A history of Indiana from its exploration to 1850

Preface

IN the preparation of this book several unexpected obstacles have been met. In the first place many traditional stories popularly regarded as substantial history have been found to be without historical foundation. In the second place there is no considerable collection of historical material to draw upon. Other States have published their documentary materials and thus made them available to historians, but that work remains to be done in Indiana. In the third place many of the State publications have been found, after close study, to be unreliable, others are bound without indexes, tables of contents, or even continuous pagination. In many cases it is necessary to turn through a record, page by page, to find any desired information. These conditions have made it necessary to found every material statement on a primary source. Such work is slow and very tedious.

Indiana University, October 30, 1914.

CHAPTER I THE FRENCH IN INDIANA 1 The Jesuits Plan a Nation of Christian

Indians 1

2 The Fur Traders 3

3 Louis XIV and the Mississippi Valley. __ 8

4 The Miami Indians 10

5 The First Settlements in Indiana 14

6 The French Settlers 22

CHAPTER II THE ENGLISH PERIOD, 1764-1779 28 7 English Conquest and Government 28

8 PoNTiAc's War 31

9 The Journey of George Croghan 37

10 England Takes Possession and Organizes

the Country 40

Chapter III The Conquest By Virginia, 1778-1779 47

11 The American Revolution and the In-

dians 47

12 The Capture of Kaskaskia 48

13 Pierre Gibault and the Capture of Vin-

CENNES 52

14 The Last Capture of Vincennes 59

15 Civil Government Under Virginia 67

Chapter IV Closing Campaigns Of The Revolution 70

16 Indians of Indiana 70

17 Last Stage of the Revolutionary War

in the West 78

18 The Indians Become the Wards of the

United States 89 vi TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER V INDIAN WARS, 1790-1796 92 19 The Struggle for the Ohio River Boun

dary 92

20 The Conquest of the Miamis 104

21 A Year of Negotiations and the End of

the War 120

CHAPTER VI GOVERNMENT OF THE NORTH- WEST TERRITORY 126 22 Organization of the Northwest Terri

tory 126

23 The Government at Marietta 130

24 Vincennes Land Claims 132

25 Indiana a Part of Knox County 137

26 Government Under the Judges 138

27 Civil Government of the Northwest

Territory 142

28 Harrison in Congress 151

CHAPTER Vll INDIANA TERRITORY, 1800-1816 154

29 Organization of Indiana Territory 154

30 Indiana Made a Territory of the Second

Grade 159

31 The Territorial Legislature 169

32 Aaron Burr's Conspiracy 177

33 Development of the Territory 178

Chapter VIII Indiana And The War Of 1812 181

34 After the Treaty of Greenville 181

35 Tippecanoe 186

36 Indian Wars of the Frontier 190

37 Life on the Frontier 198

Chapter IX From Territory To State, 1813-1816 203

38 New Settlements 203

39 Removal of the Territorial Capital to

TABLE OF CONTENTS vii

40 The Enabling Act 213

41 The Constitutional Convention of 1816_ 217

CHAPTER X THE STATE GOVERNMENT AT 42 The New Constitution in Operation 222

43 The Indians 228

44 First State Bank and the Ohio Falls

Canal 233

45 Moving the Capital to Indianapolis,

1825 237

46 Settlement of the New Purchase 239

47 Social and Political Organization 248

63 The Survey, Its Methods and Area 340

64 Land Offices 342

65 Land Sales 344

CHAPTER XVI SYSTEMATIC INTERNAL IM- PROVEMENTS 352 66 The Problem, the People, and the Legis

