Madison County, Indiana - Chapter 3: The Period of Preparation, 1914

Early Explorations in America - Conflicting Claims of England, France and Spain - French Posts in the Interior - French and Indian War - Pontiac's Conspiracy - English in Possession of Indiana - The Revolution - George Rogers Clark's Conquest of the Northwest - The Northwest Territory - Campaigns of St. Clair and Wayne - Treaty of Greenville - Indiana Territory Or¬ ganized - Indian Treaties - Tenskwatawa and Tecumseh - Battle of Tippecanoe - War of 1812 - Burning of the Delaware Villages on the White River - Indiana Admitted Into the Union - Treaty of St. Mary's - Seat of Government.

Although Madison county, as a separate political division, was not called into existence until 1823, the events leading up to its establish¬ ment had their beginning more than a century and a half prior to that time. It is therefore pertinent to notice the work of the early explorers, particularly those who visited Indiana. Soon after the discovery of America by Columbus, in 1492, three European nations were busy in their attempts to establish claims to territory in the New World. Spain first laid claim to the peninsula of Florida, whence expeditions were sent into the interior; the English based their claims to the discoveries made by the Cabots, farther northward along the Atlantic coast; and the French claimed Canada through the expeditions of Jacques Cartier in 1534-35.

Spain planted a colony in Florida in 1565; the French settled Port Royal, Nova Scotia, in 1605; the English colony at Jamestown, Virginia, was established in 1607, and Quebec was founded by the French in 1608. The French then extended their settlements up the St. Lawrence river and along the shores of Lakes Ontario and Erie, and Jesuit mission¬ aries and fur traders pushed on farther west, into the heart of the Indian country. A mission was established near Green Bay, Wisconsin, in 1660, by Father Mesnard. In that year Father Claude Allouez made his first pilgrimage into the interior. Two years later he returned to Quebec, where he urged that permanent missions be established among the Indians and that colonies of French immigrants accompany the missions. Upon his second journey into the western wilds he was accompanied by the missionaries, Claude Dablon and James Marquette.

In 1671 Father Marquette founded the Huron mission at Point St, Ignace, and the next year the country south of the mission was visited by Allouez and Dablon. In their explorations they visited the Indian tribes living near the head of Lake Michigan and are supposed to have touched that portion of Indiana lying north of the Kankakee river. They were probably the first white men to set foot upon Indiana soil, though some writers maintain that Robert Cavalier, Sieur de la Salle, crossed the northern part of the state on the occasion of his first expedition to the Mississippi river in 1669.

In 1673 Marquette and Joliet crossed over from Mackinaw to the Mississippi river, which they descended until they came to an Indian village called Akamsea, near the mouth of the Arkansas river, when they returned to Canada. In 1679 Fort Miami was built at the mouth of the St. Joseph river of Lake Michigan (then called the river Miamis) by La Salle, who about three years later succeeded in descending the Mississippi to its mouth, where on April 9, 1682, he claimed all the territory drained by the great river and its tributaries for France, giv¬ ing to it the name of Louisiana, in honor of the French king. This claim included the present state of Indiana.

claim to the same region on account of the royal grants of land ' ' extend¬ ing westward to the South Sea," but the French ignored the claims of both natjons and began the work of building a line of posts through the Mississippi valley to connect their Canadian settlements with those near the mouth of the great river. There is a vague account of a French trading post having been established in 1672 where the city of Fort Wayne now stands. This may be true, but is probably an error, as the old maps of 1684 show no posts within the present limits of Indiana. In July, 1701, Cadillac founded the post of Detroit and the next year Sieur Juchereau and the missionary Mermet made an attempt to estab¬ lish a post near the mouth of the Ohio river. Some writers say this post was located upon the site now occupied by the city of Vincennes. Dillon, in his "History of Indiana," says: "It is probable that before the year 1719, temporary trading posts were erected at the sites of Fort Wayne, Ouiatenon and Vincennes. These posts had, it is believed, been often visited by traders before the year 1700."

