding out security to people to purchase and settle the public lands.”[118]
General Knox still feared English hostility to this move, and he instructed St. Clair to “make such intimations as may remove all such disposition.” These intimations, however, were better to follow, than precede, the possession of the post, unless circumstances dictated otherwise, as it was “not the inclination of the United States to enter into a contest with Great Britain.”[119]
St. Clair never reached Miamitown. Badly trained and inexperienced, his army of 1,400 men suffered one of the most terrible defeats ever inflicted on American forces. Five hundred and thirty-two men fell before Little Turtle’s Indians on the site of Fort Recovery, Ohio. The situation was now critical. The Indians now attacked the frontier with impunity and another defeat might mean the complete alienation of the West from the new union. At this crucial point, General Anthony Wayne, hero of Stony Point in the Revolution, was appointed commander-in-chief of the American army. It is not necessary to give in detail the long months of preparation of Wayne’s “Legion” and the swift campaign which was carried out in the Maumee valley. Wayne cut the Indian forces in two by feinting toward Miamitown, then moving between it and the English Fort Miami at the mouth of the Maumee. Before the various tribes could reorganize fully, the “Legion” turned on the Indian forces to the east. At Fallen Timbers, a short distance from Toledo, on August 20, 1794, Wayne’s army met and defeated the red men. The Indian power in the Northwest was for the time being shattered and Wayne moved down the Maumee to complete his task, the construction, near the site of the old Kiskakon, of a new American stronghold in the Northwest—Fort Wayne.
[1]“Kekionga” is said to mean “blackberry bush”, this plant being considered an emblem of antiquity because it sprang up on the sites of old villages. This theory rests on the statement of Barron, an old French trader of the area. However, the word “Kekionga” is more likely a corruption of Kiskakon. The Kiskakons or “cut tails” were the principal tribe of the Ottawas who lived on the Maumee at a very early time, for which reason this river was sometimes called the “Ottawa”. Archeological American, 1,278; “Relation of Sieur de Lamothe Cadillac, 1718” Wisconsin Historical Collections, XVI, p. 353.
[2]From Little Turtle’s speech at the Treaty of Greenville, quoted in H. S. Knapp’s History of the Maumee Valley, p. 357.
[3]Justin Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, IV, 224 lists the following:
a. Green Bay, Lake Winnebago and Fox River to the Wisconsin River and to the Mississippi.b. From the upper end of Lake Michigan, the Chicago river, and a short portage to the Des Plaines, and Illinois rivers.c. The St. Joseph of Lake Michigan, a portage to the Kankakee and so to the Illinois river again.d. The St. Joseph river to the Wabash by a longer portage and then down to the Ohio and Mississippi.e. The Miami of Lake Erie, a portage to the Wabash and down as above.
[4]H. S. Knapp, History of the Maumee Valley, pp. 9-10; Justin Winsor, Cartier to Frontenac, p. 224; Elbert J. Benton, “The Wabash Trade Route in the Development of the Old Northwest” John Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, XXI, 12.
[5]Pierre Margry, Decouvertes des francais dans L’Amerique Septentrionale II, 98.
[6]Justin Winsor, Cartier to Frontenac, p. 256.
[7]Pierre Margry, op. cit., II, 296; see also, Beverley Bond, Foundations of Ohio, pp. 70-8. Bond holds that the Maumee-Wabash route was the original one intended to be used by LaSalle who then decided to establish his communication by means of the upper Ohio; due to the Iroquois, however, he fell back upon the Maumee-Wabash route as the best means of reaching the Mississippi, but was forced to abandon this also to the Iroquois. Later Cadillac was to adopt LaSalle’s Lake Erie-Maumee-Wabash route.
[8]Logan Esarey, History of Indiana, p. 12.
[9]Elbert J. Benton, op. cit., p. 17.
[10]Otho Winger, The Last of the Miamis, p. 3.
[11]Pierre Margry, op cit., V, 359-62.
[12]Beverley Bond, op. cit., p. 76.
[13]Cadillac Papers, Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collection, XXXIII, 338.
[14]Charles Slocum, History of the Maumee River Basin, I, 86; H. S. Knapp, op. cit., p. 9; “Forts Miami and Fort Industry”, Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society Publications, XII, 120.
[15]New York Colonial Documents, IX, p. 676. This French officer was the elder Vincennes, the uncle of Francois Margane, Sieur de Vincennes. The younger Vincennes was the founder of the town of Vincennes on the lower Wabash.
[16]Archives des Colonies, c 11 117, 118, (Paris) Pierre Margry, op. cit., V, 178, 218, 225-8; 239-43; 256-8, 262-7; 271-3; 278; 280-283.
[17]New York Colonial Documents, Paris Documents, IX, 891.
[18]Archives de la Province Quebec, Vaudreuil to Council of Marine, Oct. 24, 1722.
[19]New York Colonial Documents, IX, 894.
[20]“Céloron Journal” Wisconsin Historical Collections, XVIII, 51.
[21]Archives de la Province Quebec, de Vaudreuil to Council of Marine, Oct. 24, 1722.
[22]The Jesuits Relations, ed. by Reuben G. Thwaites, LXIX, p. 189.
[23]Archives de la Province Quebec, de Vaudreuil to Council of Marine, Oct. 24, 1722.
[24]Archives des Colonies, c 11 117, 118.
[25]Letters of Governor Spotswood, II, 296.
[26]Norman Cadwell, The French in the Mississippi Valley, 1740-1750, p. 95.
[27]New York Colonial Documents, Paris Documents, IX, 894.
[28]Wisconsin Historical Collections, XVII, 211. Sieur Darnaud was in all likelihood Nicolas-Marie Renoud Davenne, born 1696, died 1743.
[29]Indiana Historical Society Publications, VII, 72. This post was a new settlement of the English from Carolina apparently on the upper Ohio River.
[30]Ibid., p. 72.
[31]Archives des Colonies, C 11 117, 118.
[32]Archives de Colonies, C 11 117, 118.
[33]Ibid.
[34]Wisconsin Historical Collections, XVIII, 175.
[34a]Archives des Colonies, C 11 118.
[35]Norman Caldwell, op. cit., p. 41.
[36]Ibid., p. 31.
[37]Ibid., p. 41.
[38]New York Colonial Documents, Paris Documents, X, 140.
[39]Wisconsin Historical Collections, XVII, 486-7.
[40]New York Colonial Documents, Paris Documents, X, 150.
[41]The Jesuit Relations, ed. by Reuben G. Thwaites, LXIX, 189.
[42]Norman Caldwell, op. cit., p. 95.
[43]Ibid., p. 95.
[44]The journal kept by Celoron on this expedition may be found in Margry, op. cit., VI, 666 ff.
[45]Jesuit Relations, ed. by R. Thwaites, LXIX, 189.
[46]Ibid., p. 189.
[47]Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society Publications, XII, 120.
[48]Mississippi Valley Historical Review, IX, 315.
[49]Francis Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe, I, 87.
[50]Charles Slocum, op. cit., p. 99.
[51]Charles Lasselle, “Indian Traders of Indiana”, Indiana Magazine of History, II, Number 1, 4.
[52]A Narrative of Life on the Frontier, Henry Hay’s Journal, ed. by Milo Quaife, p. 261.
[53]See below, pp. [p 79
[54]Marquis de la Jonquiere to Governor Clinton, Aug. 10, 1751, New York Colonial Documents, VI, pp. 731-34.
[55]Mitchell’s map was the best known of contemporary maps of North America. A reproduction of this map may be found in the Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collection, XXXVI, 52-3.
[56]Beverley Bond, op. cit., pp. 153-154.
[57]For an interesting discussion of the French attempt during the peace negotiations at the end of the war to establish the Maumee and Wabash rivers as the new boundary between the two colonial empires, see Theodore Pease’s article, “Indiana in Contention between France and England” in the Indiana Historical Bulletin, XII.
[58]“Croghan’s Journal”, Early Western Travels, ed. by R. G. Thwaites, I, 122-23.
[59]Jesuit Relations, LXIX, 189.
[60]Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections, XIX, 47.
[61]Ibid., p. 47.
[62]Francis Parkman, Conspiracy of Pontiac, I, 189.