lature 352

67 The Wabash and Erie Canal 355

68 The System of 1836 360

69 Construction of Canals and Roads 366

70 The Settlement With the Creditors 378

71 Finishing the Wabash and Erie Canal__ 385

CHAPTER XVII THE SECOND BANK OF IN- DIANA 394 72 Chartering the Bank in 1834 394

73 Organization and Policy of the Bank 399

74 The Panic of 1837 403

75 The Era of Free Banks 408

76 Bank of the State of Indiana — The

Third State Bank, 1855-1865 413

88 Early Agitation for Revision 450

89 Organizing the Convention 454

90 Politics of the Convention 456

91 The New Constitution 459

CHAPTER XXI POLITICS FROM 1840 TO 1852__ 462 92 A Bankrupt State 462

93 Campaign of 1844 466

94 Political Demoralization 475

95 Free Soilers in Indiana, 1846 to 1850 477

96 The Last Struggle of the Whig Party,

1852 484

INDEX 503

MAPS

1 Indiana Territory, 1800 Frontispiece

2 The French Explorers 13

3 Indiana Counties, 1814 33

4 Expedition of Clark 57

5 Proposed Divisions of the Northwest Terri-

tory 75

6 The Northwest Territory, 1795 99

8 The Indians 241

9 Rivers and Streams of Indiana 267

10 Indiana in 1822 301

11 Indian Cessions 329

12 Land Surveys 345

13 Internal Improvements 355

14 Indiana in 1833 401

15 Indiana in 1852 467

A HISTORY OF INDIANA

CHAPTER I § 1 The Jesuits Plan a Nation of Christian Indians

The first account of the extensive plains and prairies south of the Great Lakes was given to the world by the Jesuit missionaries to the Huron Indians. The history of Indiana may well begin by recounting the plans of these early Jesuits for forming a Christian Indian nation around the Great Lakes.

Inhabiting the Canadian peninsula extending down between Lakes Huron and Erie and Ontario was an Indian population of from ten to twelve thousand souls. Along the southern shores of the lakes from Erie to the Mississippi river were situated numerous tribes more or less related to those in Canada ; so that within easy reach of Lake Huron, Lake Michigan, and Lake Superior there were not fewer than twenty-five thousand Indians. The Jesuits were the most advanced thinkers of that day. What visions they had of ideal government among this unspoiled Indian folk cannot be known. At one time they spoke of commerce and the expansion of France. At another, they expressed their view that if France was to become the ruler of this vast country and its simple folk, the seeds of French culture and patriotism should be implanted in the savage breast. In other letters they indulged the true Jesuit spirit that the church must outweigh the state in the hearts of the new people. At still other times they lamented the internal wars of the tribesmen and breathed a hope to see all of it disappear in an all-consuming love of God and the king. In vision they saw the red men thoroughly Gallicized, imbued with French culture and patriotism, armed and officered by the French government, carrying the lilies of France in triumph over a continent won for civilization, the church, and the king. They may have indulged the more pacific dreams of Plato or More, or the unborn longings of Rousseau. Whatever their thoughts and hopes, they perished W'ith their authors in the Canadian wilderness.

The little band of Jesuits who accompanied the first French explorers to the regions of the upper St. Lawrence soon saw the advantages of the situation. During the winter of 1634, while the Jesuit Fathers were gathered in the residence of their superior, Father Le Jeune, at Quebec, the plans for this work were laid. Including Le Jeune, there were six of the Jesuit Fathers on the Huron mission. They were not at all discouraged by the difficulty of their undertaking, although they intended the conversion of a savage nation. ^ Le Jeune wrote to his superior in France "the harvest is plentiful and the laborers few." They were not without the benefit of experience, for the father superior himself had been in Quebec several years acquainting himself with the Indians, teaching and converting their children. He had even spent a winter with the Indians in the forest, accompanying them on their hunting trips. He knew very well what life among them meant. The terror of the work, however, only made it the more inviting. The Jesuits began at once to learn the Huron language and to collect necessary materials for the work among the Indians.

The distance from Quebec to the home of the Hurons was almost a thousand miles. After a tiresome journey of a month, poling their canoes up the Ottawa river, the foremost priests reached the Huron villages on Thunder Bay. After they had spent five years in missionary work among the tribes, making regular rounds from town to town, they looked over the field as best they could and decided to make

1 Francis Parknian, The Jesuits in 'North Anuricn, 42 seq. See also Jesuit Relations, index, '"Huron ilission."

their mission home at St. Marie on the south side of Matchedash Bay. A systematic organization of the tribes was perfected, and the calendar of the saints was drawn on for new names for the Indian villages. There were St. Ignace, St. John the Baptist, St. Joseph, St. Michael, St. Marie, St. Louis and St. Paul. When in 1649 everything seemed promising of success, the Iroquois, the ancient enemies of the Hurons, attacked them with customary fury. The Huron nation was destroyed and with it went the dream of a Jesuit empire around the Great Lakes.

