Delaware County, Indiana - Chapter 1: Delaware County a Part of the French Empire, 1908

Though Indiana was organized as a territory in 1800 and admitted to statehood in 1816, the region that we now know as Delaware county did not receive a permanent settler until about 1820. Old Vincenncs had been .1 name in history and a center of stirring events for nearly a century. The first legislature of the new state had assembled at Corydon, near the southern end of the state, while Indians were the only inhabitants of the wilderness which is now the rich and prosperous agricultural county of Delaware. Not alone in the southern end of the state were there numerous villages and organized counties, but before the first permanent settlement had been made in Delaware county many people had homes to the north along the Wabash, and there was a well defined settlement and trading post at Fort Wayne, a site that had been designated on the maps through the greater part of the previous century.

On a map showing Indiana in 1907, the most conspicuous feature is the network of railroads that run in all directions over the state, and make practically every county and large town accessible by that means of communication. Radiating from Muncie alone are more than a dozen steam and electric lines leading toward all sections of Indiana and insuring uninterrupted communication with all the states and large cities of the Union. If, supposing these means of communication to remain, the lands of Indiana were uninhabited and once more thrown open to settlement, it is probable that the entire state could be occupied in a single day and Delaware county and its neighbors would be taken up as quickly as any of the counties in southern or northern Indiana.

It is not meant to imply that the absence of transportation lines was tiie sole reason why the first white men discriminated against Delaware county when they settled the state. But it was the prime cause in directing migration until sixty years ago. Up to that time the great trunk lines of communication in the middle west were the rivers and here and there a canal. In a map of the region about the great lakes, including northern Indiana, drawn about 1755, the rivers Miamis, Wabache and Thcakaki (Kankakee) arc the most conspicuous features of topography. A century ago the Maumcc river, the portage at Fort Wayne across to the Wabash, the latter river as the principal water route through the central part of the state, the Ohio river along the southern border, and such tributaries as the Whitewater and the two branches of the White river, were the routes of travel first to be considered and most valuable in the settlement and economic deve'opment of the state. So far as seriously affecting the transportation facilities of the neighboring country, the Wabash river could now be dispensed with, for railway trains have long carried the burdens that once were borne on this stream. For the first seventy-five years in the history of this country, however, the Wabash was the principal connecting linkbetween the great lakes on the north and the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. The first settlements in the valley of the Wabash were planted in order to protect this line of communication between the northern and southern divisions of New France.

During the latter half of the seventeenth century, by the discoveries and explorations of Marquette, Hennepin, Joliet and LaSalle, all the country drained by the Mississippi and Ohio rivers and their tributaries was added to the vast claims of the French empire in the new world. For nearly a century the statecraft and military power of France were tested and tried to the utmost in strengthening and maintaining the authority of the empire in the territory between New Orleans and Montreal. During LaSalle's explorations about the lower end of Lake Michigan and in his journeyings from there to the Mississippi, he penetrated northwestern Indiana, going as far east as the site of South Eend. Another result of his activities was the organization of the various Indian tribes outside of the Iroquois confederacy and the concentration of them all about a central seat in Illinois, so that in 1685 it is probable that Indiana was no longer the home of a single Indian tribe.

To secure all the country between the Mississippi and the Allcghanies against English aggression, the French projected and founded many posts that would command the rivers and the outlets of trade. Several forts were established at the lower end of the Mississippi, and a vigorous policy of commercial development and expansion begun. Other posts were established higher up the river, Kaskaskia above the mouth of the Ohio becoming a strategic point of much importance. The French captain, Cadillac, by anticipating the English in the settlement of Detroit, secured a post of wonderful advantage in dealing with the Indian inhabitants west of Lake

Fric and south of Lake Michigan. The Indian tribes that had been drawn into LaSalle's Illinois confederacy were now drifting east to the Wabash, the Maumce and about Detroit. To control these tribes and prevent their being approached by the English, the French authorities in Canada, who claimed jurisdiction on the upper courses of the Wabash,* planned the relocation of the tribes and the founding of posts among them. The principal settlement of the Miamis was then at the head of the Maumce, at a place called Kekionga (the site of Fort Wayne). The Ouiatanons lived lower down on the Wabash, and about 1720 post Ouiatanon was established among them (near the site of Lafayette), this being the first military post or. the Wabash. At this point, controlling the Miamis and the Ouiatanons, was stationed Sieur de Yincennes. The authorities of Louisiana, very much exercised by the reported encroachments of English traders within the Ohio valley, about 1726 won over Vinccnnes from his service with Canada, and a year or so later that intrepid pioneer of France founded on the lower course of the Wabash the post which soon became known as Vinccnnes. In a few years some French families from Canada settled around the post, and thus was established the first European village in Indiana. Until the close of the French occupation in 1763, Vinccnnes was included in the District of Illinois, which, in turn, was part of the Province of Louisiana. The dividing point between the jurisdiction of Canada and that of Louisiana was Terre Haute, "the Highlands of the Wabash."

By such means the authority of France was extended throughout all this country including the present state of Indiana. Vincennes became a village of French soldiers and traders and their families, where Lafayette now stands was another French post, and another at the site of Fort Wayne. The inevitable conflict between France and England, closing with the victory of Wolfe on the plains of Abraham and with the treaty of Paris in 1763, by which England became the dominant and principal territorial power in the new world, has only a remote interest in this discussion. The French and English met at the site of Pittsburg in 1754, where Fort DuQuesne was built by the former, and this meeting brought on the war which began with the disastrous defeat of Braddock by the French and their Indian allies.

After Wolfe's victory the English took possession of Detroit and the posts on the upper Wabash, but Vincennes continued a part of French Louisiana until the treaty in 1763. The numerous Indian tribes northwest 0: the Ohio, though at first treated with much respect by the English, were

" The lower Ohio aD(l Wabash and Mississippi were governed as part of the Louisiana province of New France. Boisbriant, who had been appointed governor of Illinois, founded Fort Chartres (8ixteen miles above Kaskaskia) for the protection of the upper i-olony. in 1720.

later wrought upon by the brusque behavior of the English and the secret persuasion of the French who still remained in the country. A powerful confederacy of the western tribes was formed under the brilliant leadership of Pontiac, and during the spring of 1763 a general outbreak against the English posts occurred, which has since been known in history as Pontiac's war. Few of the inland posts escaped capture, the small English garrisons at Ouiatanon and Mi.unis (Fort Wayne) surrendering with the rest. It was not until the following year that such energetic measures were taken by the English forces as to break the Indians' strength and force the Delaware^. Sl'^uvnnrcs, Miamis and other bands to sue for peace. Henceforth until the American revolution, the Indian inhabitants north of the Ohio gave little trouble to the English, who maintained an easy and almost nominal jurisdiction over the posts and settlements along the Wabash and down the Mississippi