Indiana : a redemption from slavery

Preface

•

It will be matter of information to the general reader that slavery ever existed in Indiana. Those whose attention has been directed more particularly to American history are aware of its former existence, and, to some extent, of its origin and termination. No one, I think, since it has passed into history, has had any conception of its true significance. Historians, who have alluded to its continuation under the Ordinance of 1787, appear to have regarded it merely as one of the incongruities of frontier life, — an unlawful condition which nothing but the imperfection of government permitted to exist. A like haziness has enveloped the petitions of Indiana for the further admission of slavery. Their existence has often been mentioned, and sage reflections have been builded on them, but the physical and political conditions that produced them have been totally ignored. The historical fact that the local slavery question was the paramount political influence in Indiana, up to the time of the organization of the state government, has never been hinted at.

The assertion may be ventured that it is time these matters were explained. This task has been essayed in

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PREFACE.

the following pages. An endeavor has been made to bring to light the causes which produced the pro-slavery feeling, and the difficulties which anti-slavery sentiment was obliged to overcome. In this endeavor an investigation of the ancient French civilization, which existed within our borders, became a necessity ; and there appeared no stopping-point for this investigation short of the original exploration of the country. While it is besides the central purpose of the work, it is hoped that enough light has been thrown on this obscure subject to reconcile the reader to the devotement of so much space to its consideration.

I cannot offer my work to the public without acknowledging the assistance and counsel which have made its completion possible. My thanks are due to George Stewart, Jr., of Quebec ; to Douglas Brymner, Archivist of Canada ; to Lindsay Swift, of the Boston Public Library ; to C : A. Cutter, of the Boston Athenaeum ; to Rev. Joseph Anderson, of Waterbury, Conn. ; to John Gilmary Shea, of Elizabeth, N. J. ; to A. R. Spofford, of the Congressional Library ; to James Mooney, of the Bureau of Ethnology ; to C. C. Baldwin, of Cleveland, O. ; to W. F. Poole, E. G. Mason, and A. D. Hager, of Chicago, 111. ; to Peter G. Thompson, of Cincinnati, O. ; to Charles B. Lasselle, of Logansport ; to John Levering, B. Wilson Smith, and Albert Henderson, of Lafayette ; to H. S. Cauthorn, of Vincennes ; to W. P. Huckleberry, of Charlestown ; to W. W. Borden, of New Albany ; to Timothy Nicholson, of Richmond ; to W. H. English, J. R. Wilson, D. W. Howe, W. W. Woollen, Samuel

PREFACE.

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Morrison, and A. J. Hay, of Indianapolis. Special acknowledgments of numerous courtesies are due to Mrs. Lizzie Callis Scott, State Librarian of Indiana, and W. De M. Hooper, of the Public Library of Indianapolis.

In the existing written history of Indiana there has been so little citation of authorities that it has become almost impossible to distinguish those statements wdiich are founded on authority from those whose basis is mere conjecture. On this account, and as there is no bibliography of Indiana history, and as many statements are made herein which might otherwise be disputed, it has been deemed proper to cite authorities fully. In doing this, however, reference is made to the actual source of the author’s information, authentic copies being ranked as originals, — this particularly as to documents from the Canadian archives.

Indianapolis, March 14, 1888-

CONTENTS,

Chapter I. The First White Man

It is difficult to realize fully that Indiana was ever subject to the dominion of kings. It seems more like a dream than the sober truth of history that the approval of Louis the Great was a prerequisite to the exploration of her lands, and commercial intercourse with her naked denizens ; that the sensual monster Louis XV. held in his hands the supreme power over the welfare of her first settlers ; that George III. controlled her course in the tottering advances of her infancy. These men delayed for some years the fulfillment of her destiny, but they left few marks on her laws and customs, and what they did leave have been so nearly effaced for many years that they have attracted hut little attention even from the historian. In considering the history of the older states, several of which were not inhabited until after Indiana, the mind more readily grasps the status of the early period ; for society crystallized in them much sooner than in our remote wilds, and they had within their boundaries their capitals where records of dealings between crown and subjects

