Clinton County, Indiana - Chapter 3: Indian Occupancy, 1913

J. P. Dunn And E. H. Staley

As has been mentioned, all of Clinton county was included in the lands claimed by the Miami Indians. The United States recognized that tribe as the owner of practically all of Indiana south of the Wabash, and that lying between the Wabash and Eel river on the north. North of Eel river, the title was conceded to the Potawatomies. The government usually gave some recognition to all Indian claims, even when different tribes claimed the same land. On this basis it bought the lands in the central part of the state of both the Miamis and the Delawares. It originally belonged to the Miamis, and the Delawares settled there about 1750, by consent of the Miamis.

When first known to the whites the Miami nation was a very formidable body, numbering many thousands, according to the earliest missionary chronicles, which are, no doubt, somewhat exaggerated. They were divided into two great parts by a single difference in dialect. The Miamis proper, including the tribes finally located in Indiana, had no sound of "r" in their language, and substituted an "1" for it. The Illinois Indians, sometimes called Peorias, had no sound of "1/' and substituted an "r" for it. This distinction is preserved in some of our words. For example, the names of the cities Peoria, in Illinois, and Paola, in Kansas, are in reality one word, the former with the Peoria pronunciation and the latter with the Miami.

It is probable that the Miamis held as far east as Detroit, for from the earliest times that place was known as Wa-wi-a-ta-non (French Oua-oui-a-tanon), and this was the name of one of the Miami tribes that is more commonly known to us by the abbreviated name of Weas. The name comes from the Miami word Wa-wi-a-tan-wi, meaning an eddy, or literally a circular channel for water. But when the French reached them thev had been driven back (4)

LaSalle undertook to gather the western tribes in a great confederacy around his fort on Starved Rock, on the Illinois river, so that they could resist the Iroquois, their common enemy, but the Iroquois fell upon them and destroyed the confederacy at one blow. The known Miami tribes in this confederacy numbered 2,300 warriors. Later French commanders succeeded better, and the war was carried into the Iroquois country with great effect. By 1712 the Miamis were taking their places on the Maumee and the Wabash, in which they became known to the Americans.

The most easterly band of the Miamis, who were called "elder brothers" by the other bands, was located at the site of Ft. Wayne. These were called Twightwees by the English, but the reason for the name is uncertain. In old French records they are called A-tcha-tcha-kan-gou-en, or "people of the crane" totem. The first large body on the Wabash were called Eel Rivers, from their residence at the site of Logansport. These probably included the bands anciently known as Pepikokias and Miamis of Maramech. Maramech is a place name, presumably of a river, as it is the Peoria word for "catfish." The Miami form for the same word is "mial-lo-mak." The Indians who occupied the Thorntown Reserve belonged to the Eel Rivers.

The next large division below them was of the Weas, whose main town was on Wea Prairie, below Lafayette. The noted French establishment, Post Ouiatanon, was on the north side of the river here, opposite the old mouth of Wea creek. Below these, on the Big Vermillion, were the Piankeshaws, who were also a Miami tribe, speaking the same language. In 1731 Sieur de Vincennes induced part of these to remove to his post at Vincennes, which was established in that year, and part of them continued there until after the American occupation.

The Miamis were originally much devoted to war and to athletic pursuits, but they soon became enervated under white influences, and disappeared rapidly. In 1718 M. de Vaudreuil reported them as having 1,400 to 1,600 warriors. In 1764 Captain Hutchins and Col. Bouquet estimated the same tribes at 1.000 warriors. In the latter part of that century their fame was more due to the talents of their head chief, known as The Little Turtle, than to their numbers or warlike qualities.

This remarkable man was a native of Indiana. His name, in the fixed orthography of the Bureau of Ethnology, was Mi-ci-ki-noq-kwa (pronounced Mi-shi-ki-nogh-kwa, the "gh" of the penult having the gutteral sound of German "ch"). It means literally "The Great Turtle's Wife," but it is the spe- ciric name of the painted terrapin, which is the commonest of our terrapins. Every farmer's boy knows these little black-backed turtles with bright red and yellow markings underneath. These markings are the cause of its name, for it is the most gaudily colored of our turtles, and who should be well-dressed if not the wife of the Great Turtle, who was the principal beneficent deity of the Miamis. The early interpreters did not know any special English name for this turtle, and as it never grows large, they translated the name "The Little Turtle."

