The Land of the Miamis

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Barce Elmore. The Land of the Miamis

PREFACE

CHAPTER I. A BRIEF RETROSPECT

CHAPTER II. WHAT THE VIRGINIANS GAVE US

CHAPTER III. THE BEAVER TRADE

CHAPTER IV. THE PRAIRIE AND THE BUFFALO

CHAPTER V. THE WABASH AND THE MAUMEE

CHAPTER VI. THE TRIBES OF THE NORTHWEST

CHAPTER VII. REAL SAVAGES

CHAPTER VIII. OUR INDIAN POLICY

CHAPTER IX. THE KENTUCKIANS

CHAPTER X. THE BRITISH POLICIES

CHAPTER XI. JOSIAH HARMAR

CHAPTER XII. SCOTT AND WILKINSON

CHAPTER XIII. ST. CLAIR'S DEFEAT

CHAPTER XIV. WAYNE AND FALLEN TIMBERS

CHAPTER XV. THE TREATY OF GREENVILLE

CHAPTER XVI. GOVERNOR HARRISON AND THE TREATY

CHAPTER XVII. RESULTS OF THE TREATY

CHAPTER XVIII. THE SHAWNEE BROTHERS

CHAPTER XIX. PROPHET'S TOWN

CHAPTER XX. HARRISON'S VIGILANCE

CHAPTER XXI. THE COUNCIL AT VINCENNES

CHAPTER XXII. THE SECOND AND LAST COUNCIL

CHAPTER XXIII. THE MUSTER AND THE MARCH

CHAPTER XXIV. THE BATTLE OF TIPPECANOE

CHAPTER XXV. NAYLOR'S NARRATIVE

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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– A general view of the Indian Wars of the Early Northwest.

The memories of the early prairies, filled with vast stretches of waving grasses, made beautiful by an endless profusion of wild flowers, and dotted here and there with pleasant groves, are ineffaceable. For the boy who, barefooted and care-free, ranged over these plains, in search of adventure, they always possessed an inexpressible charm and attraction. These grassy savannas have now passed away forever. Glorious as they were, a greater marvel has been wrought by the untiring hand of man. Where the wild flowers bloomed, great fields of grain ripen, and vast gardens of wheat and corn, interspersed with beautiful towns and villages, greet the eye of the traveler. "The prairies of Illinois and Indiana were born of water, and preserved by fire for the children of civilized men, who have come and taken possession of them."

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Is it any wonder that along these wonderful basins should be located the seats of power of the Miami Indians, the leaders of the western confederacy that opposed the claims of the United States to the lands north of the Ohio; that from the close of the Revolutionary war until Wayne's victory in 1794, the principal contest was over the possession of the Miami village, now Fort Wayne, which controlled the trade in both the Wabash and the Maumee Valleys, and that President George Washington, consummate strategist that he was, foresaw at once in 1789, the first year of his presidency, that the possession of the great carrying place at Miamitown would probably command the whole northwest and put an end to the Indian wars?

The rudest of all the tribes of the northwest were the Ottawas, those expert canoemen of the Great Lakes, known to the French as the "traders," because they carried on a large trade and commerce between the other tribes. They seem to have had their original home on Mantoulin Island, in Lake Huron, and on the north and south shores of the Georgian Bay. Driven by terror of the Iroquois to the region west of Lake Michigan, they later returned to the vicinity of L'Arbe Croche, near the lower end of Lake Michigan, and from thence spread out in all directions. Consulting Bradford's map of 1838 again, the Ottawas are found in the whole northern end of the lower Michigan peninsula. Ottawa county, at the mouth of Grand river, would seem to indicate that at one time, their towns must have existed in that vicinity, and in fact their possessions are said to have extended as far down the eastern shore of Lake Michigan as the St. Joseph. To the south and east of these points "their villages alternated with those of their old allies, the Hurons, now called Wyandots, along the shore of Lake Erie from Detroit to the vicinity of Beaver creek, in Pennsylvania." They were parties with the Wyandots and Delawares and other tribes to the treaty of Fort Harmar, Ohio, at the mouth of Muskingum, in 1789, whereby the Wyandots ceded large tracts of land in the southern part of that state to the United States government, and were granted in turn the possession and occupancy of certain lands to the south of Lake Erie. The Ottawa title to any land in southern Ohio, however, is exceedingly doubtful, and they were probably admitted as parties to the above treaty in deference to their acknowledged overlords, the Wyandots. Their long intercourse with the latter tribe, in the present state of Ohio, who were probably the most chivalrous, brave and intelligent of all the tribes, seems to have softened their manners and rendered them less ferocious than formerly. Like the Chippewas, their warriors were of fine physical mould, and Colonel William Stanley Hatch, an early historian of Ohio, in writing of the Shawnees, embraces the following reference to the Ottawas: "As I knew them, (i. e., the Shawnees), they were truly noble specimens of their race, universally of fine athletic forms, and light complexioned, none more so, and none appeared their equal, unless it was their tribal relatives, the Ottawas, who adjoined them. The warriors of these tribes were the finest looking Indians I ever saw, and were truly noble specimens of the human family." The leading warriors and chieftains of their tribe, however, were great lovers of strong liquor, and Pontiac, the greatest of all the Ottawas, was assassinated shortly after a drunken carousal, and while he was singing the grand medicine songs of his race.

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