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always remained, preserving to them indelibly the impress of foreign rule. Indiana had no capital within her boundaries for one hundred and thirty years after white men had been upon her soil. She was but a part of a province of a province. For ninety years her provincial seat of government vacillated between Quebec, New Orleans, and Montreal, with intermediate authority at Ft. Chartres and Detroit, and the ultimate power at Paris. Then her capital was whisked away to London, without the slightest regard to the wishes of her scattered inhabitants, by the treaty of Paris. Sixteen years later it came over the Atlantic to Richmond, on the James, by conquest ; and after a tarry of five years at that point it shifted to New York city, then the national seat of government, by cession. In 1788 it reached Marietta, Ohio, on its progress towards its final location. In 1800 it came within the limits of the state.

With the seat of government so frequently changed, and the papers referring to public affairs scattered through the archives of various sovereignties, it is not surprising that the history of the early settlements has been in a confused condition ; and this confusion was heightened through the destruction by fire of a part of the few records existing at Vincennes, her earliest permanent town, on January 21, 1814.1 Almost everything that has been written concerning them is conjecture, with a slight foundation of tradition. Volney visited Vincennes in 1796, and had conversations with old settlers from which he concluded that the place had been founded in 1735.2 Monette adopted this as the

1 Cauthorn's Vincennes , p. 8; Western Sun , January 29, 1814; Thomas's Travels, p. 189.

2 View of the U. S Pliila. ed. p. 373.

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date of our first settlement,1 and so did Flint ; 2 but Bancroft, more cautiously, says this date “ is not too early : ” he considered it probable that the route from the lakes to the Mississippi by way of the Maumee and Wabash came into general use in 1716, and, “in conformity to instructions from France, was secured by a military post.” 3 Bishop Brute, the first incumbent of the see of Vincennes, from what information he had obtained, made the following statement : u The first establishment of Vincennes, as the mission of St. Francis Xavier or Wabash, dates about 1700. The friendly tribes and traders called to Canada for protection, and then M. de Vincennes came with a detachment, I think, of Carignan, and was killed in 1735.” 4 He also conjectured that during the later years of the 17th century traders and missionaries may have passed “ down from the St. Joseph, left the Kankakee to the west, and visited the Tippecanoe, the Eel River, and the upper parts of the Wabash.” In his first edition, Mr. Dillon, the historian par excellence of Indiana, adopted this conjecture as probable.5 In his edition of 1859 Dillon affirms his belief that the Indian villages on the Wabash were visited by the French as early as 1702, and quotes from a memoir of the Marquis de Denonville, dated March 8, 1688, as to posts having then been established on the Ohio and Wabash, but ventures no further supposition.6

All of the writers who have examined the subject

1 Hist. Miss. Valley , vol. i. p. 165.

2 Condensed Hist, and Geog. vol. ii- p. 153.

3 Hist. U. S. vol. iii. p. 346.

4 Butler s Hist. Ky. Introduction, p. xviii.

6 Hist. Indiana , p. 400.

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recognize the certainty of an exploration of our territory previous to the formation of permanent settlements, but with singular unanimity they have overlooked the ancient traditions concerning this exploration, which were recorded before they could have become much corrupted by historical research. Two of these records are worthy of notice here. In 1816, David Thomas, a Quaker gentleman of New York, visited Vincennes, and an a careful search for information concerning its early history obtained two statements, both from traditional sources, as follows : —

1. “About the year 1690 the French traders first visited Vincennes, at that time a town of the Piankeshaw Indians, called Cippecaughke. Of these the former obtained wives and raised families. In the year 1734 several French families emigrated from Canada and settled at this place. The first governor, or commandant, was M. St. Vincent, after whom the town is now called/’

2. “ About the year 1702, a party of French from Canada descended the Wabash River, and established posts in several places on its banks. The party was commanded by Captain St. Vincennes, who made this his principal place of deposit, which went for a long time by no other name than the Post. 1

A Gazetteer of Indiana, published in 1833, makes this statement: “In the year 1680, this country was first explored by some adventurers, with a view of deriving advantages from the Indian trade, chiefly in the article of furs. The ground on which the town of Vincennes now stands was then chosen as a place of trade, and

