Vigo County, Indiana - The Indians Relinquish Their Lands - Formation of Indiana Territory, 1908

\Mien the war of the rcvokition came to a close in the colonies, the Indian hostilities in the west were continued with renewed bitterness. ^^'hen the territory north of the Ohio was surrendered to the colonies and it became understood that in a short time the Americans would push out and possess and settle this country, the Indians were aroused to make one long and determined effort to resist this invasion. For more than ten years hostilities were continued, during which time the settlement of the Ohio country was retarded and only a meager number of pioneers came as far west as the present state of Indiana. Campaign after campaign was made against the Indian tribes, conference followed conference, and at each treaty they ceded some portion of their aboriginal heritage.

The eastern half of Ohio was ceded to the United Colonies in 1785. The Shawnees, who resisted every advance of the whites, were induced, by the Fort Finnev treaty in 1786, to remove to a tract of country between the upper courses of the Great IMiami and the Wabash. After the passage of the Ordinance of 1787 and the institution of government in the Northwest Territory, the period of actual settlement began. But for some years all the region between what is now eastern Ohio and the valley of the Wabash was a wilderness. In a short while the line of settlement extended across the entire north and south length of Ohio at its eastern bo'rder. But the emigration did not advance in even line to the west; rather the earliest settlers pioneered down the water course of the Ohio, turning aside only at the larger tributaries, so that during the last decade of the eighteenth century the fringes of population had extended all along the course of the Ohio and had penetrated inland for some distance along the Miami in Ohio and the Whitewater and the Wabash and its tributaries in Indiana.

Settlement would have proceeded more rapidly had not the Indians continued hostile. It will be remembered the English did not withdraw their garrisons from all the posts in the western country until 1796, and the presence of the British had served as an inspiration to the Indians. About the time the British garrisons were withdrawn, Anthony Wayne won his notable victory over the allied tribes at the rapids of the Maumee, in 1794, and soon after established at the old post of Kekionga a fort that has since borne his name. Previously, under Wayne's instructions, posts had been established called Fort Greenville and Fort Recovery (both only a short distance east of the Indiana line). At Fort Greenville, in August, 1795, was negotiated the Greenville treaty between General Wayne and the delegates of the various tribes inhabiting the portions of the covmtry under dispute. By this treaty nearly all of the present state of Ohio with the exception of the northwest corner was surrendered by the Indians. The western line ran from Fort Recovery (not far from the present Celina, Ohio), in a slightly southwesterly direction to the mouth of the Kentucky river on the Ohio. In the territory to the west of this line numerous other cessions were made by the Indians, among them a military reservation at Fort Wayne, lands about the various Wabash settlements, and the Clark grant at the falls of the Ohio. Excepting the minor cessions along the Wabash, the principal territory thrown open to settlement by this treaty in what is now Indiana was the triangular piece, shaped like a church spire with the base resting on the Ohio river, lying east of the Greenville treaty line and the present Ohio state line. When, in 1800, Congress divided the Northwest Territory, this Greenville line became part of the dividing line between Ohio and Indiana territories, but on the admission of Ohio to the Union in 1S02 the western boundary became what it is today. By the treaty of Greenville the Indians for the first time formally relinquished title to parts of lands in the northwest theretofore in dispute between them and the whites. Before that treaty the Indians had never acknowledged the right of the whites to any lands, even those claimed by the latter from their first occupancy of the county, such as the lands of Clark's grant and the lands in and around Vincennes. Including the treaty of Greenville, August 3, 1795, there were no less than fortysix separate treaties with various tribes of Indians, covering all the lands within the present state of Indiana, the last of those treaties being made with the Miamis, November 28, 1840. "It will thus be seen," says Mr. W. H. Smith, in his history of Indiana, "that the process of extinguishing the Indian titles was a slow one, and that the Indians were not finally dispossessed until after Indiana had been a member of the Union for nearly a cjuarter of a century. In most of these final treaties certain tracts were reserved bv the Indians for favorite members of the tribes, and are vet known as 'reservations,' although about all the lands have passed to other persons than the descendants of the original beneficiaries. A few descendants of the Miamis still live in Wabash and Miami counties. In its various purchases from the Indians, the United States frequently had to accept from two, sometimes three, different tribes separate relinquishments of their respective rights, titles and claims to the same section of country." Population at once began moving into the lands ceded by the Greenville treaty. In 1795 a few families made a beginning of the town of Lawrenceburg, in the extreme southeast comer of Indiana, and from that date settlements increased over that portion of the cession. Of course, during the first two years of the territorial government of Indiana, this region belonged to Ohio and its population was counted with that of the latter territory. In 1800 the total population of what is now Indiana was estimated at 2.500, the majority of whom were French, in the settlements along the Wabash. When Ohio became a state in 1802 the section above described was added to Indiana, and from this Dearborn county was organized in 1803.

