By
JOHN D. BARNHART, Ph. D.
and
DONALD F. CARMONY, Ph. D.
| TECUMSEH AND THE WAR OF 1812 |
125 |
The treaty, which was then signed, was made between the United States and the Delaware, Potawatomi, Miami, and Eel River tribes. It provided for the cession of two pieces of land; that lying to the north of the Vincennes Tract contained some 2,800,000 acres; the second, known as the Twelve-Mile Strip, lay west of the Greenville Treaty Line and contained the western half of the Whitewater valley. The latter was the smaller of the two, but it was located in the path of the migration into the Whitewater region and was settled almost immediately.16 The cession of the first tract was not regarded as complete until the consent of the Wea was obtained. This was secured at Vincennes on October 26 after Harrison had returned from Fort Wayne. At Vincennes on December 9 the Kickapoo negotiated a second supplementary treaty, by which they ceded land west of the Wabash, opposite to the tract surrendered at Fort Wayne but extending north to the Vermillion River. It was probably a little smaller than the Twelve-Mile Strip. Historians have stated that the Indians received only $10,000 for over three million acres of land. This figure, however, does not take into account the permanent annuities which were granted to the tribes and which amounted to $2,750 each year. In four years they would double the amount usually cited.
However popular the treaty may have been in Vincennes, the purchase of these
additional lands from the Indians in the face of the Prophet's activity was
destined to stimulate him to greater resentment. Strange as it may seem, hostility
was not keenly felt by the tribes which made the cession with the exception
of the Kickapoo. The followers of the Prophet were Shawnee, Winnebago, Sac and
Fox, Kickapoo, Huron, and stragglers from the Potawatomi, Ottawa, and Chippewa,
tribes that generally were located in the lakes region and within the sphere
of British influence. Reports reached Harrison that war would begin any day.
Through messengers he tried to stiffen the resistance of the friendly tribes,
defeat the Prophet in the Indian council, and secure help from the federal government.
Apparently through the Delaware and with the assistance of Winamac, he defeated
the Prophet's plan to declare a general war in the council on the St. Joseph
of Lake Michigan.17 The British Indian agent, Matthew Elliott, advised
Tecumseh, brother of the Prophet, to remain at peace. The British wanted to
keep the Indians under their control and feared the effects of war on the tribesmen
and on themselves. The impetuosity of the Prophet might have
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16 The first tract was bounded on the south by the Vincennes Tract, on the west by the Wabash River, and on the northeast by a line from the mouth of Raccoon Creek to the Grouseland cession of 1805 in such manner that the tract should be thirty miles wide at the narrowest point. The southeastern boundary was the line of the Grouseland Treaty. In some manner the northeastern boundary came to be known as the Ten O'clock Line.
The Twelve-Mile Strip was bounded on the east by the Greenville Treaty Line from Fort Recovery to its intersection with the boundary of the Grouseland cession, by the Grouseland cession line on the south to a point where a line parallel to the Greenville line would be twelve miles from the latter, and by this parallel line on the west to a point where the northern boundary would parallel the Grouseland line and end at Fort Recovery.
The Kickapoo cession contained a fifteen-mile strip west of the Wabash opposite the first tract ceded at Fort Wayne and an extension north to the Vermillion River twenty miles wide at the north and fifteen at the south.
The compensation included permanent annual annuities which totaled $2,750, goods distributed to the value of $6,700 at the negotiation of the three treaties, a special grant to the Miami of $1,500, and the maintenance of an armorer at Fort Wayne.
The treaty is printed in ibid., 359-362; that with the Kickapoo, ibid., 397-398.
17 See the letters printed in ibid., 417-440, and the Western Sun (Vincennes), October 14 and 21, 1809.
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INDIANA |
defeated their purpose.18 The secretary of war, after being urged by Harrison to act vigorously, ordered two companies of troops to Vincennes.19
Harrison wrote to the Prophet on July 19, asking him to prove that the United States had bought lands of Indians who did not possess them; he offered to restore them if the Prophet could prove his point. He also proposed to arrange a visit to the President for the Indian leader and three companions. The answer of the Indian to Harrison's communication was delivered by Tecumseh, who came into prominence at this time and whom Harrison regarded as the real leader. He arrived in Vincennes on August 12 and remained there for ten days, during which time Harrison had several conferences with him. The words of Tecumseh on the last two days were recorded by an interpreter and sent to the secretary of war. Tecumseh spoke as though he were the main leader of the Indian resistance and scarcely mentioned the Prophet.20
He reviewed the mistreatment of the Indians by the Americans and contrasted it with the conduct of the French. He denied that the land belonged to separate tribes or that the chiefs of the various tribes could sell the land to the whites. In order to prevent these sales, the insurgent Indians were destroying the village chiefs and putting everything in the hands of the warriors. Continued efforts to purchase land would result in was and in the death of chiefs who should make the sales. He requested that American traders be permitted to come to Prophetstown. The inspiration of the great spirit, he said, was the source of his program.21
Harrison then undertook to explain "the justice used by the U. States towards the Indians," but after Tecumseh had listened about twenty minutes he interrupted the governor and told him he lied. A number of young Indians also rose up with their war clubs, tomahawks, and spears, and stood in a threatening attitude. Secretary John Gibson, who understood the Shawanese language, summoned a guard of twelve men. When the interpreter translated the Indian's remarks, the governor reproached Tecumseh, ordered him to his camp, and ended the council.
The next morning Tecumseh offered explanations and apologies and the council was resumed. He claimed that he alone was the "acknowledged head of all the Indians," said that the Kickapoos would not receive the annuities promised them in the recent treaty, and warned that bad consequences would result if the whites endeavored to cross the old boundaries. 22
Following this conference, Tecumseh returned home, and Harrison summoned the
second company of soldiers which had been ordered to Vincennes but which had
not arrived. He appealed again to the secretary of war for permission to build
a new fort. John Johnston reported to the governor that the
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18 Report on Canadian Archives, 1893, pp. 45-47, letters of M. Elliott, July 9 and November 16, 1810; J. H. Craig, February 2 and March 29, 1811; Gore, February 26 and 27, 1811. Cecil K. Byrd, "The Northwest Indians and the British Preceding the War of 1812," Indiana Magazine of History, XXXVIII (1942), 31-50; Goebel, William Henry Harrison, 115-116.
19 Harrison, Messages and Letters of William Henry Harrison, I, 441, 443, 472.
20 Ibid., 447-472.
21 Ibid., 463-469: Western Sun (Vincennes), August 18 and 25, 1810.
22 Harrison, Messages and Letters of William Henry Harrison, I, 460-463, 468, and for quotation see 469.