Miami MIAMIHISTORY©(revised 12.29.99) Note:This is a single part of what will be, by myclassification, about 240 compact tribal histories (contact to 1900). Itis limited to the lower 48 states of the U.S. but also includes thoseFirst Nations from Canada and Mexico that had important roles (Huron,Micmac, Assiniboine, etc.).This history's content and style are representative. The normal process at this point is to circulate an almost finished product among a peergroup for comment and criticism. At the end of this History you willfind links to those Nations referred to in the History of the Miami.Using the Internet, this can be more inclusive. Feel free to comment orsuggest corrections via e-mail. Working together we can end some of thehistorical misinformation about Native Americans. You will find the egoat this end to be of standard size. Thanks for stopping by. I lookforward to your comments...Lee Sultzman. Miami Location Northern Indiana and the adjacent areas of Illinois and Ohio. Most oftheWea and Piankashaw were driven from this area by the Iroquois during the1650s and retreated west to Wisconsin and northern Illinois. Beginningabout 1680, they began a gradual return to Indiana which was largelycompleted by 1710. The Wea and Piankashaw were removed to Missouriduringthe 1820s and in 1832 moved to the Marais des Cygnes River in easternKansas where they later merged with the remnants of the Illinois. In1867the combined tribe was forced to relocate for a final time tonortheasternOklahoma. Most of the Miami remained in Indiana until 1846 when 600 leftfor Kansas only to be moved to Oklahoma after the Civil War. Descendentsof the Miami who remained in northern Indiana still live in theiroriginalhomeland of northern Indiana. PopulationPerhaps as many as 15,000 in 1600, the French estimated the combinedpopulation of all groups of the Miami at around 8,000 in 1717. Duringthenext 20 years the Miami, as well as the neighboring Illinois, suffered arapid population decline from several epidemics the most important ofwhich was malaria (ague) which became common in the Mississippi Valleyduring this period. By 1736 the Miami numbered less than 3,000. Britishestimates after 1763 varied between 1,800 and 2,700 depending on whetherthe Wea and Piankashaw were included with the Miami. The first accuratecount by the Americans in 1825 gave about 1,100 Miami and Eel River, 327Wea, and a little more than 150 Piankashaw - total of about 1,600. By1846the combined population of the Piankashaw, Wea, and Miami in Kansasstoodclose to 1,000. The Miami who had remained in Indiana (heavilyintermarried) numbered between 500 and 1,500 depending on how much ofthemixed-blood population was included. When their land was allotted in1872,only 247 of the Indiana Miami chose to identify themselves as NativeAmericans.The tribal status of the Indiana Miami was terminated by administration order in 1897, but the 1910 census still listed 90 Miami in Indiana. After the Passage of the Indian Reorganization Act (1934), they organized as the Miami Nation of Indians of the State of Indiana in 1937. Its 6,000 members are concentrated mainly in Allen, Huntington, and Miami counties in Indiana. Tribal offices are in Peru, but they have never succeeded in regaining federal status - the latest refusal being in 1992. The only official Miami tribe is the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma at Miami in the northeastern part of the state. There are also some descendents of the Wea and Piankashaw within the Peoria Tribe of Oklahoma in the same area. From a low point of 129 in 1909, the enrollment of the Oklahoma Miami has grown to more than 2,100. Names The Miami called themselves Twightwee (Twatwa), their name for the cryofthe crane and the symbol of the Atchakangouen (Miami Proper). Miamicomesfrom their Ojibwe name, Oumami (Oumamik, Owmaweg, Omaumeg) "peopleof thepeninsula" altered by the French and English into our familiar formofMiami (Maumee). Other names were: Naked Indians, Pkiwileni (Shawnee),Sanshkiaarunu (Wyandot "finely dressed people"), Twatwa(Tawatawa"naked"), and Wayatanoke. Language Algonquin. Closely related to the language spoken by the Illinois. BothMiami and Illinois were apparently closer to Ojibwe than the dialect oftheir neighbors: the Fox, Sauk, Kickapoo, and Shawnee. Sub-NationsA loose association of six independent tribes: Atchakangouen(Atchatchakangouen, Miami Proper), Kilatika, Mengkonkia (Mengakonia),Pepikokia, Piankashaw, and Wea (Newcalenous, Ouiatenon). By 1796 thePepikokia had been absorbed by Piankashaw, and the divisions after thistime were: Eel River, Miami, Piankashaw, and Wea. VillagesChicago (Wea) (IL), Chippekawkay (Piankashaw) (IN),Choppatee's Village(IN), Elkhart (Potawatomi) (IN), Kekionga (Kiskakon) (Atchakangouen)(IN),Kenapacomaqua (Wea) (IN), Kethtippecahnunk (Potawatomi-Wea) (IN), Kokomo(IN), Kowasikka (Thorntown) (IN), Le Baril (OH), Little Turtle's Village(IN-OH), Maramek (IL), Meshingomesia (IN), Milwaukee (WS),Missinquimeschan (Piankashaw) (IN), Mississinewa (IN-OH), Neconga,Ouinatenon (Wea) (IN), Osaga, Ouiatenon (Wea) (IN), Papakeecha (FlatBelly's Village, Pahedkeecha) (Piankashaw) (IN), Piankashaw (IN),Pickawillany (Pickawillanee) (OH), Seek's Village (IN), St. FrancoisXavier (Mascouten) (WS), Tepicon (2) (IN), Vincennes (IN), Wepecheange,and White Raccoon's Village (Raccoon's Village) (IN). CultureMore of an association than confederation, each of the six bands wasindependent of the others with its own chief. In both language andculture, the Miami closely resembled the Illinois. So much so, theFrenchinitially got them confused, even though these two peoples often werehostile to each other. More so than other Great Lakes Algonquin, theMiamiappear to have retained strong links to the earlier Mississippianculture.The most noteworthy characteristic was the unusual amount of respect andceremony accorded to their chiefs. The hereditary Miami chiefs also hadreligious functions, but many of these were curtailed when they failedtocope with the new European epidemics. As a result, the Midewiwin curingsociety became powerful during the late 1600s, and this apparentlycauseda leadership crisis within the Miami which lasted until the 1750s. Atthesame time, the Jesuit missionaries caused further divisions by theacceptance of Christianity by some of the Miami. Despite this, much ofthetraditional authority of Miami chiefs has been retained to the present,and it still takes a unanimous vote of the tribal council to overridehisdecisions.Most of their diet came from agriculture, but the Miami were noted for aunique variety of white corn which was generally regarded as superior tothat of other tribes. Their summer villages, located in river valleysforthe fertile soil, consisted of framed longhouses covered with rush mats.Aseparate, larger structure was used for councils and ceremonies. Aftertheharvest, the village moved to the nearby prairies for a communal buffalohunt, then separated into winter hunting camps. Among other tribes intheregion, the Miami had the reputation of being slow-spoken and polite buthad an inclination towards fancy dress, especially their chiefs.Tattooing wascommon to both sexes, and like the neighboring Illinois, there wereharshpenalties for female adulterers who were either killed or had theirnosescut off. HistoryUnlike other Algonquin tribes in the Ohio Valley and western Great Lakes, the Iroquois conquest did not force all of the Miami to abandon their homeland during the 1650s. Perhaps because they were enemies of the Illinois Confederacy, the Iroquois found the Miami useful as allies, but the Wea and Piankashaw were forced to retreat west into northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin. Clashes with the resident Winnebago at first forced the Miami west towards the Mississippi, but shortly afterwards the Winnebago were defeated by the Fox and followed by a near annihilation at the hands of the Illinois. These defeats ended most resistance by Wisconsin's original tribes to the relocation of refugees from the east, and the Wea joined with the Mascouten to relocate farther to the northeast. The French first mentioned the Miami in 1658 when the Jesuit Relations of that year placed them (apparently a group of Wea) near Green Bay living in a mixed village with the Mascouten. However, Iroquois attacks in the area, apparently forced the Miami to relocate farther inland on the Fox River in 1660, and some groups even moving to the Mississippi