[63]The Journal of Captain Morris as quoted in his Miscellanies in Prose and Verse has been reprinted in Early Western Travels, I, 301-ff.
[64]Captain Thomas Morris, op. cit., p. 312. This prohibition of the sale of liquor to the Indiana was not always as successful as Capt. Morris thought.
[65]“Croghan’s Journal”, Western Travels, I, 149-150.
[66]For the French philosopher Volney’s description of these French Creoles See Below, [p. 34
[67]After LaBalme’s raid, a British force was stationed at Fort Miami for four months, See Below, [p. 16
[68]Illinois Historical XVI, 60.
[69]Indiana Historical Society Publications, II, 435.
[70]Ibid., p. 439-40. The following names are listed: Capuchin, Baptiste Campau, Nicholas Perct, Pierre Barthe, Bergerson, Berthelemy, Dorien, Francois Maisonville, Laurain.
[71]As it turned out the people of Vincennes suffered a great deal for their friendship with the American cause.
[72]Charles Lasselle, loc. cit., p. 4.
[73]Wallace A. Brice, History of Fort Wayne, p. 102.
[74]Charles Lasselle, loc. cit., p. 4.
[75]DePeyster to Haldimand, Nov. 16, 1780, and Haldimand to DePeyster, June 6, 1781, Haldimand Papers relating to Detroit, 1772-84, II, British Museum. After his release from captivity by the Americans, Colonel Hamilton accused Beaubien of treachery for not following Hamilton’s orders during the campaign, cf. Hamilton’s account of the ill fated expedition against Vincennes, Hamilton to Haldimand, July 6, 1781, Haldimand Papers, II, British Museum.
[76]Hamilton to Haldimand, Sept. 26, 1778. Michigan Pioneer Collections, X, 449.
[77]Hamilton to Haldimand, July 6, 1781, Haldimand Papers, II, British Museum.
[78]Michigan Pioneer Collections, XIX, 699. For LaBalme’s dramatic speeches to the French, see the Illinois Historical Collections, II, p. xci. For other information concerning LaBalme, see the Virginia State Papers, I, p. 380. The complete papers of LaBalme were forwarded to the war ministry in London and together with the map carried by LaBalme at the time of his death are available in the Haldimand Papers, II, 13, British Museum (London).
[79]“LaBalme Papers”, Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections, XIX, 578-8.
[80]“Haldimand Papers”, Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections, XIX, 582.
[81]Capt. A. Thompson to DePeyster, Mar. 14, 1781, Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections, XIX, 589-600.
[82]DePeyster to Haldimand, Apr. 22, 1782, Haldimand Papers, II, British Museum.
[83]Wayne Steven, “The Northwest Fur Trade” University of Illinois Studies in Social Sciences, XIV, p. 513.
[84]Milo Quaife, op. cit., p. 209.
[85]Major Smith to Dorchester, Oct. 16, 1790, Public Records Office, (Colonial Series) CO-42 73, London.
[86]Dorchester to Grenville, October 17, 1790, Public Records Office, (Colonial Series) CO-42 73.
[87]Dorchester to Grenville, May 31, 1790, Public Records Office, (Colonial Series) CO-42 73.
[88]Leonard Helderman, “Danger on the Wabash, Vincennes letters of 1786-87” Indiana Magazine of History, XXXIV, 459.
[89]Logan Esarey, op. cit., I, 102.
[90]George Sharp to Paul Camelin, June 23, 1786, “Letters from Eighteenth Century Indiana Merchants” (the Lasselle Papers) ed. C.B. Coleman and published in the Indiana Magazine of History, V, 145-146.
[91]George Leith to Gray, Apr. 3, 1786, loc. cit., V, 144-145.
[92]John MacPherson to Gray, March, 1785, loc. cit., V, 142-143.
[93]Ironside to Gray, Apr. 15, 1787, loc. cit., V, 151-152.
[94]Ironside to Gray, Mar. 15, 1787, loc. cit., V, 150.
[95]Ironside to Gray, Feb. 16, 1787, loc. cit., V, 149. George Ironside was a leading trader in the Maumee valley. He was born in 1760 and died in 1830, at Amherstburg. For many years he was in the British Indian service. He was an M. A. of King’s College, Aberdeen and was known, even to the Americans, for his humanity and hospitality.
[96]A Narrative of Life on the Old Frontier, Henry Hay’s Journal from Detroit to the Mississippi River, edited by M. M. Quaife, p. 224.
[97]Ibid., p. 221.
[98]Ibid., p. 241.
[99]Ibid., p. 240.
[100]Ibid., p. 260. Hay gives an interesting description of the “Natt”, the Indian symbol of war, carried about much like the Ancient Roman standards.
[101]above, [p. 23
[102]Quaife, op. cit., p. 226.
[103]Ibid., p. 245.
[104]Ibid., p. 237.
[105]Ibid., p. 258.
[106]Ibid., p. 245.
[107]Ibid., p. 261.
[108]Indiana Historical Society Publications, VII, 360.
[109]“Gamelin’s Journal”, St. Clair Papers, II, pp. 155-160; American State Papers, Indian Affairs, I, P. 37.
[109]St. Clair Papers, ed. Wm. Smith, II, 181.
[110]The Writings of George Washington, ed. Jared Sparks, IX, 80-81.
[111]St. Clair Papers, II, 181.
[112]Ibid., 193.
[113]Knox to St. Clair, Sept. 14, 1790, St. Clair Papers, II, p. 181.
[114]American State Papers, Indian Affairs, I, p. 104-5.
[115]Dorchester to Grenville, Nov. 10, 1790, including dispatches from A. McKee and others, Public Record Office (Colonial Series) CO-42; 73, London.
[116]For the accounts of the battles see Harmar’s report in ASP, Indian Affairs, I, pp. 104; also the “Military Journal of Major Ebenezer Denny” in Memoirs of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, VII, 343-353. The heaviest action took place at Harmar’s ford at the end of Harmar Street. Here the regulars suffered severely while attempting to cross the Maumee in the face of the Indians’ fire.
[117]ASP, Indian Affairs, I, 112.
[118]Ibid., p. 112.
[119]“Knox’s Instructions to St. Clair”, Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections, XXIV, 197-8.
Chapter II
The Establishment of Fort Wayne—Government Outpost of Defense, Diplomacy and Trade
Wayne’s victorious “Legion” arrived at Miamitown on the evening of September 17, 1794. Lieutenant John Boyer, to whose journal we are indebted for the best account of the conditions relating to the construction of Fort Wayne, wrote on the day of the arrival:
... there are nearly five hundred acres of cleared land lying in one body on the rivers St. Joseph, St. Mary’s and Miami; there are fine points of land contiguous to those rivers adjoining the cleared land ... the land adjacent [is] fertile and well timbered, and from every appearance it has been one of the largest settlements made by the Indians in this country.[1]
On the following day, Wayne reconnoitered the ground and selected the site for the new fort, an elevated position on the right bank of the Maumee just below the confluence of the St. Mary’s and St. Joseph rivers. The ground chosen approximates lots 11, 12, and 13 of the present Taber addition on the northeast corner of East Berry and Clay street.[2]
Wayne determined to build a strong fortification, much to the disapproval of Lieutenant William Clark, who felt that a common picketed one would be equally as difficult for the savages.[3] It is conceivable that Wayne in building a strong fortification feared a future British attack equally as much as he feared the Indians. Actual construction began on September 24. The difficulties were many. The season was late, and the fort had to be completed before winter came. The regulars had been good fighters, but proved to be poor workers. All the severity of the army code was required to keep them in line, one hundred lashes on their bare backs being the usual punishment. The volunteers were rebellious; for a while they were employed convoying the supplies from Fort Defiance to Fort Wayne over the improved road Wayne had constructed, but finally, when Wayne could no longer cope with the Kentucky militiamen, they were sent home. Provisions were also scarce and prices were high. Not infrequently the men were on half-rations, while the horses died at the rate of five a day for lack of feed. A ten gallon keg of whiskey cost eight dollars; a pint of salt, when it could be obtained, brought six dollars.[4]
Despite these difficulties, Wayne seemed well-satisfied with the construction of his new fort, which was capable of resisting 24 pound guns. By October 17, he felt “free to pronounce them [Fort Wayne and Fort Defiance] the most respectable now in the occupancy of the United States, even in their present situation which is not quite perfect as yet.”[5] Construction was pushed with all possible speed, and although the fort was not quite completed, the day of dedication was set for October 22, 1794, the fourth anniversary of Harmar’s defeat. Early that morning, after firing fifteen rounds of cannon in honor of the fifteen states in the Union, the flag was raised. Colonel Hamtramck then named the new fortification, “Fort Wayne.”[6]
The “Legion” departed for Greenville on October 28, leaving Lieutenant-Colonel John Francis Hamtramck in command of four infantry companies and one artillery battery at Fort Wayne. Colonel Hamtramck is described as being “a small Canadian Frenchman, an intelligent, capable, and meritorious officer.”[7] After serving in the Revolution, Hamtramck came to the West with Harmar, being in command at Vincennes when he joined Wayne’s army. Although somewhat of a martinet, Hamtramck was popular with his men and, from all accounts, one of the most efficient officers in the army at that time.