Ouiatenon was located on the Wabash river, eighteen miles below the mouth of the Tippecanoe river, not far from the present city of Lafayette. Says Smith: "The best record is that this was the first post established in what is now Indiana by the French." He fixes the date of its establishment as 1720 and says that no effort was made to plant a colony there.

The conflicting claims of the English and French culminated in what is known in history as the French and Indian war. In 1759 Quebec was taken by the British forces and the following year the French governor of Canada surrendered all the posts in the interior. Soon afterward Majof Rogers, an English officer, took possession of Detroit and sent detachments to the post at the junction of the St. Joseph and St. Mary's rivers (Fort Wayne), and to Ouiatenon. By the treaty of Paris, February 10, 1763, all that part of Louisiana east of the Missis¬ sippi river was ceded to Great Britain and Indiana became subject to English domination.

In April, 1763, a great council of Indians was held near Detroit, at which the wily Ottawa chief, Pontiac, "as high priest and keeper of the faith/' revealed to his fellow chiefs the will of the Great Master of Life, as expounded by the Delaware prophet, and called upon them to unite with him in a grand movement for the recovery of their hunting grounds and the preservation of their national life. Along the Atlantic coast the white man was in undisputed control, but the Ohio valley and the region about the Great Lakes were still in the hands of the Indians. Between these two sections the Allegheny mountains formed a natural boundary and behind this barrier Pontiac determined to assert the red man's supremacy. The recent defeat of the French taught him that he could expect nothing from them in the way of assistance, but, relying upon and encouraged by the loyalty of his own race, when informed that the British were coming to take possession of the posts surrendered by the French, he sent back the defiant message: " I stand in the way."

Pontiac's war ended as all such contests usually do, when an inferior race opposes the onward march of a superior one, and the subjection of the Indians was rendered complete by Colonel Bouquet's march into the interior of Ohio, forcing the natives to enter into treaties to keep the peace. Pontiac's warriors captured the posts at Fort Wayne and Ouiatenon, but the post at Vincennes, which had not yet been turned over to the English, but was still occupied by a French garrison under command of St. Ange, was not molested. This post was turned over by St. Ange on October 10, 1765, to Captain Sterling, who immediately issued a proclamation, prepared by General Gage, formally taking pos¬ session of the territory ceded by the Paris treaty.

From that time until the opening of the Revolution, the English established few posts in their new possessions, though those at Fort Miami (Wayne), Ouiatenon and Vincennes were strengthened and at the beginning of the Revolutionary war were occupied by small garri¬ sons, the British depending largely upon their Indian allies to prevent the colonists from encroaching upon their lands in the Ohio valley.

In December, 1777, General George Rogers Clark appeared before the Virginia legislature with a plan to capture the English posts in the northwest - Detroit, Kaskaskia and Vincennes, especially. Governor Patrick Henry approved Clark's plan and the legislature appropriated £1,200 to defray the expenses of the campaign. Early in the spring of 1778 four companies of infantry, commanded by Captains Joseph Bow¬ man, Leonard Helm, John Montgomery and William Harrod, rendez¬ voused at Corn island, in the Ohio river opposite Louisville. On June 24, 1778, the forward movement was begun, the little army drifting down the river to Fort Massac, where the boats were concealed and the march overland toward Kaskaskia was commenced. Kaskaskia was captured without resistance on July 4th and Clark sent Captain Bowman to reduce the post at Cahokia, near the present city of East St. Louis, which was successfully accomplished.

While at Kaskaskia, Clark learned that Father Gibault, a French priest, was favorable to the American cause and sent for him to enlist his aid in the capture of Vincennes. Father Gibault admitted his loyalty to the American side, but on account of his calling suggested that Dr. Lafonte, whom he knew to be both capable and reliable, could conduct the negotiations for the surrender of the post better than himself, though he promised to direct the affair, provided it could be done without expos¬ ing himself. Accordingly, Dr. Lafonte explained to the people of Vincennes that they could break the yoke of British domination by taking the oath of allegiance to the colonies, which they cheerfully did, and Captain Helm was sent to take command of the post.