River near the Illinois-Wisconsin border.After their destruction of the Huron Confederacy in1649, the Iroquois hadpretty much blocked French access to the western Great Lakes until apeacewas arranged between them in 1667 which also extended to the tribes ofthewestern Great Lakes. This provided much-needed relief to the refugeetribes in Wisconsin and allowed the French to resume their fur trade inthe west. The first recorded meeting between the Miami and Europeansoccurred in 1668 when Nicolas Perrot met them at their fortified villagenear the headwaters of the Fox River in southern Wisconsin. Perrot madeasecond visit in 1670, and meanwhile the Jesuit, Father Claude-JeanAllouez, had also made contact. By 1673 the Wea had separated themselvesfrom the Mascouten and moved south to a new village near Chicago. TheMiami, however, maintained close trading ties with the French at GreenBayand provided the guides which led Father Jacques Marquette and LouisJoliet to the Mississippi River in 1673.There is a tendency to look upon the French exploration and fur trade inthe Great Lakes as a single, united effort, but this was not reallytrue.Competition between French traders was often as nasty as any intertribalrivalry. When Robert LaSalle attempted in 1679 to open trade with thetribes of the Illinois Confederacy living on the Illinois River, rivaltraders at Green Bay took advantage of the traditional animosity betweenthe Miami and Illinois and secretly urged the Miami and Mascouten nearthesouth end of Lake Michigan to block his access. LaSalle, however,slippedpast this and managed to establish Fort Crèvecoeur on the upperIllinoisin 1680. LaSalle left the trading post in the charge of Henri de Tontiandreturned to Canada, but as the Illinois and other tribes concentrated inthe area, the Iroquois reacted to the tendency of Illinois hunters tokillall of the young beaver in the Ohio Valley, and the peace of 1667 cametoa violent end with the beginning of the second phase of the Beaver Wars(1680-1700).The Miami also were concerned by the French trade with their Illinoisenemies and allied with the Iroquois. In the fall of 1680, they joined alarge Seneca war party attack on Fort Crèvecoeur and the Illinoisvillages. Forewarned, Tonti and the other French left the post and fledtoGreen Bay, but thousands of Illinois remained in the Illinois Valley andwere massacred. The survivors withdrew west of the Mississippi, but, asIroquois allies, the Miami were able to reestablish themselves in theirold homeland. Until the outbreak of war with the Dakota (Sioux) in 1692,they continued to occupy the Chicago and part of the Mississippi Valley,but Allouez found Miami villages on the St. Joseph River in southernMichigan in 1680. He also discovered two groups of Mahican living nearthem on the upper Kankakee River in northern Indiana (later absorbed),butthe Iroquois did not always appreciate the Miami's sense of hospitality.The alliance with the Iroquois quickly soured when the Miami alsoallowedgroups of Shawnee (Iroquois enemies) to settle among them. Threatened bytheir one-time allies in 1682, the Miami switched sides and allowedLaSalle to arrange a peace between them and the Illinois. Afterwards,theMiami Confederacy began to concentrate near Fort St. Louis, LaSalle'snewtrading post on the Illinois. The Seneca could not ignore the presenceof20,000 Algonquins trading with the French along the Illinois River andreturned in force to the area in 1684. The attacks first hit the Miamivillages in Indiana and then swept west into Illinois only to meetdefeatby an new alliance of Miami, Illinois, and French. The Seneca failure totake Fort St. Louis in 1684 is generally regarded as the western limitofIroquois expansion and the turning point of the Beaver Wars. The Frenchstrengthened their forts afterwards and began to provide arms to analliance of Great Lakes Algonquin which they had created against theIroquois. Coinciding with the King William's War (1688-97) betweenBritainand France, the alliance went on the offensive in 1687.By the 1690s the Iroquois were in serious trouble and retreating backacross the Great Lakes to New York. They were, however, still dangerous.Not only did marauding Iroquois war parties continue to make traveldangerous on the Illinois River for French traders, but the Senecadestroyed the Miami village near Chicago in 1687 while its warriors wereabsent. During their return to New York with the captured Miami womenandchildren, the Seneca left behind a trail of half-eaten children untilMiami warriors caught up and killed most of them. The manpower whicheventually defeated the Iroquois was almost entirely Algonquin. TheFrenchrole was largely limited to supplying arms and keeping the fragilealliance together by reconciling disputes among its members, but thiswascrucial. Despite the constant threat of Iroquois attack to both tribes,the traditional dislike between the Miami and Illinois was so strongthatHenri Tonti was forced to give presents to both in 1685 to keep themfighting the Iroquois and not each other. By 1688 even this provedinadequate, and the Miami left the area of Fort St. Louis and returnedtonorthern Indiana.Following in the wake of the Iroquois retreat, by 1700 all of the Miamiwere "back home again in Indiana" with most of their villagesconcentratedalong the upper Wabash and Kankakee Rivers while the Wea and Piankashawsettled on the middle and lower Wabash in the western part of the state.They had also occupied the St. Joseph River Valley in southern Michiganfor a number of years but had been forced to abandon it during 1695 whenit was occupied by another French ally, the Potawatomi. The KingWilliam'sWar between Britain and France ended in 1697 with the Treaty of Ryswickwhich placed the Iroquois League (without their asking) under theprotection of Great Britain. In general, the French emerged from the warin good position and had no desire for another confrontation with theBritish over their continuing war with the Iroquois. They were receptiveto the peace overtures made by the League in 1696, but, unfortunately,after years of warfare and victory within their grasp, their allies werenot as ready to make peace. Besides lingering hatreds, there was theserious issue of the return of prisoners captured and adopted into theIroquois. The French efforts to force a solution only created suspicionthey would break with their allies and make a separate peace with theIroquois.Peace between the Iroquois and the French and Algonquin was finallyarranged in 1701, just as another war broke out in Europe betweenBritainand France - Queen Anne's War (1701-13). The fighting spread to NorthAmerica but did not really affect the Great Lakes. The Iroquois wereexhausted and (except for the Mohawk) kept their promise to the Frenchandremained neutral in the conflict. All of which should have placed theFrench in a dominant position if not for decisions of the Frenchgovernment in 1696 which had destroyed the fabric of the Algonquinalliance. Coinciding with a glut of beaver fur on the European market,theFrench monarchy had finally succumbed to Jesuit protests about thedestructive nature of the fur trade on native societies and issued aproclamation curtailing trade in the western Great Lakes. The Frenchgovernor of Canada, Louis Frontenac, delayed implementation but in theendwas forced to close forts and trading posts. When the French surrenderedtheir chief means of influence, trade goods and presents, theircarefullyconstructed alliance came undone.The other bad decision was that in their rush to make peace and insureIroquois neutrality at the start of another war with Britain, the Frenchallowed the Iroquois to retain their claim to the Ohio Valley by rightofconquest during the Beaver Wars. Since the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697 hadplaced the League under British protection, this eventually opened thearea for British claims and laid the seeds for future conflict. However,for the moment, it allowed the Iroquois to skillfully switch to tradeanddiplomacy to undo the French military victory. Using the lure of Britishtraders at Albany, the Iroquois began to draw French allies like theOttawa and Wyandot into their influence. Frontenac's stubborn resistanceto the royal decree finally brought his dismissal in 1698, but hissuccessor solved the problem in 1701 by allowing Antoine Cadillac tobuildFort Pontchartrain at Detroit for trade with the tribes of the westernGreat Lakes.Cadillac began by asking the