It was fortunate that Wayne left a capable man in charge of Fort Wayne, as Hamtramck’s difficulties proved to be many. There still remained a great deal of work to be done in strengthening the fort, which was not completed until the following spring. The garrison was plagued by an epidemic of malaria fever during the first summer. This condition was made worse by the lack of quinine or any medical supplies.[8] During the winter, the men often went about in rags and tatters. Hamtramck was forced to permit them to cut up their blankets and turn them into over-coats.
Facing such difficulties, it is little wonder that Hamtramck complained frequently to Generals Wayne and Wilkinson about the problems of disciplining his rebellious men and caring for the destitute Indians who were returning to their ruined villages. Concerning the soldiers Hamtramck wrote, “I have flogged them until I am tired. The economic allowance of one hundred lashes, allowed by the government, does not appear a sufficient inducement for a rascal to act the part of an honest man.”[9]
Hamtramck was actively engaged at this time in discussions with the chiefs, particularly Little Turtle, LeGris, and Richardville, concerning the proposed peace negotiations to be held at Greenville the following summer. In these matters, Hamtramck was aided immensely by the Lasselle brothers, Antoine and Jacques.[10] Antoine had resided at Miamitown from 1771 until Harmer’s destruction of the village in 1790. He had fought on the side of the Indians in the battle of Fallen Timbers and had been captured by Wayne’s troops. Tried as a spy, he narrowly escaped the gallows through Hamtramck’s intercession. Colonel John Johnston, Indian factor at Fort Wayne, later described Antoine Lasselle as a man of wit and drollery who “would often clasp his neck with both hands to show how near he had been to hanging by order of Mad Anthony.”[11] After his release, Antoine Lasselle with his brother Jacques returned to Fort Wayne, apparently the first traders to do so. Here they furnished the Americans with supplies and used their strong influence with the Miamis to the good advantage of the American cause.
The Indians had asked that the forthcoming peace conference be held at their old village, Kekionga, as Kiskakon had come to be called by that time. Wayne insisted that the tribesmen come to Greenville, 79 miles southeast of Fort Wayne. Resorting to the use of Indian symbolism, Wayne argued, “It was there [Kekionga] that the hatchet was first raised, to bury a bloody hatchet there would disturb the spirits of the unburied dead.”[12] Wayne’s real reasons were less symbolic, but more practical. The distance of bringing supplies to Fort Wayne would be much farther than to Greenville, and at Greenville he would have his “Legion” ready in case of trouble. In the spring the Indians going to Greenville came by way of Fort Wayne, so overcrowding the post that Hamtramck’s garrison had to go on half-rations to feed the delegates. Even this did not suffice; emergency stores were depleted, while the liquor and tobacco were so exhausted that Hamtramck had to buy additional supplies from Antoine Lasselle.
At Greenville Wayne won the peace which Fallen Timbers had secured. In respect to Fort Wayne, which remained an American island deep in Indian Territory, the United States gained an area of six square miles around the fort, free use of the Maumee-Wabash portage, and an area of two square miles at the Wabash end of the portage. The Indians also promised the United States the use of the roads leading to Fort Wayne from Defiance to the northeast and Piqua to the southeast. Little Turtle, Wayne’s keenest antagonist during the negotiations, debated long and eloquently over these concessions at and around Fort Wayne. The great Miami chief secured one compromise from the General, a reduction of the land around the fort to be ceded to the United States. After this concession by Wayne, Little Turtle addressed the council:
These people [the French] were seen by our forefathers first at Detroit; afterwards we saw them at the Miami village—that glorious gate which your younger brothers had the happiness to own.... Brothers, these people never told us they wished to purchase these lands from us.
I now give you the true sentiments of your younger brothers with respect to the reservation at the Miami villages. We thank you kindly for contracting the limits you at first proposed. We wish you to take this six mile square on the side of the river where your fort now stands, as your younger brothers wish to inhabit that beloved spot again ... The next place you pointed to was the Little River, and said you wanted two miles square at that place. This is a request that our fathers, the French or British, never made us; it was always ours. This carrying place has heretofore proved in a great degree, the subsistence of your younger brothers. That place has brought us in the course of one day, the amount of one hundred dollars. Let us both own this place.[13]
To this Wayne replied:
The Little Turtle observes, he never heard of any cession made at that place [Fort Wayne] to the French. I have traced the lines of two forts at that point ... and it is ever an established rule, among the Europeans, to reserve as much ground around their forts, as their cannon can command.[14]
Wayne could not grant Little Turtle’s request for joint-control of the Maumee-Wabash portage since the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 guaranteed to everyone free use of all important portages (Article V). Wayne proved himself an economist and shrewd diplomat by arguing before the other assembled tribes that the tolls garnered by the Miamis actually were passed off to all the Indians in the form of higher prices for the traders goods. At length, Little Turtle, speaking for four tribes besides the Miamis, expressed himself as satisfied with the treaty, and being the last to sign it, promised he would be the last to break it.[15] This he never did, as he spent the last seventeen years of his life at peace with the Americans.
In a farewell address to the conference, Little Turtle asked that the United States government appoint Captain William Wells as resident interpreter at Fort Wayne. William Wells, frontier scout and pioneer, was one of the most romantic and mysterious figures in the early history of the Northwest. A biography or even a sketch of his life has never been written, although his story is intimately connected with that of Fort Wayne and the Indiana Territory. Between 1794 and 1812, when he was killed, Captain Wells was decidedly the most interesting white person in the history of Fort Wayne. Little is known about him personally, except that which we can obtain from letters written by him or those concerning him. A member of prominent Kentucky family and the brother of Colonel Samuel Wells of Louisville, William Wells had been kidnapped by a band of Miamis when he was twelve year old. Taken to Miamitown, he was adopted by the tribe of Little Turtle and was raised by the Indians, as was the custom of that time. It is not surprising, consequently, that the Frenchman, Count Volney described Wells as “tall and muscular, quick in movement, and having the complexion of an Indian.”[16] It is surprising, however, that Wells, having little or no education, in later life showed in his letters a knowledge of the English language and clarity of thought far superior to his white associates on the frontier.
Wells’ first wife was Anahquah, Little Turtle’s sister; and upon her death, it is believed that Wells married Wahmangopath, the daughter of the chief. By these marriages, Wells had the following children: Anne, who was educated at the Catholic school at Bardstown, Kentucky, and who later returned to Fort Wayne to marry Dr. William Turner; Mary, who married James Wolcott; Rebecca, who married James Hackley at Fort Wayne; Jane Turner, who married John H. Griggs, and William Wayne, who after graduating from West Point, died at an early age. On March 7, 1809, Wells married Mary Geiger, daughter of Colonel Frederick Geiger of Kentucky, by whom he had three children, Samuel Geiger, Yelberton, and Julia Ann.