Jesuit priests continued to visit the western tribes for half a century, but few of them ever set foot on what is now the soil of Indiana. Within the next half century the Jesuit Fathers, Allouez, Dablon, and Marquette, established important missions around the Great Lakes. Some of these priests may have crossed from the Kankakee to the St. Joseph river, in Indiana, on their way to the West, but no mission is known to have been established in Indiana at this early date.

§ 2 The Fur Traders

In the next period, 1650 to 1750, missionaries and fur-traders mingled together. It is always difficult to tell whether a post was established primarily as a mission or as a fur-trading station. The latter was not so much a place where furs were collected as a center from which agents visited the neighboring tribes to show the kettles, blankets, knives, and other articles of trade furnished by the French, and to encourage the Indians to carry their furs to the large posts on the lower St. Lawrence.

The annual trip of the Indians to Three Rivers, Quebec, or Montreal was full of danger. Usually two or three hundred warriors went together. They made the journey in June and July, going by way of Lake Nipissing and the Ottav/a river to avoid the Iroquois tribes. Arriving near Quebec or Montreal, they landed, put up their tents, greased and painted their bodies, and assorted their goods preparatory to trading. Their goods consisted almost entirely of furs and tobacco. The second day was usually devoted to a formal council between the French officers and the chiefs. After the council, two more days were consumed in bartering. Some of the tribesmen were expert gamblers and tried their luck against the French; others, especially the Hurons, were said to have been skillful thieves. After the trading was all done, the French invited their visitors to a grand feast. Then followed a night of revelry, after which the Indians set out at dawn for their homes. In this way, no doubt, many of Indiana's native inhabitants visited the French on the lower St. Lawrence.

During the fall and winter seasons the trader spent his time, in part, among the Indians preparing for the harvest of furs in the spring. He was the leading man of the post or colony holding his commission directly froiyi his king. He had money and influence at court. Around him was a nondescript body of hunters, soldiers, and adventurers, over whom he held nominal military power. With each band of fur gatherers there went a Jesuit, whose gentle influence it was that welded the strong friendships between the French and Indians. It will be enough for our purpose if we describe the labors of one of these traders.

La Salle was a member of the well-known family of Caveliers of Rouen, France, the son of a wealthy burgher merchant. He was educated by the Jesuits, who then controlled the best schools in the world. A brother of his was a Sulpician priest in Canada. With what little pocketmoney he could get. La Salle sailed for Canada, reaching Quebec in 1666, whence he went on immediately to Montreal, then little more than a mission of the Sulpicians. He acquired a large tract of land at what is now Lachine, at the head of the rapids, nine miles above Montreal. This place was well situated for the fur trade.

La Salle learned from the Seneca Indians that far to the west was a beautiful river flowing through the forest to join another great river which flowed far to the south and emptied into the Vermilion Sea. It did not take him long to make up his mind that here was a chance to serve his nation and also himself. This, he thought, was the river that would lead him to the South Sea and thus open a route to India. The governor and the priests of Canada were easily won over to the enterprise, especially since La Salle undertook to pay all expenses himself. For this purpose he sold his grant at Lachine.

By July 6, 1669, La Salle with twenty-four men in seven canoes was ready to start from Lachine. His men paddled the canoes up the St. Lawrence and into Lake Ontario. In thirty-five days from the time they left their camp they had reached a small bay on the south side of Lake Ontario near the mouth of the Seneca river. Here they left their boats, and went with some Seneca Indians to their village homes. The Senecas did not take kindly to La Salle's plan of going to the Ohio, and refused to show him the way. The latter went back to his canoes and continued westward on the lake to Niagara river. At an Indian village in this neighborhood he met a party of warriors returning with a Pottawattomie prisoner. This prisoner La Salle ransomed on his agreeing that he lead the Frenchman to the Ohio. Tradition has it that the party then came on southward from Lake Erie until they reached a branch of the Ohio. This stream they descended to its mouth; thence down the Ohio as far as the Falls at Louisville. Here La Salle's men deserted him and turned back to the east, leaving their captain alone to find his way back to Canada as best he could.