Wyandot and Ottawa from Michilimackinac tosettle at his new post but ended by inviting almost every tribe in theregion, including the Miami. The unfortunate result was that Ottawa,Wyandot, Miami,Ojibwe, Potawatomi, Fox, Sauk, Mascouten, Kickapoo, andeven Osage moved to Detroit, and the overcrowding and competition forthearea's limited resources aggravated rivalries which further weakened thealliance. The French lacked enough trade goods and influence to"keep thelid on" the mess they created. The Miami established a village nearDetroit in 1703 and were soon caught up in this conflict. Smallpox brokeout among the Illinois in 1704 and soon spread to the Miami. Two yearslater the Wea were asking for French officers and missionaries to besentto their village at Ouiatenon on the Wabash - an indication of a growingcrisis within the Miami between traditional chiefs and the rising powerofthe Midewiwin. The French, however, lacked the resources to respond atthetime.Oddly enough, actual war between the Miami and other French allies beganwell to the north of the mess at Detroit. In 1706 the Wyandot and agroupof Miami living near Michilimackinac attempted to prevent an Ottawaattackon the Dakota at the west end of Lake Superior by threatening to attackthe Ottawa village if the warriors left. The Ottawa retaliated with anambush that killed five Miami chiefs and drove the Miami to theprotectionof the French fort. Before the brief war was over 50 Miami and 30 Ottawawere dead, and the fighting had spread to Detroit. The French attemptedtoreconcile the parties but deliberately allowed the responsible Ottawachief Le Pesant to escape which made the Miami furious. The tensesituation escalated into open revolt in 1712 with an attack on FortPontchartrain by the Fox. The French were saved by their Ottawa, Ojibwe,and Potawatomi allies, but the Fox Wars (1712-16 and 1728-37) clearlydemonstrate how far the French alliance had fallen into disarray. In themidst of the French war with the Fox, Sieur de Vincennes had to mediateaseparate war that had broken out between the Miami and Peoria(Illinois).Meanwhile, all of this turmoil in the French alliance had not escapedtheattention of the Iroquois and British. To shorten the long trip requiredfor French allies to trade with the British, the Iroquois had givenpermission for Albany traders to build a trading post in their homelandatOswego in 1727. Within a year 80% of the beaver at Albany was comingfromFrench allies in the Great Lakes. The French reaction to thiscompetitionwas to encourage the Miami after 1715 to move closer to Detroit to keepthem away from British traders, but the Miami moved instead in theopposite direction into southern Indiana and western Ohio. An unknownepidemic (probably malaria) began in the Mississippi Valley in 1714 andpersisted until 1717 marking the beginning of a rapid decline in theMiamiand Illinois populations. The constant epidemics weakened the authorityofthe older chiefs tied to the French alliance, and the new leadership ofthe Miami was interested in exploring increased trade with the British.The French established a new network of trading posts atMichilimackinac,La Baye, Chequamegon, St. Joseph, Pimitoui, Niagara, and Fort Chartes.There were also new posts for the Miami at Forts Miamis, Ouiatenon, andVincennes (Fort Wayne, Lafayette, and Vincennes Indiana respectively),butit was too little and too late. By the 1730s most of the Miami and Weatrade was going to the Iroquois and British at Oswego. To make mattersworse, British goods were of higher quality and less expensive, so theerosion of the French trade monopoly continued in spite of their newposts. Dissatisfaction with the French goods and prices sometimes turnedviolent. After a brawl between a French soldier and Wea warrior at FortOuiatenon in 1734, the Wea attacked and plundered the entire post.Takingadvantage, British and Iroquois traders began to visit Ohio and tradedirect.With the start of the King George's War (1744-48), the Miami and Weastoodbeside the French, at least to the extent of continuing the war againstthe British-allied Chickasaw south of the Ohio. However, thisrelationshipbecame increasingly strained after a British blockade of Canada cut thesupply of French trade goods. By 1747 even the always-loyal Wyandot hadrebelled and were trading with the British. The Miami of Chief Memeskia(La Demoiselle to the French) in western Ohio had joined the revolt andsacked another French post because there were no annual presents. TheMiami and Wyandot rebels even signed a treaty at Lancaster in 1748 withPennsylvania allowing the British to build trading posts in Ohio. Mingo,Delaware, and Shawnee (members of the Iroquois covenant chain) hadsettledin Ohio and were defying French claims to the area. The French were ingrave danger of losing, not only Ohio, but the entire Great Lakes.British traders established a post at Memeskia's village at Pickawillany(Piqua, Ohio). After he had signed the Lancaster treaty, Memeskia becameknown to them as "Old Britain" and began inviting tribes fromas far westas Illinois to visit his village for trade with the British. By 1751eventhe Illinois, normally devoted to the French, were conspiring in anattempt to break the French trade monopoly. However, the Piankashawresponse to the Illinois overtures was to launch an attack on theKaskaskia. French demands to La Demoiselle to expel the British traderswere ignored, so the French decided on force. The problem was theDetroittribes were reluctant to attack the Ohio tribes trading with theBritish.In desperation, the French organized a war party of 250 MichilimackinacOttawa and Ojibwe under the command of the Métis, CharlesLanglade and inJune, 1752 destroyed Pickawillany. "Old Britain" was killedand eaten bythe Ottawa, and the other French allies trading with the British werequick to "digest" the message.If the Miami had any thoughts of avenging Memeskia, they put them asidewhen they were attacked by the Fox later that year. The French followedtheir attack on Pickawillany by lowering prices and increasing theirsupply of trade goods. The rebellion began to collapse, and in the fallthe Wyandot renewed attacks on the Chickasaw as part of the alliance.Thefollowing July, the Miami, Potawatomi, and Sauk apologized to theFrench,rejoined the alliance, and returned the Iroquois wampum belt they hadaccepted at the Treaty of Lancaster in 1748. With their allies fallinginto line, the French began to build a line of new forts across westernPennsylvania to isolate Ohio from British traders. Unfortunately, bothVirginia and Pennsylvania also claimed Ohio, and a demand brought in1754by Virginia militia major George Washington to halt the construction andabandon these forts ended in a fight with French soldiers which startedthe last French and British war for North America, the French and IndianWar (1755-63).The Miami were French allies during the war but not especially active inthe fighting. They even tried to make peace with the British through atreaty signed with Pennsylvania trader George Croghan in 1757, but afterraids by the Shawnee and Delaware against thefrontier, this was rejectedby the Virginia legislature. Other French allies brought smallpox backtothe Ohio Valley from Fort William Henry in New York that fall, and theresulting epidemic spread throughout the Great Lakes taking its toll onthe Miami. The French defeat became almost certain after the fall ofQuebec in September, 1759, and British troops occupied most of theFrenchforts including Vincennes, Miamis, and Ouiatenon in Indiana thefollowingyear. Perhaps anticipating a renewal of British trade, the Miami made noeffort to oppose the takeover, but things had changed. No longer forcedtocompete with the French, the British ended annual presents to chiefs andplaced high prices on their trade goods restricting the supply,especiallygunpowder.Over the years, the tribes had become dependent on these items forsurvival, and tribal chiefs distributed the annual presents theyreceivedto their tribesmen in a show of generosity designed to reinforce theirauthority. For obvious reasons, the reaction to this British stinginesswas severe. An attempt by the Seneca in 1761 to lead an uprising failedwhen it was discovered by the British during a Detroit meeting with thetribes of the old French alliance. Meanwhile, the British had assumedtheFrench role of mediating intertribal disputes and prevented a warbetweenthe Miami, Ottawa, and Potawatomi over western Ohio. There