Against Harmar’s and St. Clair’s armies, Wells fought willingly on the side of the Indians. In 1794, however, he joined Wayne’s forces apparently with Little Turtle’s approval. It is known that in the summer of 1793, Wells paid a visit to his white relatives in Kentucky. Upon returning through Vincennes, he met Col. Hamtramck, who employed him to carry a message to Wayne.[17] In the message, Hamtramck suggested to Wayne that Wells would prove invaluable as a scout, if the General saw fit to give him a commission. Before accepting this offer, Wells returned to Miamitown, and here secured Little Turtle’s consent. The reason for Wells’ desertion of the Indian cause has never been clear. Perhaps Hamtramck, later one of Wells’ staunchest friends, convinced him that the American cause was to be successful. Possibly, as Quaife suggests, it was due to a belated consciousness of his true race identity and the pleadings of his white relatives while he was in Kentucky.[18] The fact that Wells and Little Turtle remained intimate afterward and that their viewpoints were always identical, indicates there was no friction between them. It is known that Little Turtle did not wish to give battle to Wayne at Fallen Timbers, and advised the Indians to make peace. While only conjecture, it is not unreasonable to assume that Wells foresaw the American success in the forthcoming campaign and convinced the chief it was to the red man’s advantage to make peace.
Wells was placed in command of Wayne’s scouts, and it was primarily through his vigilance that Wayne’s forces were not surprised. At Greenville, Wells served as an interpreter, a position of trust. Wayne was willing to grant Little Turtle’s request to appoint Wells as resident interpreter at Fort Wayne, and later wrote to the government recommending Wells for the position, as well as authorizing the payment of high rewards to this valuable scout.[19]
During the winter of 1795-96, Hamtramck found the food and supply situation at Fort Wayne somewhat better, although there were about 90 children and old women entirely dependent on the garrison for their subsistence. Until the British post at Detroit was transferred to the United States, Fort Wayne was the headquarters for detachments at the following western forts: Defiance, Sandusky, Adams, Recovery, Jefferson, Loramie, Head of the Auglaise, and Michilimackinac. In June, 1796, Col. Hamtramck was ordered to proceed to Detroit and take command of the former British post there. After his departure, the force at Fort Wayne never numbered more than 100 men. These men held an important position along the first line of defense in the northwest. Other than Michilimackinac, there were no posts to the north or northwest until Ft. Dearborn was erected in 1803. The men at Fort Wayne acted as if they had little realization of their responsibility. The majority of the enlisted men of that day were drawn from the most turbulent elements of the east. The soldier’s life was not a popular vocation. At this western outpost, garrison life was more than harsh; it was extremely boring. The troops at Fort Wayne had nothing to do in their leisure time, and usually passed their days in drinking, fighting, and gambling.[20] In vain did the officers have insubordinate men flogged at parade (not infrequently the maximum penalty of 100 lashes was given), deprived them of their whiskey rations, and put them to hard labor. When, in 1812, Congress amended the articles of war to prohibit flogging, other substitute punishments, hardly less severe and equally degrading, were devised. Men were confined in small dark rooms, put astride spiked wooden horses, forced to wear the wooden collar, ankle bolts, and irons. In the Orderly Books for the Fort Wayne garrison, we repeatedly find non-commissioned officers demoted to the ranks for misconduct or crimes of one nature or another, only to be reinstated when their successors proved even more incapable. Yet, when this wild, bored garrison was besieged during the War of 1812, they successfully held the fort against a force six times as strong.
Living within the fort were the wives and children of those married officers and men who chose to bring their families to the wilderness with them. In many respects these women shared the army life of their husbands. They were governed by the same military regulations, even receiving the same daily whiskey ration as did the men. The officers and their families generally came from an older and more formal society and carried into the rude barracks the manners and customs of the East. One of the commanders, Col. Hunt, brought his family directly to Fort Wayne from their Boston home. With this eastern culture was added a certain punctilio, a natural consequence of military life. The officers’ families, together with those of government officials and more prominent settlers, formed the elite of the American society at Fort Wayne. In 1807 Lieutenant Philip Ostrander, an officer at Fort Wayne, wrote to his friend, George Hoffman, collector for the government at Michilimackinac:
On my arrival at this post I was received with the utmost politeness by Captain Heald [the commandant] who continues to show me every flattering attention. Indeed, sir, by every officer ... at this place I have been treated with the utmost liberality and respect. The very day of my arrival, I was requested to dine with Captain Wells [the Indian agent] and today by Mr. Johnson, our present factor at this post. [Col. John Johnston, superintendent of the government “factory”] I do not mention these circumstances through vanity, but merely with intention of informing you that everyone endeavors to make my place of residence comfortable and happy.
I could form no conception of what an agreeable situation this is, both as to the face of the country and the elegant situation of the fort. We are, however, destitute of one thing which would make the situation still more agreeable—that is, society. Mr. Johnson [Johnston], Captain Wells, J. Audrian [21]
Dr. Edwards, who had recently been given authority to serve as a merchant at the fort in addition to his duties as post surgeon, evidently had gone to Cincinnati to obtain supplies. Judging from the above letter and other sources, it must be concluded that the number of sick at Fort Wayne was generally quite high. Before Dr. Edwards came there were twenty-five men reported on the sick list, almost 35% of the garrison. This may have been somewhat of an abnormal condition, however, as his predecessor, a man named Dr. Elliot, was so incompetent, that Mr. Johnston, the government factor, had to act as post surgeon.[22]
Colonel Hamtramck remained in command of Fort Wayne until June, 1796. In March of that year he had been ordered to move down the Maumee with a detachment from Fort Wayne in order to counteract a demonstration by the British which was possibly intended to arouse the Indians to revolt. While encamped on the Maumee, Hamtramck received a message from General Wilkinson, directing him to receive the transfer of the British Post Miami and then proceed to Detroit to take command of the former British post, Fort Lernoult.
Colonel David Strong, Hamtramck’s successor at Fort Wayne, had, like Hamtramck, served in the Revolution and in Wayne’s army. Prior to coming to Fort Wayne he had been in command at Fort Greenville.[23] The twenty-six months of Colonel Strong’s administration witnessed the beginnings of the new Frenchtown at Fort Wayne. Located across the St. Joseph from the site of the old Frenchtown, this new village was situated where Kekionga or Kiskakon once stood in the present Lakeside area of Fort Wayne. Most of the inhabitants were either former occupants of Miamitown who returned to this new site after Wayne’s victory or French-Canadians of the Detroit-River Raisin region. Volney, a native of France who traveled in the United States during 1796, questioned the Americans concerning these French “habitants” of the northwest. He was told that they were a kind, hospitable, and sociable sort of people, “but in ignorance and idleness they beat the Indians. They know nothing of civil and domestic affairs; their women neither sew or spin or make butter but pass their time in gossiping and tattle. The men hunt, fish, roam in the woods, and bask in the sun.”[24]
In weighing the value of this characterization of the French “habitants,” we must remember that Volney an intellectual coming from the Paris of the Enlightenment naturally thought of these people as crude and rustic, as indeed they must have appeared to him, but what is more important neither Volney or the Americans appreciated that these French Creoles way of life was different from theirs. The Creoles were not as interested in the middle-class virtue of respectability nor in the acquisition of much property.
Evidently the English-American opinion of the French people living in the Northwest had not changed since the days of George Croghan and earlier. Nor in all likelihood had the French “habitants” and traders changed their manner of living to any great extent. Although they had suffered a great deal financially and were less prosperous since the American occupation of the territory, there is no reason to doubt that these people lived as they did during Henry Hay’s sojourn at Miamitown, independent and satisfied with life.
There is no way of determining the number of inhabitants living in Frenchtown at this time. That the settlement was at least worthy of notice is indicative from the Orderly Books for Fort Wayne. Mention is made repeatedly of the town.[25] The soldiers and their wives were in the habit of frequenting the town, which practice some officers considered inimical to the garrison’s welfare. All military orders published for the civilians living around Fort Wayne were made out in French as well as English, and until the early 1820’s the majority of the population of Fort Wayne were either French or of French-Indian blood.