Having returned to the Great Lakes, La Salle is said by Margry to have sailed westward across Lake Erie, through the Detroit river, and Lake Huron, around to the southern point of Lake Michigan, to have crossed over to the Illinois river, followed it down to the Mississippi, and to have floated far enough down the Missisippi to assure himself that it emptied into the Gulf of Mexico. That he discovered the Ohio, there is little doubt ; but of his early discovery of the Missisippi we cannot be sure.^ During the following six or seven years he does not seem to have been active. However, he never forgot the rivers he had seen or heard of

2 Winsor. Narrative and Critical History of America, IV, 201 ; Parkman, LaSallc and the Discovery of the Great West (index) ; Oscar J. Craig, Indiana Historical Society Pnhlication^, II, p. 7. (2)

and the opportunities they held for fur trade and colonization. Compared with the frozen wastes of Canada, the prairies and river bottoms of Ilinois and Indiana seemed fairyland. The road from Quebec, though, was too long and dangerous, so he planned to reach the new field by way of the Mississippi. By the year 1678 everything being in readiness he started west to open up the fur trade of upper Canada. While spending the following vdnter at Frontenac on Lake Ontario, he built a small ship called the Griffin. With this he sailed through Lake Erie and up the Detroit river, across Lake St. Clair into Lake Huron, through the Straits of Mackinac into Lake Michigan, landing in September at Green Bay. The ship started back to Niagara. The explorers came on down to the southern shore of Lake Michigan and paddled around to the mouth of the St. Joseph river, which they called Miamis, reaching this place by November 1. Here, near the mouth of the river, they built a fort — the little Fort Miamis — while they were waiting for Lieutenant Henri de Tonty and his companions, who were coming overland.

December 3 the party, numbering twenty-eight, started in eight canoes for the Illinois country, going by way of the Kankakee portage. They ascended the St. Joseph of the Lakes until they reached the south bend, near where the city of South Bend now stands. They watched carefully for the portage path which they had been told was in that neighborhood and by which they hoped to reach the Illinois. Unfortunately while the Mohegan hunter was absent they passed this path without noticing it. While La Salle was on shore searching for it he became separated from his friends. Night came on bringing with it a snowstorm. Wrapped in their blankets the weary explorers lay down to sleep. Meanwhile their leader, hopelessly lost, found a grass bed, prepared by an Indian, and in that he passed the night. So fared these early white visitors to Indiana, the first of whom we have any clear and reliable account. At four o'clock the next day La Salle regained the river and soon found his men. The Indian guide who had meantime been hunting for the trail (which he finally found) had returned also and together they started on the portage path for the Kankakee, five miles distant. It did not take them long to reach the Kankakee, a narrow ribbon of water, flowing drowsily through the tufts of swamp grass, obstructed here and there with clusters of alder bushes and pools of still water. In this stream they launched their canoes and floated slowly westward toward the Illinois country. Game was scarce and provisions ran low. Finally, when almost exhausted they found a buffalo bull mired in the swamp. They killed him, dragged him out, and feasted. They then floated on down the river into the Illinois, and down that river until they came to a high cliff overlooking the left bank of the stream. Nearby was a large Indian town, but no Indians.

Here La Salle determined to build a fort and gather around him the Indian tribes of the region which now embraces the greater part of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky. To this place he determined to transport his goods and establish a central trading station for all this western country. He could send his furs down the Mississippi river to the Gulf, and thence to France, while his goods to be used in traffic with the Indians could be brought back up the Mississippi in the returning boats. The site chosen was the favorite dwelling place of the Illinois Indians. In the vicinity were encamped the Peoria Indians, Miamis, Piankeshaws, Mascoutins, Weas and others from far and near. There were even refugee Abenakis from the forests of Maine, and Hurons from the lands beyond the Great Lakes. Most of these had been driven here by fear of the Iroquois. It is doubtful if a single Indian tribe at this time made its home in what is now Indiana through dread of those wide-ranging marauders, who had secured firearms from the Dutch at New York. La Salle went to work immediately to carry out his plans. He named his fort St. Louis in remembrance of his king, Louis XIV. He gathered furs during the winter, and sent them by different members of the party to Montreal. The faithless agents sold the furs, but never reported to their master. As La Salle was hastening back to Canada to ascertain the trouble, on the way he met a new commander, sent out by the governor of Canada to take possession of Fort St. Louis.