1 Travels through the Western Country , Auburn, N. Y., 1819, p. 189.

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from that time continued to he occupied by a few traders, who lived in a manner but little different from the natives. In 1735 a company of French made an addition to the Wabash settlements.” 1 The writer cites no authority, but, as up to this time no history of Indiana had been attempted, it seems reasonably certain that his statement was founded on tradition. W e have therefore a space of fifty-five years, 1680-1735, within which tradition has fixed the exploration and settlement of the Wabash country, and conjecture has varied even more widely, for it has been maintained that the settlement was not made before 1750.2

Let us now abandon the old attempt to go backwards over a course lined out by such uncertain landmarks, and, having begun at the beginning, build up the early history of this commonwealth from reliable historical sources, trusting that the question of permanent settlement will be simplified when thus approached. We shall at least be able to brush away some of the rubbish that has accumulated in the course over which we must make our way. The year 1669 may safely be set as a limit before which no Frenchman explored to the south of the great lakes. There is no account known of any such exploration, and the maps up to that date represent the lower country as unknown.3 The Iroquois Indians had shown such strength and such hostility that the French had not even attempted to go west by Niagara

1 At p. 23. This is a revised and enlarged edition of John Scott’s Gazetteer of 1826, of which I have been unable to find a copy. Hon. James Scott, one of the judges of the supreme court of Indiana, aided in the revision.

2 N . Am. Rev., vol. xlix. p. 69.

3 Winsor’s Narrative and Critical Hist. U. S ., vol. iv. pp. 202- 205.

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and Lake Erie. The trading posts which they had established on the upper lakes were reached by the Ottawa, or Grand River, and Lake Huron.1 In 1665, the celebrated regiment of Carignan-Salieres was sent into the Iroquois country, and from this and other military operations peace had been fairly established by 1669, though affairs were somewhat unsettled for several years.2 3 * * The Senecas, the most westerly of the Five Nations, had made a treaty in 1666, and Father Fermin had established a mission among them in 1668. It has been claimed that missionaries visited Indiana and Illinois prior to this date, but there is no foundation for the statement. The probable sources of the error are the records of certain missions* to the Miamis in this earlier period ; but the Miamis referred to were a detached band who lived in Wisconsin, with the Kickapoos and Mascoutins, as appears by the same records.

With these facts in view we can accept the statement concerning Robert Cavalier,8 Sieur de la Salle, which is made in the sketch prefaced to the original edition of the journal of Henri Joutel, as follows: “Many Discoveries had been made to the Northward, before Monsieur de la Sale's Time ; because there being Plenty of very good Furs, the traders of Quebeck and Montreal , by Means of the Adventurers call’d Wood-Men \_courevrs de from their traveling thro’ the Woods, had

penetrated very far up the Country that Way ; but none

1 Parkman’s Disc, of Gr. West, p. 17, n.

2 N. Y. Col. Docs., vol. ix. pp. 63, 71, 85 ; Garneau’s Ilist. of Canada , vol. i. p. 220.

3 The name Ren£, which is sometimes added, was not given

him at baptism. Vide Chevalier de la Salle de Rouen , par Gabriel

Gravier, Paris, 1871, p. xi.

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had advanced far towards the South or South-West, beyond Fort Frontenac , which is on the Lake Ontario , the nearest this Way of the five great Lakes. However, upon the Report of the Natives, it was supposed, that great and advantageous Discoveries might be made. There had been much talk of the rich Mines of St. Barbara, in the Kingdom of Mexico , and some were tempted to give them a Visit. Something was known of the famous River Mississippi , which it was supposed might fall into the South Sea, and open a Way to it. These Conjectures working upon Monsieur de la Sale , who being zealous for the Honour of his Nation, design’d to signalize the French Name, on Account of extraordinary Discoveries, beyond all that went before him ; he form’d the Design and resolv’d to put it in Execution. He was certainly very fit for it, and succeeded at the Expence of his Life ; for no Man has done so much in that Way as he did for the Space of twenty Years he spent in that Employment. He was a Man of a regular Behaviour, of a large Soul, well enough learned, and understanding in the Mathematicks, designing, bold, undaunted, dexterous, insinuating, not to be discourag’d at any Thing, ready at extricating himself out of any Difficulties, no Way apprehensive of the greatest Fatigues, wonderful steady in Adversity, and what was of extraordinary Use, well enough versed in several Savage Languages.” 1 The u space of twenty years ” would indicate a beginning of these explorations in 1667, for La Salle was assassinated in 1687, but it is perhaps not intended to be precise. The earliest mention of his departure is in a letter of Sieur Patoulet, dated November 11, 1669, stating “ that Messrs, de la Salle and Dolier, accom- 1 Joutel’s Journal , London ed. of 1714, pp. xvi, xvii.