By an act approved May 7, 1800, Congress provided "That from and after the fourth day of July next, all that part of the territory of the United States northwest of the Ohio river, which lies westward of the line beginning at the Ohio, opposite to the mouth of Kentucky river, and running thence to Fort Recovery, and thence north, until it shall intersect the territorial line between the United States and Canada, shall, for the purpose of temporary government, constitute a separate territory, and be called the Indiana Territory." The act provided further "That there shall be established within the said territory a govermnent in all respects similar to that provided by the ordinance of Congress, passed on the thirteenth day of July. 1787, for the government of the territory of the United States northwest of the river Ohio : and the inhabitants thereof shall be entitled to, and enjoy, all. and singular, the rights, privileges and advantages granted and secured to the people by the said ordinance." A further provision of the act creating the Indiana Territory was, "That so much of the ordinance for the government of the territory of the United States northwest of the Ohio river, as relates to the organization of a general assembly therein, and prescribes the powers thereof, shall be in force and operate in the -Indiana Territory, whenever satisfactory evidence shall be given to the governor thereof, that such is the wish of a majority of the freeholders, notwithstanding there may not be therein five thousand free male inhabitants of the age of twenty-one years and upwards." But until there should be such five thousand inhabitants the representatives in the general asseinbly, if one should be organized, should not be less than seven nor more than nine, to be apportioned by the governor among the several counties, agreeably to the number of free male inhabitants of the age of twenty-one years and upwards in each. As to the eastern boundary line, as fixed in the act, it was further provided, "That whenever that part of the territory of the United States which lies to the eastward of a line beginning at the mouth of the Great Miami river, running thence due north to the territorial line between the United States and Canada, shall be erected into an independent state, and admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original states, thenceforth said line shall become and remain permanently the boundary line between such state and the Indiana Territory." A final provision was that, until the general assembly should determine otherwise, "Saint A'incennes, on the Wabash river, shall be the seat of government for the Indiana Territory."

The Harrison mansion is the name given to the venerable building in which the legislature of the territory held its sessions and in which the governor resided and where the general court was held. The building is still in a good state of preservation ; and efforts have often been made to have the state secure it as a historical museum.

The house, from an architectural point of view, as well as from its massiveness, seems remarkable. At the time it was erected its situation was a wilderness, far from civilization, and to get the materials for its construction, the glass, iron, etc., meant a year or more of time before they could be delivered at Vincennes. Historical societies have endeavored to have it kept as a lasting monument to the memory of those who built so well and as a reminder that this was the birthplace of government, religion and education in the west. The building is two stories high, witli a large attic, and a basement under the entire place. It was completed in 1805. The ceilings are thirteen and one-half feet high and the rooms are spacious. The walls are of brick and inside and out are eighteen inches thick. The glass in the windows came from England, and it took two years to have it delivered. The wood was sawed with the old-fashioned whipsaw, and all the nails were hand-forged on the grounds. The woodwork is hard paneled, finished with beading and is of solid, clear black walnut. It is said that the walnut in the house today is worth a small fortune.

So came Indiana into existence, with a capital of her own, and with even a freer form of government than that of the Northwest Territory, prior to its legislative stage. The area of this new Indiana Territory included all of the present state of Indiana, except a small wedge-shaped section in the southeast part of the state, east of a line running from a point on the Ohio opposite the mouth of the Kentucky river, northeasterly to Fort Recovery, in the state of Ohio, this line being the old Indian boundary line, between those points named in the treaty of Greenville. The new territory included also a narrow strip less than three miles in width on the west side of the state of Ohio, north of Fort Recovery, and lying- between the north and south line through Fort Recovery and the present boundary of the two states."' The territory included besides, all of the state of Michigan lying west of the north and south line through Fort Recovery ; also the whole of Illinois and Wisconsin ; and so much of Minnesota as lies east of the Mississippi river. The limits of the Indiana Territory, for a time, extended even west of the Mississippi. By an act approved March 26, 1804, Congress attached to Indiana all that part of Louisiana west of the Mississippi and north of the thirty-third degree of north latitude, under the name of the District of Louisiana. At a session of the governor and judges of Indiana Territory, held at Vincennes, beginning October i, 1804, a number of laws were adopted for the District of Louisiana. During the following year, however, by an act of Congress approved March 3, 1805, this district was organized into a separate territory. This was truly an imperial domain. Detroit, Sault Ste. Marie, St. Ignace, with eastern Michigan and all Ohio, remained in the Northwest Territory, until the admission of Ohio as a state of the Union, November 29, 1802, when the Northwest Territory, as a political division, ceased to exist. At that date also Congress attached to Indiana the remainder of Michigan, or Wayne county, as it was then called; and, in 1803, William Henry Harrison, as governor of the Indiana Territory, assumed jurisdiction over all of Michigan, and extended the limits of Wayne county to Lake Michigan. Thereafter, until the formation of the territory of Michigan, June 30, 1805, Detroit, Sault Ste. Marie and St. Igna'ce, as well as the sites of Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo and Niles, with all the valley of the St. Joseph, were in Indiana. So much of the ruins of old Fort St. Joseph's, if an}-, as remained after the Spanish invasion of our valley, in 1781, were in the territory. Chicago and St. Louis were then in Indiana ; and so were the sites of Milwaukee, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Duluth. Our inland sea. Lake Michigan, was wholly within the Indiana Territory. The ambition of Napoleon is said to have been to make the Mediterranean a French lake ; and he came near succeeding. LaSalle made Lake Michigan a French lake ; it was afterwards a British Lake ; and now it is the only one of the great lakes that is wholly American ; in the first years of the nineteenth century it was an Indiana lake, surrounded on every side by Indiana Territory.