In October, 1778, the Virginia assembly passed an act providing that all the citizens of the Commonwealth of Virginia "who are already settled, or shall hereafter settle, on the northwestern side of the River Ohio, shall be included in a distinct county, which shall be called Illi¬ nois county, ' 7 etc. But before the provisions of this act could be applied to the newly conquered territory, Henry Hamilton, the British lieutenant-governor of Detroit, with thirty regulars, fifty volunteers and four hundred Indians started down the Wabash to reinforce the posts. On December 15, 1778, he took possession of the fort at Vincennes, the American garrison at that time consisting of Captain Helm and one man, who refused to surrender until promised the honors of war. The French citizens were disarmed and a large force of hostile Indians began to gather near the fort.

Clark was now in a perilous position. His force was weaker than when he set out on his expedition and part of his forces must be used to garrison the posts already captured. It was the dead of winter, sup¬ plies were scarce and there were no roads over which he could move against Vincennes. Notwithstanding all these difficulties, when he learned late in January, 1779, that Hamilton had weakened his garrison by sending Indians against the frontier settlements, he determined to attack the post. Hamilton's object was to collect a large body of Indians and as soon as spring opened drive out the Americans, hence prompt¬ ness on the part of Clark was imperative. He therefore hurried for¬ ward, overcoming all obstacles, his men frequently wading through creeks and swamps where the water came up to their waists, and on. the morning of February 18, 1779, was close enough to hear the sunrise gun at the fort. Three days more were passed in the swamps, but at daybreak on the 21st his little army was ferried across the Wabash in two canoes. Soon after that a hunter from the fort was captured and from him Clark learned that Hamilton had but about eighty men in the fort. He then prepared and sent to the village the following procla¬ mation:

4 ' Gentlemen: Being now within two miles of your village with my army, determined to take your fort this night, and not being willing to surprise you, I take this method to request such of you as are true citizens, and willing to enjoy the liberty I bring you. to remain still in your houses: - and those, if any there be, that are friends to the king, will instantly repair to the fort and join the hair-buyer general and fight like men. And if any such as do not go to the fort shall be dis¬ covered afterward, they may depend on severe punishment. On the contrary, those who are true friends to liberty may depend on being well treated; and I once more request them to keep out of the streets. For every one I find in arms on my arrival, I shall treat him as an enemy.' 9

The allusion to Hamilton as "the hair-buyer general" has reference to that officer's attempt to incite the Indians to greater cruelty by placing a price upon American scalps. Clark says that he had various ideas on the supposed results of his letter, or proclamation. He watched the messenger enter the village and saw that his arrival there created some stir, but was unable to learn the effects of his communication. A short time before sunset he marched his men out into view. In his report of his movements on this occasion he says: "In leaving the covert that we were in, we marched and countermarched in such a manner that we appeared numerous." Clark had about a dozen stands of colors, which were now fastened to long poles and carried so that they could be seen above the ridge behind which his "handful of men" were performing their maneuvers, thus creating the impression that he had several regiments of troops. To add to this impression, the several horses, that had been captured from duck-hunters near the village, were ridden by the officers in all directions, apparently carrying orders from the commanding general to his subordinates. These evolutions were kept up until dark, when Clark moved out and took a position in the rear of the town. Lieutenant Bayley, with fourteen men, was ordered to open fire on the fort. One man in the garrison was killed in the first volley. Some of the citizens came out and joined the besiegers and the fort was surrounded. The siege was kept up until about nine o'clock on the morning of the 24th, when Clark demanded a surrender, with all stores, etc., and sent the following message to Hamilton: "If I am obliged to storm, you may depend on such treatment as is justly due a murderer. Beware of destroying stores of any kind, or any papers or letters that are in your possession - for, by heavens! if you do, there shall be no mercy shown you."