were cropfailures and sickness in the Ohio Valley during 1762, and the unrestgrew.Many of the Miami accepted the teachings of Neolin, the DelawareProphet,but they interpreted his message in a gentle way. Perhaps theyrememberedthe British had ended their dispute with the Shawnee when they joinedthePontiac Rebellion against the British in 1763. More likely, they hadserious doubts about the chances of Pontiac's success, and after theycaptured Fort Ouiatenon, the Miami were very careful to insure that noharm befell their British prisoners.Pontiac failed to take Detroit and, threatened by his own people,abandoned his village and retreated west. The Miami allowed him tosettlein northern Indiana but were urging all the while that he come to termswith the British. After meetings at Detroit and Ouiatenon, Pontiac madepeace at Detroit in 1765 followed by a second agreement at Fort Oswego(New York) in 1766. However, Pontiac's peace did not extend to his moremilitant followers. The Kickapoo attacked a British expedition sent totake control of the Illinois country in 1765 but in the process killedthree Shawnee chiefs who were part of its escort. The Kickapoo stillhatedthe British, but they did not want a war with the Shawnee and used theMiami to ask the British to mediate and "cover the dead."Stunned by the scale of the native revolt which captured six of ninefortsin the region, the British took measures to end the discontent. Tradegoods were restored to previous levels, and the Proclamation of 1763issued stopping further settlement west of the Appalachians. Feelingswerestill strong against the British, and Pontiac himself fell victim tothesein 1769 when, after an argument, he was murdered by a Peoria at Cahokia(Illinois). Pontiac may have fallen into some disrepute because of hisdealings with the British, but he still commanded considerable loyaltywithin the old French alliance. The Potawatomi, Ojibwe, Ottawa,Winnebago,Fox, Sauk, Kickapoo, and Mascouten all united against the Illinois toavenge his death, and the resulting genocidal war almost destroyed theIllinois. The Miami, however, had made their peace earlier with theIllinois and took no part in this. In the shift of tribal territoriesfollowing the Pontiac Rebellion, the only change made by the Miami waswhen the eastern groups abandoned western Ohio to the Shawnee and movedtoIndiana.The Kickapoo occupied much of central Illinois and the lower WabashValleyafter the destruction of the Illinois, and with the Piankashaw and Weaformed a loose, anti-British coalition known as the Wabash tribes. Therest of the Miami, however, were more attached with the Wyandot, Ottawa,and Potawatomi who lived near Detroit. The period of peace after thePontiac Rebellion was very brief. Within a few years, the British wereunder heavy pressure from their colonies to rescind the 1763proclamationand open the Ohio Valley to settlement. American frontiersmen weresimplymoving in and squatting in defiance of the law. The British could notstopthis, but their most serious opposition came from wealthy colonistsheavily invested in the Ohio lands claimed by both Pennsylvania andVirginia. Virginia had chartered the Ohio Company in 1749 with a grantof500,000 acres. Its investors included, among others, Lawrence Washingtonwhose interest upon his death in 1752 passed to his younger half-brotherGeorge.Threatened with revolt, Sir William Johnson, the British Indian agentforNorth America (also a land speculator), met with the Iroquois at FortStanwix (New York) in 1768 and got them to agree to cede Ohio in ordertoprotect their own homeland. Further treaties were made with the Cherokeein 1774 to extinguish their claims to Kentucky and West Virginia, but noone bothered to consult the Shawnee, Mingo, and Delaware who actuallylived there. Their protests to the Iroquois League ignored, the Shawneemade overtures to the Miami, Piankashaw, Wea, Illinois, Kickapoo,Potawatomi, Wyandot, Ottawa, Delaware, Mascouten, Ojibwe, Cherokee, andChickasaw. Meetings were held at the Shawnee villages in 1770 and 1771,but Johnson was able to thwart the formation of an alliance. Meanwhile,the Delaware made plans to leave the disputed area, and in 1770 obtainedpermission from the Piankashaw to settle in southern Indiana leaving theShawnee and Mingo to fight the invasion by themselves.As settlers moved into the area, there were confrontations. Afterclashesbetween Virginia surveyors and Shawnee in Kentucky during 1773, frontiervigilantes massacred groups of Shawnee and Mingo near Wheeling, WestVirginia, and native retaliation started Lord Dunmore's War (1774). TheShawnee asked the other Ohio Valley tribes for help, but William Johnsonkept the Miami, Wyandot, and Detroit tribes out with threats theIroquoiswould enter the war on the side of the British. He also prevented theWabash tribes from helping the Shawnee by invalidating the claims of theWabash Company to the lower Wabash. The Delaware also chose to remainneutral, and the Shawnee and Mingo were defeated after a furious battleatPoint Pleasant (West Virginia) in 1774 and later forced to sign a peacerenouncing all their claims to Kentucky.By the time the Revolutionary War (1775-83) started the following year,American frontiersmen were pouring into Kentucky and westernPennsylvania.The British were well aware one of the main causes of the revolution wasthe American demand for the Ohio Valley, so they withdrew theirgarrisonsto Detroit and began urging the Ohio tribes to attack the newsettlements.Most at first, including the Miami, chose to remain neutral, but theBritish were successful with the Detroit tribes, Ojibwe, St. JosephPotawatomi, Chickamauga (Cherokee), Mingo, and part of the Shawnee.Armedby the British, the Chickamauga attacked the Tennessee frontier in 1776while the Shawnee struck Kentucky. The raids and reprisals by"civilianwar parties" quickly grew into a brutal, all-out war between redand whitein the Ohio Valley. Ironically, by 1778 the British and Iroquois werebothencouraging a war which was the natural result of their self-servingagreement at Fort Stanwix ten-years before.In the midst of this, the Americans became aware the British hadwithdrawn, or greatly reduced, their garrisons in the Illinois country.George Rogers Clark, Kentucky land speculator and militia leader, passedthis information to Virginia governor Patrick Henry and in January, 1778received orders to raise a small army to capture it. Clark left Kentuckyin May with 200 men and, after winning the allegiance of the Frenchsettlers by pointing out that France and the United States were allies,took the British forts at Vincennes (Fort Sackville) and Kaskaskia inAugust. The British reacted to the loss of the Illinois Country and,withthe help of the Detroit tribes, re-occupied Fort Sackville in December.The French at Vincennes switched sides, but Clark recaptured FortSackville after a daring mid-winter march across southern Illinois fromKaskaskia achieved complete surprise. Following a brief siege, theBritishsurrendered in February, 1779.Perhaps thinking the American conquest would restore French rule, thePiankashaw and other Wabash tribes (who had avoided the British sincethePontiac Rebellion) welcomed the Americans and even offered to help Clarkretake Vincennes and attack Detroit. Even the Miami, who so far had beenmostly neutral in the war, were willing to cooperate. Clark may havebeena diplomat winning over the French in Illinois, but he was a warriorwhenit came to Native Americans. Like most of the Kentucky frontiersmen, hesimply hated them, and this became very apparent when he spurned thePiankashaw and Kickapoo offer of assistance and massacred the Britishnative allies taken prisoner at Fort Sackville. If the Miami had anythoughts of joining the Americans, they ended with Clark's insults andheavy-handed brutality. Rather than securing the Ohio Valley for theUnited States, Clark's victories actually escalated the war west of theAppalachians. By the beginning of 1780, the British were planning amajoroffensive to seize the entire Mississippi Basin.In April an expedition left Detroit to attack Kentucky with 600warriors.Picking up strength from the Miami and Shawnee in western Ohio, it haddoubled in size when it reached the Ohio River. During the next threemonths, it brought unprecedented waves of death and destructionthroughoutKentucky before returning to Ohio with 350 American prisoners, mostlywomen and children. Meanwhile, Spain had entered the war against GreatBritain, and