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panled by twelve men, had set out with a design to go and explore a passage they expected to discover communicating with Japan and China.” 1 On October 10, 1670, M. Talon, Intendant General of Canada, writes to the king : “ Since my arrival I have dispatched persons of resolution, who promise to penetrate further than has ever been done ; the one to the West and Northwest of Canada, and the others to the Southwest and South.” 2 3 In February, 1671, the minister Colbert replied : “The resolution you have taken to send Sieur de la Salle towards the South, and Sieur de St. Luisson to the North, to discover the South Sea passage, is very good.” 8 Concerning this voyage there remain two accounts, one by the Abbe Gallinde, who accompanied the explorers, and the other by a friend of his who claimed to have his information from La Salle. It is unquestioned that they left La Chine in July, 1669, and journeyed together to the western extremity of Lake Ontario. Here they were presented a Shawnee slave, who assured them that he could lead them to the Ohio in six weeks ; but here also they met Louis Joliet, who was returning from an unsuccessful search for the copper mines of Lake Superior. On his report, in spite of the protestations of La Salle, Dolier and Gallinee, who were Sulpitian priests, decided to go to the upper lakes to instruct the Pottawattamies. They separated on the last day of September ; the priests passed on through Lake Erie, making the first

1 N. Y. Col. Docs., vol. ix. p. 787 ; Margry’s Dccouvertes et Ftablissements des Francois dans L' Amerique Sejtentrionale, vol. i. p. 81. For convenience this work will be cited hereafter simply as Margry.

3 Ibid., vol. ix. p. 789.

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recorded traverse of that lake, though Joliet had probably just come over it on his return ; they returned in 1670, having accomplished nothing further.

Gallinee’s account follows La Salle only to this point, and the other relation, which is very obscure, has been savagely attacked on account of a claim founded upon it that La Salle discovered the Mississippi before Joliet. Margry, Shea, Parkman, Harrisse, Whittlesey, Failion, Gravier, and others have so wrestled backwards and forwards over this ground that hardly any authority has escaped unscathed, and this one has suffered most of all. It proceeds : “ Meanwhile M. de la Salle continued on his way by a river which runs from East to West ; and passed to Onondaga, afterwards to six or seven leagues below Lake Erie ; and having reached as far as the 280th or 283d degree of longitude, and to the 41st degree of latitude, he found a rapid which falls to the West into a low land, marshy, covered with dead trees, of which there were some that were yet standing. He was obliged to take to the land, and, following a ridge which led him a long distance, he found certain savages who told him that afar off from there the same stream, which lost itself in this vast and low country, reunited in a channel. He then continued his journey, but as the fatigue became great, twenty-three or twenty-four men who had followed him thus far quitted him in one night, regained the river, and made their way some to New Holland and some to New England. He then found himself alone, four hundred leagues from home, whither he hastened to return, reascending the river, and living by the chase, by herbs, and by what the Indians that he met on the road gave to him.” 1

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This account is so absurd from a geographical view that it can be regarded of value only as confirmatory of other evidence and in a general way. Fortunately La Salle went over the same ground in his memorial to the king in 1677, and his account is clear and reasonable. Speaking of himself in the third person, he says : “ In the year 1667, and those following, he made divers voyages with much expense, in which he for the first time explored many countries to the south of the great lakes, and among others the great river of Ohio ; he followed it to a place where it empties, after a long course, into vast marshes, at the latitude of 37 degrees, after having been increased by another river, very large, which comes from the north ; and all these waters discharge themselves, according to all appearances, into the Gulf of Mexico.” 1 If La Salle’s statement as to lati-