To this message Hamilton replied that he was "not to be awed into doing anything unworthy of a British soldier," and the firing on the fort was renewed. Most of Clark's men were unerring marksmen and their bullets found their way through the cracks with deadly effect. Some of the soldiers begged permission to storm the fort, but Clark felt that it was much safer to continue his present tactics of harassing 1 the enemy until he was ready to surrender. After a short time a flag of truce was displayed and the British officer asked for an armistice of three days. He also invited Clark to come into the fort for a parley, but the American general was "too old a bird to be caught with chaff" and sent word back that he would meet Hamilton at the church, about eighty yards from the fort. The British officer, accompanied by Cap¬ tain Helm, who was a captive, came out to the church and pressed his request for a truce of three days. Fearing the return of some of Ham¬ ilton's Indians, Clark denied the request and informed Hamilton that the only terms he could offer was "Surrender at discretion." The fort, with ail its stores and munitions of war, was then turned over to the Americans and a few days later a detachment sent out by Clark cap¬ tured about $50,000 worth of goods coming down the Wabash to the fort.

Through the conquest of the northwest by General Clark, what is now Indiana became subject to the colony of Virginia and a tide of emigration followed. On January 2, 1781, the general assembly of Virginia passed a resolution to the effect that, on certain conditions, the colony would cede to Congress its claim to the territory northwest of the Ohio river. But the Revolutionary war was then in progress and Congress took no action on the subject. On January 20, 1783, an armistice was agreed upon and proclaimed by Congress on the 11th of the following April. The treaty of Paris was concluded on September 3,1783, and ten days later Congress agreed to accept the cession tendered by the Virginia legislature more than two years before. On December 20, 1783, the assembly of Virginia passed a resolution authorizing their delegates in Congress to convey to the United States the ' 4 title and claim of Virginia to the lands northwest of the river Ohio." The ces¬ sion was made on March 1, 1784, and the present State of Indiana thereby became territory of the United States.

On May 20, 1785, Congress passed "An ordinance for ascertaining the mode of disposing of lands in western territory/' and on June 15, 1785, a proclamation was issued forbidding settlements northwest of the Ohio until the lands were surveyed. This ordinance and proclamation conveyed to the Indians the idea that their lands were to be taken for white settlers and they grew restless. By treaties in 1768, between the British colonial officials on one side and the chiefs of the Five Na¬ tions and Cherokee on the other, the Ohio and Kanawha rivers were designated as the boundary between the Indians and the whites, the former relinquishing all claims to their lands along the Atlantic coast and in the Delaware and Susquehanna valleys, and were confirmed in their possession of the country lying west of the Allegheny mountains. The Indians claimed that the acts of Congress relating to the territory northwest of the Ohio were in violation of the treaties of 1768 - which was true - but during the Revolution most of the tribes in that region had acted in accord with the British, and the new government of the United States repudiated the treaties made by the British provincial authorities. Late in the summer of 1786 some of the tribes grew so threatening in their demonstrations that Clark marched against the Indians on the Wabash and Logan against the Shawnees on the Big Miami river, and in October a garrison was established at Vincennes.

On July 13, 1787, Congress passed an act or ordinance "for the government of the territory of the United States northwest of the river Ohio," and on October 5th General Arthur St. Clair was elected by Congress as governor of the Northwest Territory. Again the Indians showed signs of becoming troublesome and on January 9, 1789, Gen¬ eral St. Clair made a treaty of peace with some of the leading tribes at Fort Harmar, on the Muskingum river. Among the Delaware chiefs that signed this treaty was Captain Pipe, either the one who afterward lived in Madison county or an immediate ancestor. This treaty was not kept by the Indians and in the fall of 1791 St. Clair organized an expedition against the tribes in northwestern Ohio and about the head¬ waters of the Wabash. On November 4, 1791, St. Clair's army was defeated and almost annihilated by the Indians under command of the

Miami chief Meshekunnoghquoh, or Little Turtle. Soon after his de¬ feat, St. Clair resigned his commission as major-general and Anthony Wayne was appointed to succeed him. Wayne spent the time from the spring of 1792 to August, 1793, in recruiting and equipping an army for a campaign into the Indian country. Ih the meantime the govern¬ ment appointed Benjamin Lincoln, Beverly Randolph and Timothy Pickering commissioners to negotiate treaties with the Indians. Coun¬ cils were held at various places with the chiefs of the dissatisfied tribes, but nothing was accomplished.