While most of these French inhabitants during these years remain unknown, there are a few individuals whom we can identify. Besides Antoine Lasselle, there was another member of the Lasselle family who returned to Fort Wayne at an early date. This was Hyacinth Lasselle, the nephew of Antoine Lasselle and the son of Jacques Lasselle. Hyacinth Lasselle was only four years old when his family fled from Miamitown at the advance of LaBalme’s force in 1780. After this he was placed in a private school in Montreal. In May, 1795, he returned to Fort Wayne from where he carried on trading activities until 1804 when he removed his establishment to Vincennes. In appearance he was rather short, being about five feet six inches tall, but at the same time very muscular. His athletic prowess and the fact that he was born at Miamitown made him a great favorite of the Miamis, who entered him in contests against the champions of other tribes.
Other inhabitants of the former Miamitown who returned to the site of Fort Wayne after the American Occupation were Antoine Rivard or Rivarrd and Francis Minie. Rivard’s wife and daughter had entertained Henry Hay quite often while the latter stayed at Miamitown. Included among the new arrivals at Frenchtown were Charles and James Peltier, brothers who had come here from Detroit around 1798. In 1804 the Peltiers secured permission to sell supplies to the garrison at Fort Wayne. At a later date, Charles Peltier was attacked and eaten by wolves within a few miles of the fort. James Peltier married Angeline Chapeteau, an attractive young girl who had come to Fort Wayne from Detroit with her grandparents, Jean Baptiste Maloch and his wife. Jean Baptiste Maloch had been a resident at Detroit before the time of Pontiac’s conspiracy, and he was apparently considered to be a man of some wealth.[26] What prompted him to bring his wife and granddaughter to Fort Wayne at this late date in his life is unknown. Angeline Chapeteau, who was only sixteen when she came to Fort Wayne, instantly became a favorite of the Miamis, who called her “Golden Hair” and formally adopted her into their tribe. Her sister Theresa Chapeteau married Francis Minie, while a second sister married Charles Peltier. One of the most prosperous traders at Fort Wayne prior to the war of 1812 was Louis Bourie. Not only did he trade in furs himself, but he also kept pack horses and large warehouse for the transportation and storage of the merchandise and furs carried by way of the Maumee-Wabash portage. For these services he collected a handsome profit. Two other traders who married Miami women were Peter LaFontaine and Antoine Bondie.
To the west of the fort there came into being a collection of government buildings and sutlers’ establishments, which in time resembled a small village. These log buildings were located at the meeting place of two roads, “Wayne’s trace” (this was the road connecting Fort Wayne with Fort Washington, Cincinnati) and the old Maumee-Wabash portage path.[27] This was the nucleus of the village that made up the plat of the original town of Fort Wayne, when it was laid out in 1824. The sutlers, who lived here, were traders who had been given permission by the government to occupy choice locations near a military outpost and carry on the trade deemed necessary for the garrison. These sutlers were subject to the orders of the commander of the fort, who could dismiss them upon a just provocation. It was also the commander’s duty to see to it that the men were not overcharged and investigate any complaints brought to him either by the sutlers or soldiers. For instance the soldiers complained on one occasion that James Peltier was overcharging them for his merchandise. After an investigation, the commander, Captain Whipple, excused Peltier on the grounds that the cost of transportation for the winter had risen to one hundred dollars a boatload.[28] The sutlers brought their merchandise either by way of the Maumee from Detroit and the East or by way of the St. Mary’s from Cincinnati and the Ohio River.
The largest of the log buildings comprising the small village west of the fort was the two-story council house. This was erected in 1804 by the government to be used as a meeting place between the government officials and the Indians. Around the village and along the banks across the river were gardens and cultivated fields of vegetables and corn. One of the better farms was owned by Colonel Hamtramck and William Wells. Wells managed it and by 1800 had it well fenced. On the property were several buildings, a good orchard, a number of livestock, plus the usual corn fields. Several negro slaves whom Wells had brought from Kentucky did most of the labor.[29] Apparently this farm did not always furnish a dependable source of income, for in 1801, Wells reported to Hamtramck that although he expected to harvest 350 bushels of corn for each of them, he would not be able to sell it because of the overabundance of corn raised that year around Fort Wayne.[30] The reason for this, Wells maintained, was the fact that the military were competing in the corn market. The officers of Fort Wayne were in the practice of having the enlisted men farm the fields for wages.
In June, 1797, the newly appointed General of the United States Army, James Wilkinson, stopped at Fort Wayne during his initial tour of inspection of the western forts. Here he found conditions “truly deplorable”. In his report he stated:
“The army in this quarter presents a frightful picture of the scientific soldier; ignorance and licentiousness have been fostered, while intelligence and virtue have been persecuted and exiled; the consequences were that factions have been generated to sanction enormity, and it follows that all ideas of system, economy, order, subordination and discipline were banished, and that disorder, vice, absurdity, and abuse infected every member of the corps militarie.”[31]
Wilkinson was equally dissatisfied with conditions at Detroit. In fact he found fault everywhere, for the General had a habit of exaggerating ills so that he might gain more credit for employing successful antidotes. He never doubted that his methods were correct, and his solution for the problems at Fort Wayne and Detroit was relatively simple. He merely exchanged garrisons and commandants between the two posts. Colonel Hamtramck with the First Regiment was transferred to Fort Wayne, and Colonel David Strong at Fort Wayne with the Second Regiment was transferred to Detroit.[32]
Whether or not General Wilkinson achieved his purpose of bettering conditions at Fort Wayne and Detroit by these transfers is not known. At any rate Colonel Hamtramck did not remain long at Fort Wayne. In less than a year he was ordered back to Detroit and there he remained in command until his death in 1803. In April, 1798, a month before his final departure from Fort Wayne, his son, John Francis, was born. As far as it is known, this child was the first white person born within the stockade.
On May 16, 1798, Colonel Thomas Hunt arrived at Fort Wayne to take command. Colonel Hunt had served with distinction in the Revolution. Born in Massachusetts, he became a member of Captain’s Croft’s Company of “minute men” at Lexington and Concord, in April, 1776. Later he fought in the battles of Bunker Hill and Stoney Point. In 1793, he returned to military service as a major with Wayne. Following the western campaign and the building of Fort Wayne, he went to Detroit and assisted Wayne in the formal transfer of the British post to the Americans. He served then as commandant of Fort Defiance.[33] Following the western campaign of Wayne, he had been given command of Fort Defiance. With Colonel Hunt came his family to Fort Wayne directly from their home in Boston.
While at Fort Wayne, Colonel Hunt often drew criticism for his independent action. Nevertheless, it is apparent that he devoted his energies to the betterment of conditions at Fort Wayne, for he undertook the responsible task of building a new fort to take the place of Wayne’s hastily constructed post which by 1800 was beginning to decay. The new fort was located about three hundred feet north of the old structure and enclosed the area of the present Old Fort Park in the city of Fort Wayne. It seems very probable that the troops occupied the original fort during the period of construction of the second fort, so there were two American forts standing at the same time, separated by perhaps three hundred feet of space. The new fort was reported to be “large and substantial ... commanding a beautiful view of the river, as also an extent of about four square miles of cleared land.”[34] Six log barracks for the officers and men, a brick magazine, and smaller buildings were grouped within the palisades around the parade ground.
Captain Thomas Pasteur, an officer in the Revolution and a member of Wayne’s corps succeeded Colonel Hunt as commander in June, 1802. Pasteur remained but a year at Fort Wayne during which time there was little activity at the outpost. There is some indication from two letters written at the time that Colonel Henry Burbeck was in command at Fort Wayne in the spring of 1803, although the Fort Wayne Orderly Books give no record of this.[35] If he did serve at Fort Wayne, his stay was no longer than that of his successor, Major Zebulon Pike, who remained less than two months. Major Pike was the father of the noted explorer of the southwest, Zebulon M. Pike. The Major who was in poor health was given command of Fort Wayne in the hope that the position would be an easy one, as well as furnish an increase in his pay. The command did not meet Pike’s expectations, since his nature was such that the constant drunkenness of the men under him was more than he could stand. His rigid attitude in regard to temperance was revealed in a letter to Colonel Kingsbury while both were serving at Detroit. In it he declines an invitation of the Colonel to attend an officers’ party at which he believes some alcoholic drink would be served.[36]
Major Pike’s successor, Captain John Whipple, arrived at Fort Wayne in September, 1803. A group of Quakers visiting Fort Wayne in 1804 reported that Captain Whipple, “behaved with a freedom and gentility becoming a well breed [sic] man.”[37] That he was a man of fair intellectual talents is shown by the nature of the entries in the Fort Wayne Orderly Books during his administration. In 1804, Captain Whipple journeyed to Detroit to bring back his wife, the former Archange Pelletier, a descendant of the oldest family of Detroit, Francois Pelletier having preceded Cadillac to that spot by two years.