La Salle concealed his anger, went on to Canada, arranged matters there, but when he returned he found his fort and village completely ruined. In the autumn of 1680 a war party of Iroquois, well armed, and led by a chief in a Jesuit robe, had conquered the Illinois town. The Indians themselves were saved through the tact and bravery of Tonty, the lieutenant of La Salle, but the town was utterly destroyed; so that when La Salle returned there were only enough traces remaining to show what had been the fury of its Iroquois destroyers. Thus was dispelled the dream of making a nation of fur-gatherers out of the western Indians.

The efforts of La Salle, however, did not end with this defeat. During the year 1682-3 he was again busy among the Indians of Indiana and Illinois trying to persuade them to settle once more around his fort. He even invited Indians from across the Mississippi to join him. Indiana was almost deserted of her native population. But the failure of the plan was assured even before La Salle's death. Had it prospered, what later became the Northwest Territory would have become an immense fur-trading field with the Indians as the fur gatherers. After the downfall of La Salle, there was a general migration of the tribes, due to a weakening of French influence.

§ 3 Louis XIV and the Mississippi Valley

At the opening of the eighteenth century, it seemed that France had a firm grip on the north central part of what is now the United States. She held its two natural highways, the Mississippi and St. Lawrence rivers; but there was a fatal weakness both in the north and south. The French were hindered in the navigation of the Mississippi by the hostile Chickasaws, who lived on the Vicksburg bluffs. On the other hand they were not able to pass the Niagara river, or the upper St. Lawrence, on account of the hostile Iroquois. Had it not been for these two tribes of Indians the history of the Northwest might have been different. Nevertheless the French king, Louis XIV, began at this time to take great interest in the Mississippi Valley. The country was divided between the governments at New Orleans and Quebec, the dividing line running east and west through central Indiana, near Terre Haute. A French explorer named D'Iberville, under instructions from Louis XIV, tried to carry out the scheme of La Salle by concentrating the northwestern tribes on the Ohio, but this failed.

Along with this plan of D'Iberville it was decided to construct a sufficient number of forts within the northwestern country to protect it from the English traders who were rapidly becoming interested in the western fur-trade. D'Iberville himself established a post in 1699 at Biloxi, Mississippi. La Motte Cadillac fortified the post at Detroit in 1701. Forts Chartres and Kaskaskia were established over on the Mississippi in southern Illinois. Since the Indians were moving toward the east, it was planned to fortify the route from Lake Erie to the Mississippi by way of the Wabash. It was in carrying out this policy that most of the permanent posts of the Northwest were founded. These guarded the important river thoroughfares and the great portages. Around, and in them the missionaries and traders made their headquarters and for this reason the Indians also frequently gathered near. The policy of the king in selling the exclusive right of the fur-trade to a single man or company had not only ruined the fur-trading business but had demoralized the traders.

In the early eighteenth century the only white people in what is now Indiana were the roving fur-traders, called coureurs de hois, and the Jesuit missionaries. The French fur-traders had become divided into two classes. Those who had no license were called coureurs de hois or woods rangers, partly because they had no fixed homes. They were either petty criminals from France, or Canadians, driven from home by the severe trading laws of the time. They lived with the Indians in true Indian fashion. Their life was hard. In storm and shine they plied their paddles along the lakes or on the small streams, overhung by boughs and grapevines and obstructed by drift, rocks, or sunken logs. While they, at times, feasted on venison and turkey, their usual fare was parched corn and bear grease. Once in a long while they visited the French towns of lower Canada spending a few weeks there in drunken revelry; but they were always in danger of being taken as outlaws. Reckless, careless, lawless, openhearted, trusty, and jovial, they had the characteristics of the modern cowboys of the plains. The licensed traders formed a more orderly class. At Quebec and Montreal they had headquarters, from which they carried their goods to the western posts in canoes. The Indian pony, a horse from Normandy, was soon brought in for a pack horse; still later Canadian carts were used at such portages as Niagara and Ft. Wayne, but never for long journeys. Very little record was left of this period of our history. Rarely could more than one man of a party or at a post write, and all his time was taken in listing furs and keeping accounts.