the British attacked St. Louis in May with a force of 1,000Fox, Sauk, Potawatomi, Menominee, and Winnebago. St. Louis held withheavylosses, but the British burned Cahokia before leaving. Clark retaliatedbyattacking the Shawnee villages on the Mad River in western Ohio inAugust,and in February, 1781 Spanish soldiers burned the British fort at St.Joseph, Michigan. The Delaware, who had been American allies, joined theBritish after Daniel Brodhead's Pennsylvania militia destroyed theircapital at Coshocton, Ohio. By 1782 no tribe was neutral in the OhioValley, and despite the efforts of the French at Vincennes to keep themout, even the Wabash tribes and Peoria (Illinois) had joined the fightagainst the Americans.Throughout 1782, the British agent at Detroit, Simon De Peyster, urgedthetribes to form an alliance, and to this end, he had mediated disputesbetween the Miami and Potawatomi; and the Ojibwe and Winnebago, Fox,Sauk,and Menominee. The Revolutionary War ended with the Treaty of Paris in1783, and George Rogers Clark's victories in Ohio and Illinois hadextended the United States border to the Mississippi. The British,however, had made no provision in the treaty to protect their nativeallies, and this allowed the Americans to treat them as "conqueredenemies." The Ohio tribes had never been defeated, but the Iroquoishadalmost been destroyed in 1779. Retaliating for earlier raids in New Yorkand Pennsylvania, three American armies had invaded the Iroquoishomelandand burned 40 villages forcing them to flee to Canada. Immediately afterthe war, American negotiators, as a condition of peace at the secondTreaty of Fort Stanwix (1784), forced the Iroquois to cede much of theirNew York homeland and reconfirm their Ohio cessions in 1768.The Mohawk of Joseph Brant were conspicuous by their absence at the FortStanwix, and remaining in Canada, they were still hostile to the UnitedStates. The previous year, De Peyster had brought Brant west for ameetingof the Ohio tribes at Sandusky, and his influence was instrumental inthecreation of the formal alliance the British had wanted. Its firstcouncilfire was at the Shawnee village of Wakatomica but was moved toBrownstown(south of Detroit) after Wakatomica was burned by the Americans in 1787.Officially, the British told their former allies to cease attacks onAmerican settlements, but they made it quite clear they would be willingto support th with trade and arms against the Americans. Meanwhile, theBritish used the American failure to pay the claims of British loyalists(Tories) as an excuse to continue to occupy forts on American territoryindefiance of the Treaty of Paris.Despite the ominous signs, there was a lull in the fighting after 1783during which 12,000 frontiersmen poured across the Ohio River to squatonnative lands. Short of civil war, there was little the American militarycommander, Colonel Josiah Harmar, could do to prevent this. To payRevolutionary War debts, Congress had already sold land rights to theOhioCompany and John Symmes representing a New Jersey syndicate. Thesquatterswere paying nothing for the lands they were taking, but they hatedNativeAmericans and could very easily start a war. Since it was obvious theOhiotribes no longer recognized the authority of the Iroquois, the UnitedStates needed to reach an agreement with them over its claim to Ohio.Unfortunately, Americans viewed the western alliance as a British plot(true in many ways), and decided they would only negotiate with theindividual tribes.The Treaty of Fort McIntosh (1785) signed with the Wyandot, Delaware, and the Detroit Ottawa, and Ojibwe agreed to the Muskingum River as the frontier between settlement and native lands. A similar agreement was signed the following year with the Shawnee at Fort Finney (Greater Miami Treaty) (1786). The chiefs who signed these treaties, however, did not represent the alliance or sometimes the majority of their own tribes, many of whom were willing to fight for the Ohio River, not the Muskingum, as the boundary. On the other side, the American negotiators signed for a weak government in Philadelphia which could not control the frontiersmen who would not be satisfied until they had the entire Ohio Valley. Treaties and diplomacy soon gave way to violence. The Miami village of Ouiatenon became a important staging point for raids into Kentucky forcing its French inhabitants to evacuate.At the beginning of 1786, there were 400 American settlers scatteredamongthe French population on the lower Wabash River at Vincennes. In keepingwith a long-standing tradition of the frontier economy, they raised cornand converted much of it into whiskey which was sold to anyone willingtopay - including the Piankashaw, Wea, and Kickapoo in the vicinity. Afterseveral confrontations over this trade, a war party of 400 to 700 Miami(Wea) arrived in Vincennes and told the French they had come to kill theAmericans. The French stalled, and the Americans moved into their fortsand sent to Kentucky for help. This was the perfect opportunity forGeorgeRogers Clark, who had been petitioning Congress since 1783 for a waragainst the Ohio tribes and had volunteered to lead it. Clark arrived atVincennes in the fall with some hastily recruited Kentucky militia, halfof whom immediately deserted when there was no fighting, but Clark keptthe others together and sent an expedition to Kaskaskia (Illinois) toarrest a British trader and three Frenchmen as a Spanish agents. Coolerheads prevailed, however, and just as Clark was about to start a majorwar, Colonel Harmar ordered him to disband and go home.Many members of the alliance chose to fight American encroachment in1786by attacking the settlements north of the Ohio River. At their councilthat fall, Joseph Brant made a speech which convinced the alliance todemand the Ohio as a boundary. Moderates, however, were able to gainagreement for a temporary truce to allow time for its demands to reachCongress. If there was no reply, raids would resume in the spring. Theirtiming could not have been worse. The Americans were in the process ofrecreating their government under a new Constitution, so there was nottime for a "minor matter" like peace in Ohio. Congress did notreceive themessage until July, and the raids had already resumed. During thesummer,Benjamin Logan's Kentucky militia retaliated by attacking and burningtheShawnee villages in western Ohio.The American governor, Arthur St. Clair, made a final attempt to resolvethe dispute and in December, 1787 asked the alliance for a conference atFort Harmar on the falls of Muskingum. The council agreed to meet anddecided to settle for the Muskingum as the border, but there was seriousdisagreement to this decision. Joseph Brant demanded the repudiation ofall treaties ceding any part of Ohio and left the meeting in disgust toreturn to Ontario. The Miami, Kickapoo, and Shawnee were also opposed,butthe Wyandot convinced the Delaware and Detroit tribes to attend. Withhalfof the alliance determined to ignore any agreement, the period precedingthe peace conference was anything but peaceful. In July Fort Harmarsoldiers building the council house for the meeting were attacked by anOttawa-Ojibwe war party. The Kickapoo ambushed an army convoy bringingsupplies to Vincennes at the mouth of the Wabash, and the Miami killedland speculator, John Symmes, while he was exploring the upper MiamiRiver.The Fort Harmar Treaty (January, 1789) ceded all of Ohio east ofMuskingumbut was worthless as soon as it was signed. Although the Wabash tribesattempted to make a separate peace with the Americans, they wereattackedin the summer of 1789 by Patrick Brown's Kentuckians. The Piankashaw andVermilion Kickapoo moved west afterwards and got even by raidingAmericansettlements in Illinois. With the Wea, Piankashaw, and Kickapoo on theWabash River deferring to the leadership of the Miami war chiefMichikinikwa (Mischecanocquah "Little Turtle"), militantfactions of theMiami and Shawnee established a consensus within the alliance favoringwar, and the last hope of a peaceful solution was lost. Realizing themilitants had taken control of the alliance, the Americans decided toresolve ownership of Ohio through force. Treaties having failed, theyhadno other choice - the United States needed the land!Few Americans realize today, how crucial the conquest of the Ohio Valleywas for the survival of the United States in 1790. EnormousRevolutionaryWar debts made its currency worthless, the new nation was in danger ofeconomic