The Little Turtle won his spurs in 1780 by defeating a band of Frenchmen under Col. La Balme, who had plundered the British traders at Ft. Wayne and retired to the Aboite river. In 1790 he enhanced his reputation by brilliant fighting with the American forces under General Harmar, who had invaded the Miami country. In 1791 he reached the zenith of his fame by the surprise and defeat of General St. Clair's army at Ft. Recovery. This was the only battle in which Indians ever defeated a superior force of American soldiers on their own ground.

Little Turtle went into the fight with 1,400 men of various tribes. St. Clair had 2.000. from whom he lost 630 killed and 273 wounded. The Indians drove their white enemies in disastrous retreat, and captured all of their artillery, camp equipage and supplies, valued at $32,800. From the standpoint of achievement in war. The Little Turtle was the greatest Indian the country ever produced. He was wise in peace, also. He saved his people from the ravages of smallpox by introducing inoculation. He tried to introduce agriculture. and he made most earnest efforts to prevent the sale of intoxicating liquors to his people. He counselled his people not to fight General Wayne, but when overruled went to defeat with them at "the Fallen Timbers." He died July 14, 1812, and very few of his tribe joined Tecumseh and the British in the war of 1812.

The troubles with Tecumseh were out of the ordinary. With the Indians it was a "holy war" inspired by the teachings of the Shawnie prophet, Tenskwa-ta-wa. But its main cause was the effort of Tecumseh and his party to prevent the sale to the whites of Indian lands in Indiana. In this they were backed by the British, and at the Treaty of Ghent, which closed the war of 1812, the British delegates insisted strongly on a "buffer" Indian state between the American and British possessions. This our delegates refused absolutely, and the treaty was left silent on the subject. It was this treaty that made the settlement of Indiana and her admission as a state possible. She was the first state admitted after the treaty. The treaty itself is one of the most notable in history - a treaty between the two great English-speaking nations that has remained unbroken for a hundred years. If England can afford to celebrate it by a great international exhibition, certainly Indiana, to whom it meant more than to anyone else, can afford to celebrate right royally, also.

The next great step toward the settlement of Indiana, following the Treaty of Ghent, was the Treaty of St. Mary's with the Miamis and Delawares, by which the United States secured the relinquishment of all the central part of Indiana, excepting a few small reserves, and as has been mentioned, the Thorntown Reserve and the Big Miami Reserve. In this reservation was included the eastern part of Clinton county. The western line of the reserved tract, which contained 930.000 acres of some of the best land in the then territory, now state, of Indiana, extended through Clinton county on the section line running one mile east of Boyleston and Michigantown. To be more definite, the west boundary of this reservation, beginning at the north line of Clinton county, extended between sections 23 and 24, 25 and 26, 35 and 36 in congressional township 23, range 2 east, and between sections 2 and 1, 11 and 12, 14 and 13 in Warren civil township. In Michigan civil township this west reservation line beginning on the north between sections 14 and 13, 23 and 24, 26 and 25, 35 and 36, in congressional township 22, range aforesaid, and between sections 1 and 2, 11 and 12, 14 and 13 in congressional township 21 north, range as the last. In Kirklin civil township the line was the section line between sections 23 and 24, 26 and 25. 35 and 36 in township 21 north, range 1 last, as elsewhere. Extend still farther south on the section line between sections 2 and 1, 11 and 12. On some maps the south termination of this western boundary of the Big Miami reservation ends at a point on the section line between sections 25 and 26, township 21 north, range 1 east, Kirklin township. In the treaty which forms the deed of cession, the southern boundary of the reservation ceded w as said to be -on a line parallel to the general direction of the Wabash river at a named distance therefrom, in a south of west direction or westward. The northeast corner of the reservation, a fact that does not concern this history, was in a county seat east of Clinton. The southwest corner wras on the section line in Clinton county, between sections 23 and 24, about 175 rods south of the north line of said sections, town 21, range 1 west, Kirklin township. From this corner, in said, civil township, the west line of the reservation extended due north to Logansport.

From the fact that a part of Clinton county is in this Miami reservation, in all histories of the county, it is necessary that brief chronicles of the aborigines should be a part of Clinton county's history. There are a few, very few indeed, yet living who can remember of seeing friendly Indians in the county.

The immediate descendants of the earliest settlers can remember the oft-told tale of these pioneers concerning the Indians who yet held much of this Miami reservation.