In February, 1809, Indiana Territory was reduced to practically the present limits. But at that time the Indians still retained more than twothirds of the territory, so that the white settlements were restricted to the region along the Ohio, along the Wabash from Yincennes south, to the southeastern corner (Dearborn county), and several smaller grants. In September, 1809, a large area was opened to settlement by treaty. By the larger cession the north boundary of settlement was fixed at a line running from the Wabash above Terre Haute to the east fork of White river near Brownstown. At the same time another tract was ceded, twelve miles in width and lying west of and parallel to the Greenville treaty line, being commonly known as the "twelve-mile purchase."

The treaty of 1809, above mentioned, by which the "twelve-mile purchase" was gained, had one result that contributed very materially to the slow development of Indiana during the next five years. The Indians had not failed to regard with jealousy the gradual encroachment of the whites upon their hunting grounds. After the signing of the treaty of Greenville between General .\nthony Wayne and Little Turtle and the other chiefs, 3, 1795, it was believed that permanent peace had been established between the whites and Indians. But the emigration to the rich lands of the northwest grew to such proportions that the Indians were pressed farther and farther into the interior. Xumerous treaties, as we have seen, were made, from time to time, throwing open to white settlement the sev- ,eral reservations of territory made at Greenville to secure to the Indians their hunting grounds. Often, too, where two or more tribes owned certain lands in common, as they often did, the whites secured by treaty the title of one tribe and then failed to respect the claim of the others to the same lands'. The French had respected this community ownership of lands, and never denied the title of the Indians, even to the territory occupied by themselves. Moreover, as to their own holdings, the French accepted the community idea, which was universal. Several hundred acres were set aside at Vincennes, which the inhabitants of the post used in common for pasture and other uses. They "fenced in" their stock as is now the law in Indiana ; and the crops planted outside this community property by each householder were without enclosure. The community idea, however, was antagonistic to the ideas of the emigrants from the east. Each settler wanted his own lands for himself exclusively, and was particularly unwil- .ling that any Indian should have any part or parcel in his holding. But, besides securing additional Indian lands by new treaties, many white emigrants, without any such authority, pushed in upon the lands yet reserved to the Indians by the treaty of Greenville and other treaties. This land greed, as the Indians called it, was exasperating to the natives, who loved their old hunting grounds ; and the feeling of resentment against the encroachment of the whites became more acute from year to year. Afterwards, when white men fell in battle with the Indians, it was not uncommon for the latter to stuff earth into the mouth, nose and ears of the fallen pale face, as if in mockery of this greed for land.

Tn a message to the legislature of Indiana, in 1806, Governor Harrison referred to the growing dissatisfaction of the Indians, in this and other respects. The Indians, he said, "will never have recourse to arms - I speak of those in our immediate neighborhood - unless driven to it by a series of injustice and oppression. Of this they already begin to complain ; and I am sorry to say that their complaints are far from being groundless. It is true that the general government has passed laws for fulfilling, not only the stipulations contained in our treaty, but also those sublimer duties which a just sense of our prosperity and their wretchedness seem to impose. The laws of the territory provide, also, the same punishment for offenses committed against Indians as against white men. Experience, however, shows that there is a wide difference in the execution of those laws. The Indian always suffers, and the white men never."

In the state to which the minds of the Indians were wrought up, by both their real and their fancied wrongs, they needed but a leader, to break out into hostilities against their oppressors. The leader was forthcoming, a greater perhaps than either Pontiac or Little Turtle. In 1805, Tecumseh, a Shawnee chief, and his brother Law-le-was-i-kaw - the loud voice - resided in a village on the White river in what is now Delaware county. Law-le-was-i-kaw took upon himself the character of a prophet, and is usually known under that title. He began to preach to the Indians, calling upoii them to reject witchcraft, the use of intoxicating liquors, intermarriage with the whites and the practice of selling their lands to the United States. He acquired great influence among the tribes, not only the tribes in Indiana, but those of the whole west. Prophet's Town was established on the banks of the \\'abash river, near the mouth of the Tippecanoe, as a center to which all the Indians were invited to gather. While the Prophet was arousing the religious enthusiasm of the Indians Tecumseh was visiting all the tribes of the west and south, forming a confederacy which might be strong enough to resist further encroachments on the part of the white settlers.

When, in 1809, as above mentioned, several of the tribes ceded a large tract of territory to the American government, Tecumseh opposed it, declaring that one or several of the tribes could not barter away the lands that belonged to all the Indian nations in the confederacy. Despite the efforts of Governor Harrison toward breaking up the confederacy wliich had its center about Prophet's Town, the Indians became more hostile every day. Small parties appeared in different parts of the territory, stealing and occasionally taking the lives of settlers. Tecumseh and his brother became more insolent in the conferences with the governor, and, on the eve of the second war with Great Britain, a secret British influence increased the disaffection of the tribes.