collapse unless these could be paid though the sale of Ohioland.The situation was so critical that a normally ineffective Congress putaside its differences long enough to pass the Northwest Ordinance of1787- its only real accomplishment under the Articles of Confederation(established how settlements were organized into territories andsubsequently admitted as states). Taking Ohio was also a factor in theAmerican decision to replace the Articles of Confederation with theConstitution. The new central government was then able to create theUnited States army whose main purpose during its first 100 years was tofight Indians.Nor was it accidental that the first president was George Washington, aman thrust into history by his efforts to make good on his claims tolandin Ohio. After inheriting his half-brother Lawrence's interest in theOhioCompany in 1752, Washington's attempts to force the French out of Ohiostarted the French and Indian War (the first worldwide conflict), but heultimately added to his original holdings with grants for service in theVirginia militia during the conflict. The Proclamation of 1763 made histitles worthless, so it is obvious why Washington chose the rebel sideinthe Revolution. Ineffectual government, afterwards, denied him thefruitsof victory after 1783, so Washington took a leading role in writing thenew constitution and, as president, directed a war which finally tookOhio. When he died in 1799, George Washington owned 63,000 acres ofland.Mount Vernon, his personal estate on the Potomac was large, but themajority of his land was west of the Appalachians in the Ohio Valley.So the stage was set for Little Turtle's War (1790-94), with both sidesfacing a situation from which they could neither retreat nor compromise.Meanwhile, the British were gleefully sitting in their forts andsupporting the western alliance to keep the Americans out of Ohio. Theiraid to the Ohio tribes was entirely self-serving and had nothing to dowith defending Native American claims to their land, since the Britishhadnever admitted there was such a thing. Despite their protests of needinganative buffer to protect Upper Canada from American expansion or theAmerican failure to pay the Loyalist claims, the British were perfectlyaware of the American dilemma, and there is little doubt they fullyintended to recover through an economic collapse what they had lostthrough force of arms during the Revolutionary War.However, to take Ohio, the Americans first had to create an army, sincethey had not had one since 1783. All that was immediately available werestate militia of questionable leadership and reliability. The newpresident was too impatient to allow the time needed for this, orperhapshe underestimated his enemy. The alliance was well-armed by the Britishand could muster 2,000 warriors when required. This made them formidableenough, but they were led by the Miami war chief Little Turtle, the sonofa Miami father and Mahican mother, who turned out to be something of amilitary genius adept in the tactics of allowing an enemy to advanceuntilexposed and vulnerable. The initial American efforts to take Ohio weredisasters. Washington ordered Josiah Harmar - a revolutionary soldierknown better for his hard-drinking than his skills as an Indian fighter-to destroy the Miami villages on the upper Wabash. On October 22nd,LittleTurtle caught Harmar's 300 regulars and 1,200 militia fording the Wabashnear present-day Fort Wayne, Indiana and sent them back to FortWashingtonat Cincinnati with over 200 casualties.In November Major John Hamtramck attacked the Wabash villages, but thiswas small compensation for Harmar's debacle. Washington was accustomedtoadversity, and after Harmar resigned in March, 1791, he commissionedArthur St. Clair a major general and commander of the American forces inOhio with specific instructions to be careful of "surprise."St. Clair,however, was disliked in Kentucky and had trouble recruiting an army. Heeventually assembled 2,000 militia at Fort Hamilton (just north ofCincinnati) and moved north in the fall. Despite Washington's warnings,St. Clair was surprised on November 4th near the future site of FortRecovery, Ohio and almost overrun by Little Turtle's early morningassaultof 1,200 warriors. The confused retreat degenerated into a complete routwith the soldiers abandoning their weapons and wounded. The alliancelost56 warriors in the greatest Native American victory over an Americanarmy,while St. Clair lost over 600 killed and 400 wounded from a total forceof2,000. The mouths of the American dead were found later filled withdirt,the only piece of Ohio they would ever get.When the news reached Washington, he went into a rage. St. Clairresignedfrom the Army but remained as governor of the Northwest Territory. TheAmericans could not afford to lose, and when Washington calmed down, hesent "Mad Anthony" Wayne to Ohio. Wayne was neither mad norrash, but adeliberate and methodical man who soon proved to the alliance that hewasgoing to a more serious threat than his predecessors. Wayne spent almosttwo years training his "Legion," a large group of disciplinedregulars toback the skittish militia. Meanwhile, he began building an extensivesupply system of roads and forts aimed directly at the Maumee Rivervillages (Toledo, Ohio) which were the heart of the alliance. The Miamiwatched his careful preparations and began to call him"Blacksnake,"because like the blacksnake (who they considered the wisest of allsnakes), Wayne sat quietly and waited for the right moment to strike.While Wayne prepared, the Americans (worried a military confrontationcould lead to war with the British) continued efforts to negotiate asettlement. The Iroquois attempted to mediate the dispute in 1792, butafter Little Turtle's easy victories the previous two years, thealliancewas in no mood for compromise. Calling the Iroquois "coward redmen," theythrew the American proposal in the fire, and the representatives of theonce powerful Iroquois League were fortunate to leave the meeting withtheir lives. Two other American peace commissioners, John Hardin andAlexander Trueman, were not so lucky and were murdered by the Shawneeenroute to a conference. The Americans kept trying and in the fall, thecouncil met at Auglaize (Defiance, Ohio) to consider its position foranother meeting with the Americans that coming summer. Joseph Brant andthe British continued to encourage resistance, but Little Turtle wasbeginning to have doubts about facing Wayne.Following the alliance's victories in 1790 and 1791, raids had continuedagainst the settlements, but the "Black Snake" had kept hisarmy intactand refused to scatter it across the frontier in small garrisons.Meanwhile, the alliance was coming undone. An American attack on theWabash tribes in 1791 had captured a large number of women and children,and the following year the Wea, Piankashaw, and Kickapoo had made peacetoget them back. With the Wabash tribes neutral, the Fox and Sauk left thealliance in 1792 because there was not enough food to feed them. Unlikethe year before, the American delegation for the peace conference in1793arrived safely, mainly because it included Hendrick Aupamut, aStockbridgeIndian with many relatives among the Delaware. The meeting reached animpasse in July and ended without any resolution. In October Waynereceived orders to begin his advance into Ohio.Little Turtle ambushed one of Wayne's supply columns near Ludlow Spring,Ohio, but Wayne was still able to establish himself for the winter atFortGreenville 80 miles north of Cincinnati. In the spring, the Britishresponded to Wayne's move north by building Fort Miami at the falls oftheMaumee River. Many of the alliance tribes took this as a sign ofsupport,but it was a bluff. The British had already decided to reach anaccommodation with the Americans rather than risk war. Wayne ignored thenew British fort and resumed his advance in July supporting it with achain of forts extending north from Fort Greenville. Alliance warriorsattacked Fort Recovery but failed to capture it. On August 13th, a warcouncil was held on banks of the Maumee. Only the Shawnee, Miami, andWyandot favored continuing the war. Lacking a consensus, the councilaskedJoseph Brant to negotiate a truce with the Americans, but he refused andsided with the militants. With reluctance, the alliance decided tofight.Little Turtle, however, had been among those urging caution and negotiation. Called a coward in the course of the debate, the man who had given the