As early as October, 1826, General Tipton, Indian agent, General Cass and Col. John B. Ray, in council with the chiefs of the Miamis, the latter ceded to the United States more than half of this reservation. For this cession the Indians received $31,040.53 in goods and the same amount in cash. The next year they received $66,359.47; after that an annual sum; $25,000 was paid them while they existed as a tribe. In 1834 the Miami Indians, through their chiefs, sold to the government 177,000 acres of land for $335,- 680.00, or a little less than $2.00 per acre. This land did not lie in one body, but was a seven-mile strip off of the west side of the reservation in the counties of Cass, Clinton and Howard. As this seven-mile strip took all the reservation lying in Clinton county, the sale made less than 80 years ago, extinguished the Indian title to all lands in Clinton county.

What became of this land? This strip seven miles or a section wide of 42 J 2 sections, or 27,200 acres, was given by the United States to the State of Indiana which used it to complete the \\ abash and Erie canal from the mouth of the Tippecanoe river southwestward to Evansville. In the same wav. a five-mile strip had been given off the north border of the reservation to construct that canal from the mouth of the Tippecanoe - this means opposite that fixer's mouth - eastward to the lakes. Citizens, early settlers, in the township" of Warren. Michigan and Johnston, and a few in Kirklin and Sugar Creek, bought their land of the state, it coming out of this canal subsidy land. Using this land a< a reserve or basis for a species of bank note circulation as it might be styled, scrip of different denominations and money value was issued bv the state. Most payments for this land sold by the state were made by the use of this scrip. The Indians yet remaining on the reservations, used it. This scrip and much of the paper money that was in use among the early settlers, w as known by significant terms familiar to them instead of the financial appellations originally given to it. One kind from figures printed on it, thev styled "White Dog" : another was "Blue Pup"; other issues, not so much in general use. took some other canine appellation.

Other cessions or sales of land were made by the Indians; as this is foreign to Clinton County History, no reference is made to them here except to state that as late as 1840. for a little more than half a million dollars cash to them paid, the Miamis relinquished all the remaining land which they had in the state, except a small reservation or two held personally and individually by certain chiefs. Though the Indians agreed to leave and quit the country in five years yet by various delays, their final departure was not accomplished until in the year 1847. Then they were taken to the Fort Leavensworth, Kansas reservation. The Miamis who were thus removed to Kansas by the government, at that time, numbered but two hundred and fifty people, each one receiving an annual payment of about one hundred and twenty-five dollars. As late as 1873 they were again moved to another reservation in Oklahoma, the Quawpaw reservation ; by that year, their number had been reduced to about five hundred.

From the time of the appearance of the white settlers in the county as early as 1826, up to the sale or cession effected in 1834, as stated, the Indians yet on the seven mile strip of the eastern part of the county, mingled freely with the pioneers on most amicable terms. They came freely to the store of Abner Baker at Jefferson, traded with him and hung around there. They continued to wear for the most part, their original costume, changing slowly, in part, to that of their civilized neighbors. There were then, as there ever have been, a few bad Indians, some who were criminally disposed, in the very sparsely settled portions of Clinton and eastern Tippecanoe counties. These lawless red men committed depredations: some were even charged with murder. For the wrongs and crimes, they committed, recourse was seldom or ever had to the civil courts. Murderers were given a short shrift, if Indians. Frontiersmen, skilled in the use of the rifle hunted the Indian slayer down and put an end to his criminal existence. Old Uncle John Burns, who lived just across the county line in Perry township. Tippecanoe county, in the late thirties, related to the writer, then a boy. how he dispatched an Indian marauder charged with murder: he was hunted down and Uncle John coming upon this Indian while alone, no other whites or Indians near, shot him down; the well aimed bullet, as Uncle John said, passing completely through the Indian.

The part of this story related to the Indians can not be closed without some reference to warlike events occurring in the earliest years of the Nineteenth Century, here in what was afterwards Clinton county.

The Battle of Tippecanoe was fought in 1811. By its result, the powder of the hostile Indians within the then territory of Indiana, wras completely broken. Prophets Town, their headcpiarters on the Wabash, near the mouth of the Tippecanoe, was destroyed by the army under General Harrison. The Indians who had been living there were scattered and from that time on, nothing was left of this famous town, near the mouth of the Tippecanoe river where it entered the Wabash, except the ruins of the huts which constituted the abode of the Indians living there. The Indians w:ere all scattered, mainly going to the West and North. Leaving there, were yet some roving Indian bands : that had taken part in the battle still within a few miles of the battlefield. General Harrison sent out a small detachment after a band that had, after the battle, fled across the Tippecanoe and crossed the Wabash, overtook this band south of the larger branch of the Wildcat, the North Fork, and there at some point in the neighborhood of Wyandot in Tippecanoe county, not far from the line of Clinton, the last battle between the whites and the Indians in northern Indiana, was fought and the Indian band of seventy or eighty either killed or scattered.