1 “ L’ann^e 1CG7, et les suivantes, il fit divers voyages avec beaucoup de d^penses, dans lesquels il d^couvrit le premier beaucoup de pays au sud des grands lacs, et entre autres la grande riviere d’Ohio ; il la suivit jusqu’a un endroit ou elle tombe de fort haut dans de vastes marais , a la hauteur de 37 degr^s, apr&s avoir grossie par une autre riviere fort large qui vient du nord ; et tout.es ces eaux se d^cliargent selon toutes les apparances dans le Golfe du Mexique.” (Margry, vol. i. p. 330.) The italicized words which I have translated “ where it empties, after a long course, into vast marshes,” have heretofore been rendered “where it falls from very high into vast marshes.” The latter is the more natural rendering for modern French, but these words are of two centuries ago, and in the latter rendering they are incomprehensible. There are no high falls on the Ohio or any other stream that could be referred to. If we suppose the reference to be to the rapids at Louisville, which have a fall of only twenty-seven feet in two and one half miles, there can still be found nothing in their vicinity that will serve for “ vast marshes.” I find no place in La Salle’s writings where the verb tomber is used in describing a cascade or rapid ; but he did use it to signify the debouchure

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tucle be correct, — and this is not improbable, inasmuch as he was “ understanding in the Mathematicks,” and as the early French calculations of latitude were much more accurate than those of longitude, — he must have come nearly to the mouth of the Ohio. He may have arrived there at a time when the Mississippi was overflowing, in which case the back-water in the Ohio, the overflowed bottom-lands, and the extensive cane-brakes tbtit then existed on both its banks below the mouth of the Tennessee, might very naturally have caused him to believe that it emptied into vast marshes.

The relation first quoted states that he made another attempt to descend the Ohio some months later, but left it and crossed to Lake Erie, whence he passed through the lakes to the southern extremity of Lake Michigan. Below this he found a stream running from east to west, and followed it to a point where it was joined by another stream flowing from northwest to southeast ; he continued beyond this point to the 36th degree of latitude. The streams referred to are probably the Kankakee and Des Plaines, but the latitude is unquestionably as incorrect as that given in connection with the former voyage.1 He could have reached parallel 36

of streams, as, for example, in reference to the discharge of the Des Plaines into the Illinois, and again of the latter into the Mississippi. Margry, vol. ii. pp. 128, 80. On the latter page he also uses fort haut in referring to the length of a stream. The preceding account is consistent with this reading, for, though it says he reached a rapid ( sault ), it also says “he continued his journey ” beyond that point ; and while the longitude and latitude of the sault would place it somewhere near Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, La Salle is left, at the end of his expedition, “four hundred leagues from home.”

1 La Salle erred widely in latitude estimated on the Illinois in his earliest voyages. In 1680 he put Pimetoui at 33° 45', though

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only by the Mississippi, and if he had thus reached it before Joliet he would have left some mention of it. He never made that claim, and Frontenac and other friends, who certainly knew the extent of his travels, expressly concede the discovery of the Mississippi to Joliet.1

The maps of the period confirm the view as to the extent of these voyages which is given above. On what is called “Joliet’s Larger Map,” dated 1674, the Ohio is laid down, but with uncertain juncture with the Mississippi, and marked “ Route du Sieur de la Salle pour aller dans le Mexique “ Joliet’s Smaller Map ” has the Ohio also, with the inscription, “ Riviere par ou detcendit le Sieur de la Salle au sortir du lac Erie pour aller dans le Mexique .” A third map, which may claim date as early as 1673, since the Mississippi does not appear upon it, shows the Ohio breaking off abruptly at a point well down towards its mouth, and marked, Riviere Ohio , ainsy appellee par les Iroquois a cause de sa beaut e, par ou le Sieur de la Salle est descendu .2 The latter map is ascribed by Parkman, with much reason, to La Salle himself.8 The upper part of the Illinois River is traced upon it, and in the lower part of Lake Michigan is written : “ The largest vessels can come to this place from the outlet of Lake Erie, where it discharges into Lake Frontenac [Ontario] ; and from this marsh, to which they can enter, there is only a distance

in 1682 he put the mouth of the Illinois at 38°. Shea’s Le Clercq, pp. 119, 163.