After serving almost four years at Fort Wayne, Captain Whipple resigned on January 31, 1807 and in his stead Captain Nathan Heald was appointed as commander. Captain Heald remained at Fort Wayne until May 16, 1810, on which day he left to take command at Fort Dearborn (Chicago), being in charge of that garrison on the day of the fateful massacre, August 15, 1812. During his stay at Fort Wayne, Captain Heald met the niece of William Wells, Rebeckah Wells, whom he later married. Captain Heald was replaced at Fort Wayne by Captain James Rhea, an unfortunate choice for the troublesome days that were to come during the crucial first year of the War of 1812.[38]
From the beginning of Colonel Hunt’s administration in 1798 to the end of Captain Heald’s in 1810, the frontier was comparatively peaceful, especially until 1807. In that year signs of the forthcoming Indian difficulties began to appear, although the actual conflict did not break out until 1811, with the battle of Tippecanoe. In August 1796, Winthrop Sargent, the Secretary of the Northwest Territory, proclaimed the organization of Wayne county, with Fort Wayne on its southern boundary. This original Wayne county was divided into four townships, bearing the names of Detroit, Mackinaw, Sargent, and Hamtramck, with the region of Fort Wayne and the Maumee valley included in the latter. In October, 1799, William Henry Harrison was elected to represent the Northwest Territory in Congress. This body, on the seventh of May, 1800, created the Territory of Indiana, composed of all that part of the territory of the United States west of a line beginning at the Ohio river opposite the mouth of the Kentucky river and running northward to the straits of Mackinac. Five days later William Henry Harrison was appointed governor of the newly created territory. Vincennes in the southern part of the territory, situated on the Wabash river, became the capital.
Up north, Fort Wayne, already an important post in the defense of the Northwest Territory, also became a government outpost of diplomacy and trade with the Indians. By 1798, the United States government had established an Indian agency at Fort Wayne. The Office of Indian Affairs was a division of the War Department from 1789 to 1849, and was under the direction of the Secretary of War. The Indian agents were the representatives of the department among the various tribes. This plan, to have official representatives of the government stationed permanently among the Indians, was adopted from that used by the English during colonial times. Captain William Wells was the logical choice to be the first Indian agent at Fort Wayne. The military and government officials both felt that he was deserving of some reward for his outstanding services during and after Wayne’s campaign in 1794-95. Above all he was admirably suited for the position, being intimately acquainted with the Indians of this region and being able to speak fluently five of the Indian dialects. When Volney asked the inhabitants of Vincennes for aid in compiling a dictionary of the Indian language, they recommended that he consult William Wells, as Wells knew the Indian languages better than any other man in the territory.[39]
Undoubtedly, Wells was anxious to secure the position for it paid a handsome salary of $1,200 a year plus some expenses, which was rather good in those days for a government employee. Moreover, the position gave the agent the opportunity of arranging profitable private contracts for services and goods for the Indians. With the purpose of obtaining the appointment, Wells secured a letter of introduction from his friend, Colonel Hamtramck, to the Secretary of War.[40] In all probability Wells used this letter and other recommendations to good advantage when he accompanied Little Turtle to Philadelphia in the winter of 1797. Upon his return from Philadelphia, Wells wrote to Hamtramck that he “was encouraged and hopeful.”[41] His hopes were well founded for in the summer of 1798, Wells received the appointment as Indian agent at Fort Wayne.
Four years later, Fort Wayne was selected as the location for one of the Indian “factories” then being established by the national government. It is somewhat difficult to make a distinction between the Indian agency and Indian factory. Strictly speaking, the factory was the place where goods were received, stored, and distributed, where trading was carried on with the Indians by the government and payments of goods and annuities made. The factor (the government representative in charge of the factory), therefore, dealt primarily in financial and commercial matters. On the other hand, an Indian agent was concerned with political matters, such as the negotiations and treaties for the cession of lands belonging to the Indians. It was his duty to see that the tribes remained friendly to the United States and to report any grievances and discontent. The distinction between the respective positions, however, was one more in theory than in fact. That the agent’s and factor’s duties would overlap is fairly obvious, even if they would have been clearly defined and adhered to. Any political negotiation of the government with the Indians called for payment in money and goods to the Indians, often for a number of years, as well as at the time of the treaty. One of the main causes of Indian dissatisfaction which the agent had to meet was that caused by the poor quality of goods sometime furnished at the Indian factories.
In theory, both the agent and the factor at Fort Wayne were responsible to their immediate superior, Governor Harrison, as commander of military forces and superintendent of Indian affairs in Indiana Territory. However, those agents, such as Wells, who held their positions prior to the creation of the territory continued to deal directly with the Secretary of War as well as with the Governor. Benjamin Stickney, Wells’ successor as agent, refused to recognize Harrison’s authority over him. The factor also received his orders from the Governor and the Secretary of War. More directly he was under the Superintendent of Indian Trade, an official answerable to both the Secretary of War and Congress. During the years before the War of 1812, the post of Superintendent of Indian Trade was held consecutively by William Irvine and John Mason. This lack of central authority pertaining to the factories and agencies only served to add to the confusion already created by the nature of the positions. At a later date, the agent assumed the duties of the factor and the latter term fell into disuse, but until the factory was destroyed by the Indians at Fort Wayne, the two positions remained separate and from the start, difficult to harmonize.
“Colonel” John Johnston served as the first Indian factor at Fort Wayne from 1802 to 1811. Johnston, a prominent figure in the northwest, during his lifetime served thirty-one years with the Department of Indian Affairs. He was born in Ireland on March 22, 1775, and came to America at the age of eleven. A few years later, while yet a youth, he undertook the job of driving supply wagons to Wayne’s army. After receiving his appointment as factor for Fort Wayne, Johnston married sixteen-year-old Rachel Robinson at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, much against the desire of the young girl’s parents. The Johnstons’ wedding trip consisted of the journey by horseback through the wilderness to Fort Wayne. While living at Fort Wayne, Colonel Johnston and his wife were noted for their stern rectitude, which contrasted considerably with the type of life generally found at this military outpost. In later life, Johnston, for his years of government service, became known as “Colonel Johnston”. He is described as “six feet and more in height, very erect, in his bearing and he had a blond complexion inclined to ruddy.”[42]
Besides his duties as factor, Colonel Johnston occasionally served as assistant surgeon at the fort. For his position as factor, Johnston received a salary of $1,000 a year from the government and $365 for subsistence. The latter amount was funded by the profits of the factory. In 1810, William Oliver was appointed to the Fort Wayne factory to serve as Johnston’s assistant. When Oliver resigned in 1812, Johnston secured the position for his brother, Stephen Johnston.
As factor, Johnston aimed at being just to the Indians and loyal to his government, a combination of purpose attended with many difficulties. In a report to the Secretary of War, Johnston pointed out that the trading houses with the northern Indians never produced any political effect in favor of the Americans, as had been expected when they were established. Rather, on the contrary, the Indians were led to believe that the object was to make money; and in as much as the government goods were never sold cheaper than those of the private traders, it was impossible to produce a different impression.[43]
Johnston had trouble procuring the proper kinds of supplies to issue to the Indians at Fort Wayne. The goods intended for the Indian trade were rarely imported into the United States, there being no regular demand for them. On the other hand, the British traders in Canada had agents in England, long accustomed to this commerce, who sent out the very articles needed. The supplies destined for the United States factories went through many hands, and this offered countless opportunities to defraud the Indians and the government. Often the goods came out of season or were damaged. Johnston constantly urged that the trade either be put in the hands of private traders who would be licensed by the government, or, if the government thought it necessary to stay in the business, an expert should be sent to England to do the purchasing of the Indian articles. Typical of the goods used by the Indians are the following items listed in Johnston’s record book, “blankets, strouds, [44] Johnston also complained that the military were generally unfriendly to his trading post and even hindered his work at times. Apparently this ill feeling was caused by the fact that the soldiers did not consider it a part of their business to furnish transportation for the furs and Indian goods or to erect the necessary buildings for the trade at Fort Wayne.[45] On one occasion, the factor lost in Lake Erie $2,300 worth of furs. Johnston claimed that the accident came about through the carelessness of a drunken non-commissioned officer, Joseph McMahan, although McMahan was excused of all responsibility by a court martial.[46] The result of the trial provoked Johnston so much that he protested to the Superintendent of Indian Trade, but nothing could be done.