In the spring of 1794 Wayne took the field against the hostile tribes and on the 20th of August won a decisive victory at the battle of Fallen Timbers. On September 17. 1794, he halted his army at the site of the deserted Miami village, at the junction of the St. Joseph and St. Mary's rivers, and the next day selected a location for ' 4 Fort Wayne," which w r as completed on the 22d of October. From this point he sent messengers to the Indian chiefs, inviting them to visit Fort Greenville for the purpose of entering into a new treaty. The season was so far advanced, however, that nothing was done until the following summer. The greater part of the months of June and July, 1795, were spent in holding councils with the various tribes and on August 3, 1795, was concluded the treaty of Greenville, one of the most important Indian treaties in the history of Indiana and Ohio. That treaty was signed by eighty-nine chiefs, distributed among the several tribes as follows: 24 Pottawatomies, 16 Delawares, 10 Wyandots, 9.Shawnees, 11 Chippewas, 3 Miamis, 7 Ottawas, 3 Eel Rivers, 3 Weas and 3 Kaskaskias. Among the Delawares who signed was Kikthawenund, or Anderson, after whom the city of Anderson was named, and one of the Miami chiefs was Little Turtle, who had so signally defeated General St. Clair nearly four years before. Some of the chiefs also represented the Kickapoos and Piankeshaws, so that the treaty bound practically all the Indians in Ohio and Indiana to terms of peace.

By the Greenville treaty the United States was granted several small tracts of land for military stations, two of which - Fort Wayne and Vincennes - were in Indiana. The United States government was further given the right to build or open roads through the Indian country, one of which ran from Fort Wayne to the Wabash river and down that stream to the Ohio. For these concessions the United States gave the Indians goods to the value of $20,000 and an annuity of $9,500, in goods, forever. This annuity was to be distributed among the tribes in the following manner: The Delawares, Pottawatomies, Shawnees, Wyandots, Miamis, Ottawas and Chippew T as, $1,000 each; the Kickapoos, Weas, Piankeshaws, Eel Rivers and Kaskaskias, $500 each. The United States further agreed to relinquish claim to all other Indian lands north of the Ohio, east of the Mississippi and south of the Great Lakes, ceded by Great Britain in the treaty of 1783.

By an act of Congress, approved May 7, 1800, the Northwest Ter¬ ritory was divided into three territories - Ohio, Indiana and Illinois - and on the 13th of the same month General William Henry Harrison was appointed governor of the Territory of Indiana. At the same

Although the United States, by the treaty of Greenville, agreed to allow the Indians to remain in peaceable possession of their lands north of the Ohio, before a decade had passed the white man began to look with longing eyes at the rich valleys and prairies of Indiana and pressure was brought to bear upon the government to negotiate a treaty whereby these lands could be acquired and opened to settlement. Ac¬ cordingly, a general council of Indians was called to meet at Fort Wayne on June 7, 1803. The most important acts of the council were the recognition of the right of the Delawares to certain lands lying between the Ohio and the Wabash rivers, the defining of the post boundaries at Vincennes, and the cession of the post tract to the United States by the Delawares. General Harrison was present at the council and made the necessary preliminary arrangements for the treaty after¬ ward held at Vincennes on August 18, 1804, by which the Delawares "for the considerations hereinafter mentioned relinquish to the United States forever, all their right and title to the tract of country which lies between the Ohio and Wabash rivers and below the tract ceded by the treaty of Fort Wayne, and the road leading from Vincennes to the Falls of the Ohio."