§ 4 Miami Indians

Reference has been made heretofore to the Indians inhabitating the soil of what is now Indiana. It is of course impossible to gather enough data to write a satisfactory account of the Miamis or any other of the western tribes in the seventeenth century. A short account, however, will give some idea of the location, numbers and characteristics of these forest folk.

In 1658, Gabriel Dreuillettes, then stationed at the mission of St. Michael on the west shore of Lake Michigan, reported that the Miamis, evidently the whole nation, for they numbered according to his estimate eight thousand men or twenty-four thousand souls, were in the southwest corner of what is now the State of Michigan. This is in harmony with other reports which go to show that the valley of the St. Joseph of the Lakes was one of their favorite homes.

The Iroquois of New York seem to have invaded the western country, what is now Indiana and Illinois, about 1670 and caused a panic among the native tribes. They had succeeded in getting firearms from the Dutch at New York about 1630. During the next forty years they waged incessant and victorious war on all their neighbors, almost exterminating the New England tribes on the east, the Delawares on the south, the Eries on the west, and the Hurons on the north and northwest. With these tribes subdued they led their war parties farther to the west and attacked the Miamis and the Illinois on the prairies. For this reason, presumably, tlie Miamis next appear in history west of Lake Michigan.

In 1670 Claude Allouez, then stationed at Green Bay, reported a Miami village a day's journey in the interior from that mission. At the same time another band was living near the Illinois towns down on the Illinois river.

The same year, Allouez made a trip to central Wisconsin where, mingling with the Foxes and the Mascoutins, he found what he took to be the whole Miami nation. The missionary, Allouez, adds significantly that they were all in terror because a war party of Iroquois had swooped into the neighborhood recently and destroyed a Fox village.

Allouez was impressed with the general character of the Miamis. He called them gentle, affable, and sedate. Their language was in harmony with their dignity. They spoke slowly, manifesting great interest in what the Jesuit, Allouez, had to say. Two years later, 1672, when Allouez returned to this station there yet remained ninety cabins of Miamis. The Jesuit relation of the same year also stated that the village near Green Bay still remained.

By 1674 Allouez had gathered a goodly colony of them at the mission of St. Francis Xavier on Green Bay. The missionaries invariably spoke well of the Miamis, praising especially their ability as hunters, and their faithfulness.

Jean de Lamberville, writing September 20, 1682, to Count Frontenac stated that the Iroquois had at that time a large number of Miami captives whom they would soon torture unless French intervention saved them. De Lamberville also feared that an Iroquois army, twelve hundred strong, then forming, as the missionaries supposed, at the instigation of the English for an invasion of the Illinois country, would completely annihilate the Miamis and their neighbors the Siskakon and Ottawa tribes on the headwaters of the Maumee, on their return journey.

In 1680, as has been noted in the account of La Salle's exploration, the Iroquois attacked the Illinois with disastrous results to the latter. There were many traditions of this Iroquois war handed down to the missionaries and traders among the western Indians. What battles were fought, what tragedies were enacted, what heroism displayed, or what the final result was, can never now be known. One of these traditions, dear to the Miamis, was to the effect that a Miami chief having seen an army of Iroquois pass on its way to attack the Illinois at once dispatched runners to all his villages and to the villages of all his kinsmen, summoning all to meet him, prepared for desperate battle. With his tribesmen he formed an ambuscade on the banks of the Wabash and, as the Iroquois warriors returned, delirious with blood and plunder, fell upon them with such fury that only a few escaped. This battle was said to have been fought where Terre Haute now stands. The place was known among the Indians as the "Old Battle Ground."

Whether there is any truth in the tradition, or whether Miami ingenuity contrived it to hide the shame of their submission to the Iroquois, the fact is beyond question that the Miamis were back on their old hunting grounds in northeastern Indiana and western Ohio about the year 1700. By this time they had secured firearms from the French and English and it is possible that in this traditionary battle in which they handled the Iroquois so roughly they fought with firearms on equal terms. "^

Gen. William H. Harrison, who was well acquainted with the western Indians, said the Miamis occupied all of Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin south of the Fox and Wisconsin rivers, and Ohio east of the Scioto. He thought them

sje.<tuit RrJittions, index "Minmis"; Lewis H. Morgan, Leapuc of the Iroquois, 14; Winsor. Narnitivc and Critical History of America, index.