Randolph County, Indiana - Indian History, 1882

Indian History

after the time when La Salle and the French pioneers explored the great river in 1680, down to the period of which we intend more especially to treat, there had been existing through the whole Mississippi Valley a somewhat dense Indian population. When De Soto reached the Mississippi (as related by his chronicler), '' A great cacique, Aquixo, came to meet the strangers with an imposing array of 200 canoes, filled with armed men, a part of whom stood up to protect the rowers with feathered shields, but all with their bodies and faces painted, and their heads adorned with plumes of many colors. The caciques and other chiefs were sheltered under awnings. 'The canoes were most neatly made, and were very large, and, with their pavilions, feathers, shields and standards, looked like a fleet of galleys. They brought presents of fish and fruit and bread; and came, they said, to welcome and do homage to the strangers."

And when the French explorers floated down the river to Akansea, and when La Salle after them and 140 years later than De Soto, guided his adventurous canoe along the current of the mighty Father of Waters downward to the Gulf of Mexico, and set up the cross and the flag of France, as a token of the proud claim that this whole vast region belonged by right of discovery and exploration to the haughty monarch of that proud kingdom, - they found, at every point, abundant evidences of a numerous population.

Indian Tribes

At that time and long before it, the region now composing the territory af Indiana was occupied by the tribes of Indians belonging to the Miami confederacy.

That confederacy consisted of several Algonquin tribes, and it had been formed many years before for mutual protection and defense, especially against the fierce and powerful Iroquois, or Bive Nations, who had made frequent and fatal incursions into the beautiful valley against the Indians dwelling therein. Prominent among these Western 'tribes were the Miamis, the Pottawatomies, the Weas, the Piankeshaws, etc.

At the junction of the St. Mary's and the St. Joseph's, near what is now the city of Ft. Wayne, stood, as the key to the grand thoroughfare from the lakes to the Ohio, Kekionga, the ancient and venerated capital of the Miamis. It had been visited by white men at least as early as 1676 (and perhaps even much earlier than that, as late researches into the French accounts of the explorations of those times would seem to indicate). Says a narrator, Judge - - - -, given in Tuttle's History of Indiana:

"The ancient route between the Ottawa (Maumee) and the Wabash, and onward to the Ohio and the Mississippi, was first made known to the French in Canada by a visit of one of their priests from the mission on Lake Michigan to Kekionga about the year 1676. Nor can there be any doubt that Baron La Salle was at Kekionga in the year 1680, as his letter to the Governor General of Canada states that fact, and also mentions that the route alluded to had already been traversed by French traders from Canada."

La Salle is said by some to have built a stockade fort at Kekionga in 1680. Vincennes was at the place in 1705, and found there several Indian traders from Pennsylvania. Perhaps Vincennes at that time (1705) built the French stockade, the dim

Indian Races

The Iroquois confederacy is supposed to have begun with the Mohawks, that tribe uniting at first with the Oneidas. Afterward the league was enlarged by the accession thereto of the Onondagas, the Senecas, the Cayugas; and, after many years, finally by the Tuscaroras (in 1712). Their territory was at first in New York and Canada, but they enlarged their hunting grounds by conquest, till at length they roamed over parts of New England, over New York, Kentucky, Virginia and Illinois. They had warred against the tribes in the Ohio region, and obliged them also to combine for the common protection and defense.

The Algonquins, consisting of many tribes, occupied portions of the country from Massachusetts and New Jersey on the east to the Mississippi on the west. The chief nations were the New England Indians, the Mohegans, Delawares and Powhatans ip the central East, and the Ottawas, Chippewas, Sacs and Foxes, Miamis, Shawnees, etc., in the Mississippi Valley.

The Algonquins were a splendid race, rivaled only by the Dakotas in the West and the Iroquois in the Lake Regions. The Miamis were perhaps the leading Algonquin nation, at any rate, among the ablest belonging to that race.

The tribes in the Mississippi Valley, northwest of the Ohio, had been greatly weakened by their fierce conflicts with the powerful Iroquois, yet they still had considerable strength. For many years after the coming of the French, they were able to muster a large array of armed warriors, equipped for attack or for defense, and, even up to the beginning of the second decade of the nineteenth century, continued to cause much fear and suffering, and great calamity upon the encroaching and aggressive white man.

Indian Chiefs

Miamis, Me-che-cun-na-quah, or Little Turtle, 1747-1812. Jean B. Richeville (Richardville), 1761-1841. Francis La Fontaine, 1810-1847. The Godfroys, Frangois and Lewis, lived at Godfroy Farm, and then at the mouth of the Mississinewa.

Shawnee, Spemica Lawba (High-horn) or Capt. Logan, born on Mad River, Ohio, 1788; friendly to the whites; gave great aid to the whites ; killed near Fort Wayne, 1812.

Shawanose, Blue Jacket, at Wayne's victory, 1794; chief spirit among the tribes. Black Wolf, born in Florida, of high rank; cunning, graceful, brave; was at Braddock's defeat, and so on to 1794; was mild and merciful; died at Wapokonetta, one hundred and ten years old. Tecumseh, born on Mad River, Ohio, 1768; killed on the Thames, Canada, 1818. The Prophet, brother of Tecumseh, confederate with him; survived the war; pensioned by British Government.