alliance its greatest victories was replaced on the eve of battle. His replacement was the Shawnee war chief, Bluejacket, not the mythical Ottawa Turkey Foot of some accounts. Little Turtle accepted his demotion with grace and continued to support the alliance as the Miami war chief. Estimates of how many warriors Bluejacket actually had when he faced Wayne a week later at Fallen Timbers varies from 700 to 2,000. The hard-fought battle was not really significant from the standpoint of casualties, or the tribes involved, as by what happened afterwards. Driven from the field, the retreating warriors saw the British at Fort Miami close their gates to them rather than risk a fight with the Americans.Wayne spent the next three days destroying crops and villages in the area and, after marching his Legion to the gates of the British fort, turned around and returned to Fort Defiance on the Auglaize. A month later, he moved into northeastern Indiana, destroyed the Miami villages on the upper Maumee, and built Fort Wayne. Having insured a hungry winter for the alliance, the "Blacksnake" returned to Fort Greenville and waited. In November the Jay Treaty was signed between Great Britain and the United States in which the British, among other things, agreed to finally leave their forts on American territory. Defeated and abandoned by their British allies, the alliance had no choice but to come to terms with the Americans and make peace. In August, 1795 the alliance chiefs signed the Treaty of Fort Greenville ceding all of Ohio except the northwestern part and some of southeastern Indiana. The last battle of the American Revolution was over, and settlers poured into the new lands. Kentucky became a state in 1792; Tennessee in 1796; and Ohio in 1803.Little Turtle and the Miami had symbolically been the last to sign at the treaty at Greenville and afterwards settled on the upper Wabash southwest of Fort Wayne. Little Turtle established his village on the Eel River, and, as was often the case when dangerous enemies had been defeated, the Americans lionized him. He was given a large house and invited to visit the president. Washington presented him with a sword, and Little Turtle so valued this he was buried with it. Little Turtle reciprocated to all of this adulation by becoming the Miami "peace chief," and as the most prominent former enemy, he became the most prominent peace chief and a strong force supporting the Greenville Treaty and accommodation with the Americans. His opposition, or rather lack of support, was an important reason for the failure of Bluejacket's attempt to bring back the alliance in 1801.Little Turtle introduced smallpox vaccination among the Miami byallowinghis family and himself to be vaccinated first, but his efforts to stopthespread of alcoholism among the Miami failed. The extent of the problemisapparent from Indian Bureau records in which the agent reported in 1847that, of 286 Miami in Kansas, 165 were "inebriates." Alcoholwas a majorproblem on the frontier for both red and white because it was so widelyavailable. Rather than a conscious plan to destroy Native Americans,"moonshine" was a traditional product of a frontier economyshort on cashand lacking the roads needed to move crops to eastern markets. Excessgrain was converted into whiskey which was easier to transport, and whenthe new federal government tried to limit production with taxes, theresult was the Whiskey Rebellion during which President GeorgeWashingtonwas forced to personally lead troops in 1794 to restore order in westernPennsylvania.After 1795 the Delaware and some Shawnee left Ohio and settled withMiamipermission along the White River in east-central Indiana. While Americansquatters continued to encroach on native lands beyond the GreenvilleTreaty line, William Henry Harrison, governor of the NorthwestTerritory,pressed the peace chiefs to cede more land for settlement. His work wasmade all the easier by the debts (often for whiskey) which the tribesaccumulated with American traders. Needing money to pay these, they soldland, and in a vicious cycle, some of the money received was used to buymore whiskey leading to more debts. After the Kaskaskia (Illinois) cededmost of southern Illinois in 1803, the Piankashaw and Wea also cededtheirclaims to the area in a treaty signed at Vincennes the following year.Beyond the original 11.8 million acres of Ohio ceded in 1795 atGreenville, within ten years Harrison and other American negotiators hadadded more than 21 million acres. Especially annoying to the Miami wastheselling by the Delaware of some of the Miami's land in southern Indiana.Utilizing the traditional authority accorded to Miami chiefs, LittleTurtle squashed most of the dissent, and the matter was finally resolvedby treaties which compensated the Miami for their loss. The land salesadded to an already volatile atmosphere of social disintegration fueledbydefeat and alcoholism in which peace chiefs were often murdered by theirown people. After receiving a religious vision in 1805, Tenskwatawa, theShawnee Prophet, began preaching a return to the traditional nativevaluesand a rejection of the white man's trade goods, especially whiskey. Thisin itself would have been good, but Tenskwatawa's brother Tecumshe addedapolitical element of no additional sales of tribal lands placing thereligious movement in direct opposition to the peace chiefs and theAmericans.In the spring of 1806, the Prophet's movement got an uneasy start when aseries of witch-hunts by his followers in the Delaware and Wyandotvillages turned most of these important members of the old allianceagainst him. However, his reputation grew after he predicted a solareclipse that summer. Thousands of new followers visited his village,defiantly located on the grounds of deserted Fort Greenville, but withtheactive opposition of the older peace chiefs (especially Little Turtle),the strongest support for Tenskwatawa and Tecumseh came from the westerntribes of the Ohio Valley. The Miami were interested, but LittleTurtle'sinfluence over his people kept them away. Tecumseh decided to ignore thepeace chiefs and build his own alliance. In May, 1808 Tenskwatawaabandoned Greenville and relocated his capital, with the permission oftheKickapoo and Potawatomi, to Prophetstown on Tippecanoe Creek in westernIndiana. The new location was no accident and was intended as achallengeto Little Turtle who lived nearby. In June Tecumseh visited Canada andsecured promises of British aid in case of war with the Americans.Ignoring Tecumseh's demand to stop all land cessions, the Miami,Delaware,Potawatomi, Kickapoo, Shawnee, and Kaskaskia peace chiefs in September,1809 sold 3,000,000 acres of southern Indiana and Illinois to the UnitedStates at Fort Wayne. Tecumseh was furious, refused to accept thetreaty,and threatened the chiefs who signed it with death. In June his Wyandotfollowers executed the Wyandot chief Leatherlips and brought thecalumet and wampum of the old alliance to Prophetstown. The reaction ofLittle Turtle and the peace chiefs meeting at Brownstown was to condemnthe Prophet as a witch. In August Tecumseh met Harrison at Vincennes toprotest the Fort Wayne treaty, but the exchange of harsh words almostresulted in a battle. Tecumseh and Harrison met the following summer butaccomplished nothing. Afterwards, Tecumseh went south in the fall of1811to recruit the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Cherokee to his cause.During his absence, the Potawatomi attacked American settlements insouthern Illinois bringing the frontier to the point of war. Harrisonraised an army at Vincennes and, after building Fort Harrison on thetreaty line near Terre Haute, marched on Prophetstown in November.Disregarding Tecumseh's instructions to avoid a fight with the Americanswhile he was gone, Tenskwatawa ordered an attack on Harrison's camp. TheBattle of Tippecanoe followed. The Prophet's warriors were finallyforcedto withdraw, the Americans burned Prophetstown. The defeat wassignificant, not so much in military terms, but for destroyingTenskwatawa's reputation as a prophet. When Tecumseh returned inJanuary,his hard-won alliance of 3,000 warriors to stop American expansion hadfallen apart. By the time war was declared between the United States andGreat Britain in June, 1812, Tecumseh had only managed to regainone-thirdof his original following.In May Tecumseh met with the alliance chiefs on the Mississinewa Rivernear present-day Peru, Indiana. Little Turtle had