During the decade of its existence prior to the War of 1812, the Fort Wayne factory was the most prosperous of all the trading houses established by the United States government. A report submitted by the Secretary of War to Congress showed that in the three years and ten months preceding January 13, 1812, the Fort Wayne factory made a profit of $10,502.77. This was by far the largest profit shown by any of the ten factories then operated throughout the nation.[47] Another report shows that the fur and peltries received from the Indians at the Fort Wayne factory sold for $27,547.07.[48] While the government did only a small fraction of the fur trading, this is a good indication that the fur trade of the Maumee and Wabash valleys which led the French to fortify the spot was still the principal economic asset of Fort Wayne. Colonel Johnston’s account books suggest that the once abundant beaver skins were becoming scarce. Instead of beaver, racoon and deer skins were being shipped in great quantities.[49] These furs were carried by way of Lake Erie to New York and Philadelphia, where they were sold at auctions. Most of the furs obtained from the private traders were taken to Detroit where they were purchased by the American Fur Company. Skins were worth deer, $1.25; raccoon, $.50; bear, $3.00 to $5.00. These values were nominal, as the price fluctuated and the furs were paid for in goods which were passed off on the Indians for more than double the initial cost and transportation.
In order to transport the skins, they were dried, compressed, and secured in packs. Each pack weighed about 100 pounds. A pirogue or boat, that was sufficiently large to carry forty packs, required the labor of four men to manage it on its voyage. In favorable stages of the river, such a vessel, under the management of skilled boatmen, was propelled by poles fifteen or twenty miles a day, against the current. On the return trips the pirogues were loaded with merchandise to be sold to the Indians.
Turning our attention once more to Indian treaties and their resulting difficulties, important events centered about Fort Wayne between the years 1800 and 1809. The year 1800 in which William Henry Harrison was appointed the first governor of the Indiana Territory was one of peace in the Great Lake region of the United States. The British had evacuated the posts they had held in the northwest, according to the agreement in the Jay treaty, and the Indians appeared content. At Fort Wayne, the future appeared so calm that William Wells wrote to Hamtramck that he expected the garrison to be withdrawn shortly.[50] However, the spark that set off the flames of Indian warfare was soon to be ignited and kept aglow by British intrigue. This spark was the never ending demand for new lands by the western settlers, which resulted in the attempts of the government to satisfy this demand by gaining new land cessions from the Indians.
Governor Harrison, on assuming his office, proceeded promptly to enter into treaty agreements with the Indians for the purchase of their large tracts of land in what are now the states of Indiana and Illinois. This was in accordance with President Jefferson’s objective, the acquisition from the Indians of the whole territory east of the Mississippi. Harrison sent word to the Indians to meet him at Fort Wayne in the summer of 1803 for the first of his important treaty councils. By June 7 of that year, he completed his task, having secured from the Eel River Miamis, Kaskaskia, Kickapoo, Piankashaw, and Wea tribes a large tract of land around Vincennes, as well as the valuable salt spring on the Saline Creek. This treaty had been brought to a successful conclusion for the United States through a combination of Harrison’s shrewdness and stubbornness in bargaining, the financial backing of the factory at Fort Wayne, and the influence of Capt. Wells over Little Turtle. Although Harrison and Johnston obtained the cooperation of Wells in gaining the consent of the Indians, the agent, for the most part, strove against any cession of lands by the Indians. Wells went so far as to instigate the Indians to protest to the national government against a treaty Harrison concluded with the Delawares and Piankashaws the following year.[51]
Between Colonel Johnston, the factor, and Wells, the agent, there was no coordination of purpose or even good will. Outside of the fact that the conflicting duties of their respective positions involved them in quarrels, Wells and Johnston seemed to have been mutually antagonistic, and each put the worst interpretation on the other’s actions when writing to their superiors. Wells felt that Johnston’s policy of trying to win an active alliance with the Indians for the United States in the event of war with Great Britain was in effect evidence of Johnston’s gullibility in dealing with the red men. Even after the battle of Tippecanoe, Johnston gave arms and ammunition to the Indians who had participated in the affair. Wells knew the Indians well, and realized that in the event of war the best that could be expected would be that they would remain neutral. On the other hand, Johnston felt that Wells was completely unprincipled and could not be trusted.
Johnston’s opinion of Wells was shared by Governor Harrison, who nevertheless realized the agent’s great ability in dealing with the Indians. Harrison wrote of Wells on one occasion, “My knowledge of his character induces me to believe that he will go any length and use any means to carry a favorite point and much mischief may ensue from his knowledge of the Indians, his cunning and perservance.”[52] In all matters, Wells and Little Turtle were in agreement, and while the latter’s influence with his fellow tribesmen had diminished considerably with the rise of a new generation, he was still a force to be reckoned with in any treaty negotiations. It is almost certain that neither Wells or Little Turtle intended to arouse the Indians to war against the advance of the tide of settlers, yet they were ready to oppose Harrison’s objectives at the various treaty councils.
Although Harrison indicated in his correspondence with the Secretary of War that he knew the reasons behind Wells’ action in opposing most of the land cessions, the Governor’s letters do not definitely reveal what he meant. In an indefinite manner, Harrison ascribed the reason for Wells’ action to the agent’s attachment for Little Turtle, mingled with a jealousy of the Governor. Harrison apparently felt that Wells had a personal animosity toward him, and that Wells’ opposition was intended to discredit him.[53] In one letter to the Secretary of War Harrison suggested that Wells was profiting dishonestly from his position as Indian agent at Fort Wayne. He wrote:
I am really of the opinion that the Turtle, the Five Medals, and two or three others receive much the greater part of the annuities and provisions which are intended for and said to be given to the Potawatomies and Miamis and I am by no means certain that Wells himself does not largely participate. The fact is admitted that he makes more money than any other man in the Territory. Mr. Johnston told Col. Vigo that he [Wells] cleared last upwards of $6000. How he can do this honestly I am at a loss to know.[54]
Concerning the reason for Little Turtle’s opposition to further land cessions on the part of the Indians, Harrison is more definite in his convictions. In 1803, the Governor wrote of Little Turtle:
“Conscious of his superiority of his Talents over the rest of his race and colour he sighs for a more conspicuous theatre to display them. Opportunities for exhibiting his eloquence occur too seldom to satisfy his vanity.... A chosen connexion among the neighbouring Tribes and a regular convention of their chiefs has been long the ruling wish of his heart and the object of numberless intrigues.”[55]
Assuming that Harrison was correct about Little Turtle’s ambition to form an Indian confederation, it is interesting to observe that had the Miami chief succeeded rather than Tecumseh, the league formed would have been inclined toward peace rather than war with the United States. Following the Treaty of Greenville Little Turtle often objected to further cessions of land, yet, at the same time, he endeavored to induce the red men to lay aside the tomahawk and scalping knife and take up the peaceful tools of agriculture. This fact made him unacceptable to the majority of Indians, as Harrison himself admitted at a later date. “It was the rock upon which the popularity of Tecumseh was founded”, he wrote, “and that upon which the influence of Little Turtle was wrecked.”[56]
The truth of this assertion is made plain in the report of the visit of two Quakers who, in response to an appeal by Little Turtle, came to Fort Wayne in 1804 to attempt to introduce the best methods of agriculture among the Indians. From the official report of Gerard T. Hopkins to his church, the story as here reviewed has been obtained.[57] Mr. Hopkins was accompanied by George Ellicott, also of the Society of Friends, and Philip Dennis, a practical farmer who was engaged to serve as instructor.