The most northern point of the tract ceded by this treaty is not far from French Lick. For the cession the tribe was to receive an annuity of $300 for ten years "to be appropriated exclusively to the purpose of ameliorating their condition and promoting their civiliza¬ tion. " To accomplish these ends it was agreed that "suitable persons shall be employed at the expense of the United States to teach them to make fences, cultivate the earth, and such of the domestic arts as are adapted to their situation; and a further sum of $300 shall be appropriated annually for five years to this object/'

The Piankeshaws claimed the land and refused to recognize the title of the Delawares to the region thus ceded. General Harrison met the Piankeshaw chiefs at Vincennes on August 27, 1804, and concluded a treaty by which the tribe relinquished title to the tract for an addi¬ tional annuity of $200 for five years.

Another treaty was concluded at Grouseland, near Vincennes, on August 21, 1805, between General Harrison and the chiefs of several tribes, in which "The Pottawatomies, Miamis, Eel Rivers and Weas explicitly acknowledge the right of the Delawares to sell the tract of land conveyed to the United States by the treaty of the 18th of August, 1804, which tract was given by the Piankeshaws to the Delawares, about thirty-seven years ago. " At the same time the Eel River and Wea tribes agreed to "cede and relinquish to the Unjted States forever, all that tract of country which lies to the south of a line to be drawn from the northeast corner of the tract ceded by the treaty of Fort Wayne, so as to strike the general boundary line, running from a point opposite to the mouth of the Kentucky river to Fort Recovery, at the distance of fifty miles from its commencement on the Ohio river. " The lands thus ceded include the present counties of Jefferson, Ripley, Jennings, Jackson, Scott, Washington and Orange, and small portions of some of the adjoining counties.

About this time some of the Indian chiefs began to see, in the policy of making treaties of cession, the loss of the lands guaranteed to the red men by the treaty of Greenville. They had been accustomed to look upon Little Turtle as one of their wisest men, a leader whose opinions were entitled to respect, but when he bowed to the inevitable and joined in disposing of the lands of his people he was branded as "an Indian with a white man's heart and a traitor to his race." In November, 1805, a prophet arose among the Shawnees in the person of Lalawethika, # then about thirty years of age. He went into a trance, saw the spirit world, and came back with a message from the Master of Life to "let fire-water alone, abandon the white man's customs," etc. After his vision he changed his name to Tenskwatawa (sometimes written Elskwatawa), which in the Shawnee tongue means "The Open Door." This name was selected because he claimed that he was to open the way by which the Indians were to regain the lands of which they had been dispossessed and the power they had lost. He took up his headquarters at Greenville, but the Miamis were jealous of his influence and in order to lessen his power among the braves of that tribe some of the chiefs declared him to be an imposter. Says Mooney:

"By some means he had learned that an eclipse of the sun was to take place in the summer of 1806. As the time drew near, he called about him the scoffers and boldly announced that on a certain day he would prove to them his supernatural authority by causing the sun to become dark. When the day and hour arrived and the earth at mid¬ day was enveloped in the gloom of twilight, Tenskwatawa, standing in the midst of the terrified Indians, pointed to the sky and cried: 'Did I not speak the truth? See, the sun is dark!' " great "first doer" of the Algonquians. He opposed the intermarriage of Indian squaws with white men and accused the Christian Indians of witchcraft. The Delaware chief, Tatebockoshe, through whose influence the treaty of 1804 had been brought about, was tomahawked as a wizard on the accusation of the prophet, and the Indian missionary known as "Joshua" was burned at the stake near the present town of Yorktown, Delaware county, only a few miles east of Anderson. His followers increased, but it soon became apparent that something more than proph¬ ecy and a display of supernatural ability was necessary to restore the Indians to their birthright.

As Pontiac had taken advantage of the preaching of the Delaware prophet, more than forty years before, to organize a conspiracy, Tecumseh (the Shooting Star), a brother of the prophet, now came forward as a temporal leader and began the work of cementing the tribes into a confederacy to resist the further encroachment of the white man. Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa were sons of Pukeesheno, who was killed at the battle of the Kanawha, in 1774, when the prophet was an infant.