This account of the last conflict, the last passage at arms, between the former savage inhabitants of all this country and United States soldiers, fought either on Clinton county soil or nearby, is veritable history. This skirmish or rout was the last battle fought within the boundaries of the State of Indiana between savagery and civilization. But the account of some battles fought between the Miamis and other hostile tribes fought within the limits of this count)' are not so well authenticated. They lack historical confirmation. Though these alleged battles were said to be fought in comparatively modern times either in the 17th or even the 18th century, the account maybe merely traditional or legendary, having no historical value at all. It is said, and many of the oldest settlers of the county believed it, some of whom could point out the exact locality, one mile or perhaps more just north of the town of Jefferson: there it is said a bloody battle was fought between hostile Indians, the Miamis and Iroquois. Numerous flint arrow-heads attest the feud, many of which have been picked up off the ground there. Another alleged battle is still more legendary and lacks verifications. This was said to have occurred at a spot a mile or so directly south of Middle Fork. Unlike the Jefferson battle, which the early settlers of that part of the county accepted as a historical fact, the account of the Middle Fork battle is not even a legend or Indian story to the people living in that vicinity or their ancestors. It may be found in some rare histories of Indian occupancy of this county; it is in print but that does not add to its verity. It is here given for what it is worth.

One other observation, and this chapter of Clinton County history is closed. In all the intercourse between the Indians and the early pioneers of this county, extending from the year 1826 down to about 1842, a period of fifteen years or more, this intercourse between the two races was of the most peaceful, friendly and almost Christian character. At no time was this friendly, a'most loving character of the intercourse between them marred by any general hostility of either the early settlers or the Indians. Take a cer- tain number of white men, a considerable number, and there would be at least one black sheep among them. The same with an equal number of Indians. The pioneers were not afraid of the Indians, who did not pilfer, trespass, or harm anyone or injure anybody or thing. If a bad Indian became a highway robber, cut-throat, murderer, or even guilty of worse acts in the calendar of crimes, he was in some manner dealt with summarily bv either the Indians themselves or the whites. If the Indians considered one of their number worthy of death, his executioner followed him up till the crime was atoned for. The whites did the same way; if they took recognition of a crime committed by an Indian - note the John Burns incident narrated above - the murderer, robber or rapist was followed up by an executioner who sooner or later did his bloody work. In addition to bearing testimony to the friendlv. benevolent character of the intercourse between the Indians and our ancestors here in Clinton County, let one observation be noted in this historv : While one drop of African or Oriental blood pulsates in the veins of an American citizen or resident of this country, to him it is a detriment, a sort of social ostracism ; not so if a man has Indian blood in his vein5 coming down through hi" Indian ancestry. It no way injures his getting on in life hut is rather an honor to him. Men of Indian parentage, on either side, father or mother, or of mixed parentage, now sit in the halls of Congress, and fill other honored stations in life. As a general thing, they are eminent, brainy, educated, worthv of the stations which thev ably fill.

It is not generally known even by some of those who live on the land, in the southwest part of the county, a portion of Perry township; and Jackson township was once a part of the Thorntown Indian reservation. The northern limits of that reservation embraced a strip of land ten miles long and nearly two miles w ide. constituting a ten mile strip of sections of which 16 sections are in the south part of Perry township and 4 miles or 8 sections are a part of the southwest portion of Jackson township. As the strip is nearly two miles wide, the entire northern part of the reserve in the county is nearly 20 sections or 20 square miles.

The Indian title to the land was extinguished before any settlement by the whites was made in the county; hence, no record was made of the reserve in any land sold in the strip. It seems that in one section, instead of being sold by the United States to settlers in the usual way. the 80 or 40 acre lots are designated by Acts 1, 2. 3, 5. 4, and so on beginning at the northeast corner of the section, numbered thence, west along the north side and back east the south side. The numbering after that style may yet be kept up as the older deeds mav show. The other sections of this reservation, are subdivided in the usual manner. The rest, that is, the much larger portion of this Indian reservation extends quite a way down into Boone county, taking in Thorntown and a large tract of the surrounding country there. But twenty fractional sections of this reservation are in Clinton county, each section in the northern tier of reservation being clipped a little on the north side and each section in the southern tier similarly clipped on its south side next to Boone county.