The Quakers arrived at Fort Wayne on March 30 and were conducted to Captain Whipple, then commandant of the fort, to whom they presented a letter of introduction and recommendation from Henry Dearborn, Secretary of War. This letter was a liberal commendation of the committee and their motives. General Dearborn was personally acquainted with the members of the committee, was in hearty sympathy with their mission, and rode on horseback from Washington to Ellicott’s home, a distance of forty miles to present the letter to the committee before leaving.
The Quakers were surprised to find that no attention was given, either in the fort or the Indian village, to the proper observance of the Sabbath day. The Friends were entertained by John Johnston, and there the chiefs took supper with the mission committee. Under the guidance of Captain Wells the following days, the Friends went over the lands most suitable for cultivation, and at the same time observed the most historic places and listened to the stories as told by Wells of the Indian villages and of Harmar’s and St. Clair’s defeats.
The rides to the country included visits to large sugar camps and the “prairie” between the St. Mary’s and Little River, the distance from one to the other being but four miles in the then swampy land; and the watershed ridge but five feet high with reports of canoes passing over in highest stages of water. The subject of a canal through this ridge was also mentioned. Indians were constantly coming and going, the women carrying the burdens of packs of skins and bark boxes of maple sugar each weighing about fifty pounds.
The next day Little Turtle and the other chiefs assembled at the home of Captain Wells, and there arrangements were made for Dennis to remain with the Indians and establish a farm. The attempt to educate the Indians to till the soil was undertaken at a point on the Wabash river about twenty miles southwest of Fort Wayne. After the departure of the Quakers, Dennis continued his efforts but only one or, at the most, two of the Indians could be induced to help him. After a year, Dennis returned to Maryland, and as no one could be induced to take his place the project was left in the hands of Wells, who had a contract to supply the Indians with fence rails for the farms.
The Indians were in no mood to give their attention to the tilling of the soil. Trouble of a subdued nature portended serious conflicts for the future. On April 26, 1805, Harrison wrote to the Secretary of War that he felt it was necessary for him to proceed to Fort Wayne to investigate the complaints arising from the Indians threat. These complaints centered chiefly around the treaty concluded with the Delawares and Piankashaws in 1804. The Miamis maintained that they should have shared in the benefits of the treaty as part owners of the land sold, while the Delawares felt that they had not received enough in the way of annuities for the land. Harrison suspected that these complaints arose primarily through the instigation of Wells and Little Turtle and had determined to investigate Wells’ activities as well as the grievances.
Harrison, however, decided not to go personally to Fort Wayne, explaining that it “would be a sacrifice of that dignity and authority which is necessary to observe in all our transactions with the Indians.”[58] In his stead, Harrison dispatched General John Gibson, secretary of Indiana Territory and Colonel Francis Vigo,[59] who on their arrival met strong opposition from Wells and Little Turtle. These two, viewing the visit of Gibson and Vigo with evident suspicion, addressed a letter to the former in which they demanded his credentials. Lieutenant Brownson, in temporary command of Fort Wayne, remarked to the Governor’s agents that he had heard Wells repeatedly say the Indians were very much imposed on in the late treaty. In a private conversation the Miami chief, Richardville, told Colonel Vigo that he was quite surprised to hear an officer who had taken an oath to support the Government of the United States, express himself in the manner Wells had. Richardville also informed them that the Little Turtle, in the presence of Wells, had produced a paper and requested Richardville to sign it. Being a remonstrance in favor of Wells, Richardville refused to sign it, saying, “if Mr. Wells had behaved well there was no occasion to write to the president in his favour that he did not wish to interfere in matters which belonged entirely to the White people, and that he, the Little Turtle, had frequently wrote letters to the president, without their being consulted or asked to sign them.”[60]
Vigo and Gibson were convinced that a certain Peter Audrian had conspired with Wells and Little Turtle in the affair. Audrian was an influential French trader at Detroit, who during his lifetime held the governmental positions of judge, prothonotary, and land commissioner. At this time he had an advantageous contract from Wells to furnish the log rails for the farms of the Indians. In one year alone the Indians purchased 63,000 rails from Audrian, many more than were actually needed.[61]
In their report to Governor Harrison, Gibson and Vigo concluded:
“... no noise or clamor respecting the treaty last summer with the Delawares ... would have been made had it not been occasioned by the Little Turtle and Wells, the latter of whom seems more attentive to the Indians than the people of the United States.”[62]
In his report to the Secretary of War, Harrison added that Wells’ services were highly useful and that he discharged his duties on occasions with great zeal and industry. Early in August, 1805, Wells, accompanied by Little Turtle, came to Vincennes. “Both are here,” wrote Harrison to Dearborn, “and I have received from each a positive assurance of a friendly dispostion as well toward the government as myself individually. With Captain Wells, I have had an explanation, and have agreed to a general amnesty and act of oblivion for the past.”[63]
Notwithstanding this seemingly peaceful settlement of the difficulty, the official relationship between Wells and the governor remained strained, and we find Harrison as late as April 23, 1811, writing to the new Secretary of War, Eustis:
“Could I be allowed to dispose of Wells as I thought proper, my first wish would be to place him in the interiour of our settlement where he would never see and scarcely hear of an Indian. But as this is impossible, from his being located in such a manner at Fort Wayne, that he cannot be removed without a very considerable expense, my next wish is to get such an appointment as he could consider an object, where he might be used to advantage, but at the same time so limited as to prevent his doing mischief.”[64]
While Governor Harrison was doing his utmost to secure more territory from the Indians, he did not wish the newly purchased lands to fall into the hands of unscrupulous traders who used the bargaining power of whiskey to rob the Indians of their furs. This was especially true of the United States land around Fort Wayne, which was too distant from Vincennes to be under his effective control. When, in 1805, Harrison heard that it was intended to sell the government land around Fort Wayne immediately, he objected strongly. “I am very certain,” he wrote to the Secretary of War, “that the money which will be put into the Treasury by the sale of it will not counterbalance the inconveniences which will arise from having it settled with the description of people who will naturally buy it.”[65] He then pointed out that Fort Wayne was too far removed from any other settlement to entice American farmers to go there, and in all probability, only Indian traders would buy the land and would thus be out of the reach of the laws of the United States regulating Indian trade and commerce. He conceded that the Fort Wayne was fertile enough for farming and concluded by saying, “If the immediate settlement of it is an object I think it would be better to sell it by contract upon the condition that there would be within a given time a certain number of American farmers upon it.”[66]
The government officials apparently accepted Harrison’s advice since the proposal to sell the Fort Wayne lands was laid aside. It is fortunate that this land was not sold, for it is unlikely that any farmers would have been attracted to this remote spot in northern Indiana during the forthcoming years of Indian difficulties on the frontier. If any settlers had come, it is doubtful that they could have survived the War of 1812. Consequently, Fort Wayne was destined to remain until the end of that war primarily a government outpost of diplomacy, defense, and trade, represented by the Indian agency, the military garrison, and the government factory. There were a few farms of value, such as those of Wells and the officers, but while the land was fertile, the market was too distant for the crops to bring any considerable return. The civilians living in the neighborhood were, for the most part, French families who still found the fur trade profitable, along with a few American traders and sutlers. None of these people held any title to the lands they occupied.
[1]Lieut. John Boyer, “Daily Journal of Wayne’s Campaign,” Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections, XXXIV, 554.
[2]T. B. Helm, History of Allen County, Indiana, p. 37.
[3]Lieut. William Clark, famous explorer of the great Northwest, was an officer in Wayne’s Legion at the time of the construction of Fort Wayne.
[4]Lieut. Boyer, loc. cit., p. 556.
[5]Wayne to Knox, Oct. 17, 1794, quoted in Charles Slocum. Op. cit., p. 217.
[6]Lieut. Boyer, loc. cit., p. 561.
[7]Charles Slocum, op. cit., p. 221.
[8]Hamtramck to Wayne, Aug. 13, 1795, Hamtramck Papers, Burton Historical Collection.
[9]Hamtramck to Wayne, Dec. 5, 1794, Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections, XXXLV, 734.