In the spring of 1801 a mission had been established among the Delawares in what is now Madison county. This was broken up by Tenskwatawa about 1806 or early in 1807 and some of the Delawares espoused the cause of the Shawnee chieftain. A great many Indians from the lakes came to visit the prophet and his brother in the spring of 1808. The peaceable Delawares and the Miamis protested against this incursion and to avoid an open rupture with these tribes the two brothers removed their headquarters to the Wabash river, just below the mouth of the Tippecanoe, where they established a village known as "Prophet's town."

Tecumseh then notified General Harrison that he and his followers would never consent to the occupation of the Indian lands by white men until all the tribes should agree, instead of the few who claimed to own the lands. Having served this notice upon the governor of the Indiana Territory, he began his active propaganda, visiting the chiefs and head men of the tribes to secure their cooperation and arouse them to action. Some two years were spent in this work, and in the meantime a treaty w T as concluded at Fort Wayne on September 30, 1809, whereby tw T o large tracts of land in Indiana were ceded to the United States. The first embraced practically all of the present coun¬ ties of Fayette, Wayne and Randolph, and the second included approx¬ imately the counties of Monroe, Lawrence, Green, Sullivan, Owen, Clay and Vigo. This treaty so incensed the Shawnees and their allies that they commenced a series of raids upon the frontier settlements. To protect the settlers, General Harrison, in the summer of 1811, went up the Wabash to the site of Terre Haute, where he built a fort.

He then went to Prophet's town, but before arriving at the village he was met by a delegation and arrangements w r ere made for a "talk" the next da^. That was on November 6, 1811. That night Harrison's army encamped on a piece of high ground not far from the village. Harrison distrusted the members of the delegation, so that night he placed a strong guard about the camp and ordered his men to sleep on their arms. Events proved that his suspicions were well founded. A little while before the break of day on the morning of the seventh, the Indians, led by Tenskwatawa in person, made their attack, intending to surprise the camp. The precautions taken by Harrison now demon¬ strated his wisdom. His camp fires were extinguished and his men fought on the defensive until it was light enough to see clearly, when they charged, utterly routing the Indians. Amid the din of battle the voice of the prophet could be heard haranguing his warriors, telling them that through his supernatural power the bullets of the white men would be rendered harmless and that they would win the victory. In this action, known as the battle of Tippecanoe, the whites lost sixty killed and one hundred wounded. The loss of the Indians was much greater. Harrison then burned Prophet's town and returned to Vin¬ cennes.

Tecumseh was in Tennessee at the time the battle occurred. Upon his return it is said he called the prophet a fool, took him by the long hair and shook him until his teeth rattled, and declared that he ought to be killed for thwarting their plans. Not long after this Tecumseh went to Canada, joined the British army, in which he was made a brigadiergeneral, and fell at the battle of the Thames, October 5, 1813.

In December, 1811, a memorial was sent to Congress by the people of Indiana, asking for admission into the Union as a state, but before any action was taken on the memorial the War of 1812 broke out, which completely engrossed the attention of the national administra¬ tion for the next three years. In this conflict some of the tribes in the interior acted in accord with the British and brought the war into Indiana. Late in the year 1812 Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell, of the Nineteenth United States Infantry, with about six hundred mounted men, was sent against the hostile Miamis on the Mississinewa river. On the morning of December 17, 1812, Colonel Campbell surprised an Indian town, inhabited by a number of Delawares and Miamis, killed eight warriors and took forty-two prisoners. Before daybreak the next morning, while Campbell and his officers were in council, his camp was attacked by a large party of Indians, but after an action of over an hour the assailants fled, leaving fifteen dead upon the field, many more having been probably carried away. The whites lost eight killed and forty-two wounded. Campbell then sent two messages to the Delawares living on the White river, who had previously been requested to aban¬ don their towns there and remove to Ohio. In these messages he ex¬ pressed his regret at having killed some of their tribe and* urged them to go to the Indian settlement on the Auglaize river in Ohio. Not long after that they went to Ohio, accompanied by a small number of friendly Miamis, and placed themselves under the protection of the United States.