1 N. Y. Col. Docs., vol. ix. p. 121 ; MargTy, vol. ii. p. 285.

2 See, for maps, Winsor’s Hist. XJ. S. vol. iv. pp. 212-216; also Parkman’ s Disc. Gr. West , p. 23, n. 1.

8 Disc. Gr. West, p. 406.

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of a thousand paces to the River La Divine, which can lead them to the River Colbert [Mississippi] and thence to the Gulf of Mexico.” It may be inferred from this that La Salle explored only a part of the upper Illinois on his second voyage, but learned of its course from the Indians. It is claimed that the tracings of the Ohio, with the accompanying legends, on the Joliet maps, are additions by another hand, and that this shows clearly on what “ appears to be the original Joliet map.” 1 This is probably true, for Joliet had no personal knowledge of the course of the Ohio, and it was a common practice then to alter maps by adding new discoveries, but for the purpose of identifying La Salle’s exploration their value is not impaired by this.

It remains to be added that the French government always based its claim to the Ohio valley on its exploration by La Salle. The official instructions sent to M. du Quesne in 1752 recited : “ The River Ohio, otherwise called the Beautiful River, and its tributaries, belong indisputably to France, by virtue of its discovery by Sieur de la Salle ; of the trading posts the French have had there since ; and of possession, which is so much the more unquestionable as it constitutes the most frequent communication from Canada to Louisiana.” 2 Again, in 1755, M. de Vaudreuil was instructed: “It is only since the last war that the English have set up claims to the territory on the Beautiful River, the possession whereof had never been disputed to the French, who have always resorted to that river since it was discovered by Sieur de Lassalle.” 3 From all this evidence

1 Mag. of Am. Hist., vol. ix. p. 279, note. A reprint of this map, with the suspected parts removed, is at p. 272 of the same.

2 N. Y. Col Docs., vol. x. p. 243. 3 Ibid. p. 293.

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we conclude that La Salle traced the entire lower boundary of Indiana in 1669-70, for the “very large” stream which joined the Ohio from the north could have been nothing except the Wabash. That he passed through the northwest corner of the state in 1G71 or 1G72 seems also reasonably established.

In this connection we may advantageously dispel an error which crept into our history half a century ago. From the fact that the Ohio below the mouth of the Wabash was anciently called “ Ouabache,” Judge Law conjectured that the first travelers descended the Wabash to Vincennes, crossed by land to Kaskaskia for fear of hostile Indians farther south, and finding the mouth of the Ohio, as they descended to New Orleans, supposed it to be the Wabash. On this theory he asserted that “the Wabash was known and navigated by the whites long before the Ohio was known to exist.” 1 It is true that the lower portion of the Ohio was called “ Ouabache ” until after the middle of the eighteenth century ; but it is also true that it was so named before the Wabash was known, and before Vincennes, Kaskaskia, and New Orleans were dreamed of. On the map of Marquette (who died in 1675) the Ohio is marked as an unexplored stream with the name Ouabonskiaou. On Joliet’s maps of 1673 and 1G74 the same unexplored stream is marked Ouaboustikou or Ouabouskigou. These are evidently Indian names, and looking to the tribes of the country through which Joliet and Marquette passed, we find their words for white as follows : in Menominee waabish-keeiva ; in Knisteneaux wapishkawo ; in Chippewa wawbishkaw ; in Sac wapes-kaya , — all of which are from the old Algonquin stem waba 1 Hist, of Vincennes , p. 10.

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or wapi , which has the same meaning.1 The same name Waba-shikkah is still given to the Wabash by some of the Indians resident in Indiana.2 The dialects of the tribes nearer the Wabash, all of Algonquin stock, varied but slightly from these, and those tribes were commonly called Ouapous, Ouabans, or Ouabachi, by the Frenchmen of the period. From the Indian name, first applied by whites to the lower Ohio, came the Gallicism “ Ouabache,” which was afterwards Anglicized to “ Wabash.” 3