grown sick and old bythis time, but because of his opposition to Tecumseh, few Miami warriorsjoined the British. His attitude was shared by Black Hoof's Shawnee,Tahre's Wyandot, and Captain William Anderson's Delaware. Despite this,Tecumseh still had enough followers to raise havoc at the onset of thewar. Michilimackinac was captured in July, and the American garrisonabandoned Fort Dearborn (Chicago) but was massacred enroute to Detroit.Detroit surrendered in August after the Wyandot at Brownstown joinedTecumseh who was helping with the British siege of the fort. More fortsfell or were abandoned, and raids struck American settlements the entirefrontier west to Missouri. During a visit to Fort Wayne in July, LittleTurtle died at age 70. Without his influence, most of the Miami promptlywent over to Tecumseh and sent a war belt to the Delaware asking them tojoin them. The Delaware, however, chose to remain neutral.The only bright note for the Americans was in September when the Prophetand his warriors failed to take Fort Harrison defended by Zachary Taylorand 50 regulars. Otherwise, disaster followed disaster. William HenryHarrison was given command of American forces in the Northwest and beganto turn the tide. One his first actions was to attack the Miami villageson the Mississinewa to keep them from giving aid to Tecumseh. TheProphetwas forced to abandon Prophetstown for a second time and retreated intoCanada. In January, 1813 Harrison relocated the Delaware from Indiana tothe Shawnee villages at Piqua, Ohio for their "safety." Thenhe moved hisarmy to the upper Sandusky River in northwest Ohio and built Fort Meigstoprotect the American settlements farther south. Two attempts by Tecumsehand the British to take Fort Meigs failed that summer, and after OliverPerry's naval victory on Lake Erie, Harrison began his advance onDetroit.British resistance crumbled. Detroit fell without a struggle, andTecumsehwas killed at the Battle of the Thames in October while covering theBritish retreat across southern Ontario. For the most part, native resistance ended with the death of Tecumseh.Atthe Second Treaty of Greenville (July, 1814), Harrison and the loyalchiefs of the Delaware, Seneca, Shawnee, and Wyandot officially endedhostilities with the Kickapoo, Miami, Ottawa and Potawatomi who hadfoughtfor Tecumseh and the British. A separate treaty was signed with thePiankashaw at Portage des Sioux just north of St. Louis a year later.Someof Tecumseh's followers remained in Ontario after the war but, aftermaking peace at Spring Wells (September, 1815), returned to the UnitedStates. The War of 1812 ended in a draw between Britain and the UnitedStates, but the tribes of the Old Northwest had been decisivelydefeated.The Americans knew this and were quick to take advantage. After Indianaentered the union as the 19th state in 1816, pressure increased toextinguish the remaining native claims.The first step was a treaty signed at Fort Harrison in 1816 with the Weaand Kickapoo confirming earlier cessions, but the major losses came twoyears later. In January, 1818 the Piankashaw confirmed previous treatiesand ceded all of their land except for a two square mile (1280 acre)reservation on the Wabash. In October a series of treaties wereconcludedat St. Marys with the Indiana tribes, with the Delaware ceding all theirland in Indiana and agreeing to move to Missouri. In their treaty, theMiami and Wea relinquished almost six million acres to the United Statesbut kept seven reserves totalling almost a million acres in the northernpart of the state. At the same time, nineteen Miami chiefs acquiredseparate sections of land in fee simple. By 1820 the Wea had signed atreaty at Vincennes ceding their Indiana land from the 1818 St. MarysTreaty and agreed to remove to Missouri. The actual move took severalyears with the last groups of Piankashaw not leaving Illinois until1828,and some Wea remaining in Indiana until 1832. Ultimately, 150 Piankashawand 330 Wea were settled on 160,000 acres in southwest Missouri near theDelaware and Kickapoo.In general, these peoples had usually gotten along, but unfortunately, there was a serious dispute about the murder of six Delaware by Miami warriors in a separate incidents stretching back to 1809. The Delaware demanded payment, but the Miami reminded the Delaware they had allowed them to settle in Indiana after the Fort Greenville Treaty in 1795 (and even sell some of it in 1803) and offered only $500 to "cover the dead." The Delaware took this as an insult, and war between these old friends was averted only when the government intervened in 1827. The matter remained a sore spot between them, but in 1829 the Delaware sold their Missouri lands and moved to a new reserve in eastern Kansas north of the Shawnee. The Wea and Piankashaw followed suit in a treaty signed at Castor Hill (St. Louis) in 1832, but their new lands were south of the Shawnee, and over the years the dispute and near-war was slowly forgotten.Meanwhile, the Miami lands in Indiana were being lost to treaties, debts, and taxes. Treaties signed in 1826, 1828, and 1838 took portions of their reserves until the final treaty signed at the Forks of the Wabash in 1840 ceded the last 177,000 acres of the big reserve for $550,000 - $325,000 of which was used to pay debts. Except for Meshingomesia's band - whose chief owned the land in fee simple - the Miami agreed to remove to Kansas within five years. On October 7, 1846, 555 Miami left Indiana by canal boat and were settled at the approach of winter along the Marais des Cygnes River in eastern Kansas on land adjoining the Piankashaw, Wea, and Peoria. The 500 to 1,500 Miami who remained in Indiana were heavily intermarried with whites so estimates of their number are difficult. The lands of Meshingomesia's band were divided among the 300 survivors in 1872 and soon lost to land speculators and tax sales. In 1897 the assistant U.S. attorney general terminated the tribal status of the Indian Miami. No explanation for this action was ever given.Throughout the 1840s, approximately 1,000 Miami lived in eastern Kansas. By 1854 the Wea and Piankashaw had decided to form a single tribe with the 300 Kaskaskia and Peoria which were all that remained of the once-numerous Illinois Confederation. The United States, however, was anxious to open Kansas for settlement to facilitate construction of a transcontinental railroad and wanted to purchase native lands. In June 1854 at Washington, D.C., the Miami and combined Peoria-Miami tribe ceded more than 500,000 acres in exchange for 200 acre individual allotments plus ten sections to be held in common, but no offer of citizenship was made in return for the acceptance of allotment. White settlers flooded into Kansas to determine the question of black slavery with violence, and native lands were fair game for the heavily-armed squatters. The outbreak of the Civil War brought thousands of native refugees to Kansas fleeing the violence in Oklahoma. In the midst of this, Kansas became a state in 1862, and the following year, its legislature asked the federal government to remove Native Americans.Action on this request had to await the end of the war, but in an omnibus treaty signed in 1867, the Miami and the United Peoria and Miami Tribe (merged group of Peoria, Wea, and Piankashaw), together with the Ottawa, Quapaw, Seneca, Seneca, Wyandot, Delaware and Shawnee, ceded their last Kansas lands and agreed to remove to Oklahoma. They purchased 6,000 acres in the northeast corner of the state in what is now Ottawa County. No sooner had the Miami left Kansas, than white squatters moved into their old lands before they could be auctioned. Army troops had to be used in 1870 to remove them. The Peoria and Miami lands in Oklahoma were allotted in 1893, and the excess given to Ottawa County in 1907. By the 1930s both the Oklahoma and Indiana Miami were completely landless, although the Oklahoma tribe has since acquired 160 acres which are held in trust. The United Peoria were terminated in 1950 but restored to federal status in 1972. The Miami Tribe of Oklahoma never lost its federal recognition, something the Indiana Miami have never been able to regain. First Nations referred to in this Miami History:CherokeeDelawareHuronKickapooShawneeComments concerning this "history" would be appreciated. Directsame to Lee Sultzman..Histories SiteFirst NationsPlease provide an opinion as to this article/site... |
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