In June, 1813, Governor Posey received information that some hostile Indians were lurking about the abandoned Delaware villages on the White river and ordered Colonel Joseph Bartholomew to pro¬ ceed at once to those villages and punish any Indians found there. Bartholomew, with 137 mounted men - parts of three companies of rangers commanded by Captains James Bigger, Williamson Dunn and C. Peyton, and a small detachment of militia under Major Depauw

- left Valonia on June 11, 1813, and four days later reached the upper Delaware town on the White river to find the principal part of it had been burned before their arrival. In the four houses that were left standing was a considerable quantity of corn. Three or four miles down the river Bartholomew found another village that had been burned, and twelve miles below the first town visited was another vil¬ lage still standing. Here a number of horses were captured, a large quantity of corn was destroyed and the village laid waste. The sur¬ rounding Country was then scoured in search of Indians, but only a few were discovered. In the attempt to surround and capture them, one Indian was killed. One of Captain Peyton's men was thrown from his horse and while dismounted was shot in the hip by an Indian lurking in ambush and severely wounded. The expedition then returned to Valonia, arriving there on the 21st of June.

On December 14, 1815, a second memorial was addressed to Congress by the inhabitants of Indiana Territory, praying for admission into the Union. This time their efforts were crowned with success and a bill providing for the admission of the state was approved by Presi¬ dent Madison on April 19, 1816. At that time there were but thirteen organized counties in Indiana and the greater part of the land, includ¬ ing Madison county, was still in the hands of the Indians. In the fall of 1818 Jonathan Jennings, Benjamin Parke and Lewis Cass were appointed commissioners on the part of the United States to negotiate a treaty with the Delawares for their lands in Indiana. The treaty was concluded at St. Mary's, October 3, 1818, when the tribe relinquished all claim and title to the lands, with the understanding that posses¬ sion was not to be given for three years, at the end of which time they were to remove to a new home to be provided ,for them by the United States on the west side of the Mississippi river. The United States further agreed to pay to the Delawares a perpetual annuity of $4,000, and to furnish and support a blacksmith for the benefit of the tribe. .

Three days later (October 6, 1818), the treaty was ratified by the Miamis, making it valid, and on September 20, 1821, the Delawares turned their faces toward the setting sun and set out for their new home beyond the great Father of Waters. The white man was now in full possession. In the century that has elapsed since the burning of the Delaware villages on the White river, great changes have come to the beautiful valley. The scream of the factory whistle is heard instead of the howl of the wolf or the war-whoop of the savage; the smoke of ' the council fire has been displaced by the smoke that rolls from the chimneys of great industrial establishments; the schoolhouse has taken the place of the tepee; the trail through the forest has been broadened into a highway, over which civilized man skims along in his automobile at the rate of thirty or forty miles an hour; along these highways are stretched telephone and telegraph lines that bear testimony to the century's progress, and coaches, almost palatial in their magnificence, propelled by steam or electricity traverse the land where once the red man roamed in all his freedom.

The seat of government of the Territory of Indiana was established at Vincennes when the territory was organized in 1800 and remained there until 1813. On March 11, 1813, the territorial legislature passed an act providing that ''from and after the first day of May next, the seat of government of this territory shall be located at Corydon, Har¬ rison county." There the capital remained until after the admission of the state in 1816. By the act of January 11, 1820, the legislature appointed ten commissioners to "select and locate a tract of land, not exceeding four sections, for a permanent capital." The commissioners entered at once upon their duties and after visiting several proposed locations selected the one on the White river, where the city of In¬ dianapolis now stands. There is a current rumor that the little vil¬ lage of Strawtown, Hamilton county, only a short distance west of the Madison county line, came within one vote of being the choice of the commission. Had that site been selected, Madison county would have been several miles nearer to the capital city. The selection of the Indianapolis site was confirmed by the legislature on January 6, 1821, but the seat of government was not removed from Corydon until Janu¬ ary 10, 1825.