1 |
Appendix 1. An Evaluation of Certain Statements
Made
in a Letter from William Henry Harrison
to the Secretary of War, March 22, 1814
This appendix is concerned with an evaluation of certain statements contained in a letter written by William Henry Harrison, dated March 22, 1814, and addressed to the Secretary of War.1 Some of the statements made by Harrison in this letter clearly demonstrate Harrison's lack of historical knowledge concerning the movements of those Indians who, just after the turn of the eighteenth century, lived in Indiana Territory. Other statements made by Harrison in the same letter are subject to misinterpretation if the reader is not aware of the past history of the Indian group or groups referred to.
The fourth paragraph of this March 22, 1814 Harrison letter is as follows:
The Miamies have their principal settlements at the forks of the Wabash, thirty miles from fort Wayne; and at Mississineway, thirty miles lower down. A band of them under the name of weas, have resided on the Wabash sixty miles above Vincennes; and another under the Turtle on Eel river a branch of the Wabash, twenty miles northwest of fort Wayne. By an artifice of the Little Turtle these three bands were passed on general Wayne as distinct tribes, and an annuity was granted to each. The Eel river and Weas however to this day call themselves Miamies, and are recognized as such by the Mississineway band. The Miamies, Maumees, or Tewicktovies, are the undoubted proprietors of all that beautiful country which is watered by the Wabash and its branches; and
1. Indiana Historical Collections, vol. 9, pp.
637-638; Dft. Ex. 97.
2 |
there is as little doubt, that their claim extended at least as far east as the Scioto. They have no tradition of removing from any other quarter of the country; whereas all the neighboring tribes, the Piankashaws, excepted, who are a branch of the Miamies, are either intruders upon them, or have been permitted to settle in their country.
As to the first point made, the separateness and distinctiveness of the Weas,
Eel Rivers, and Miamis had been recognized for some years prior to the signing
of the Treaty of Greenville. As shown in Chapter 3 of this Report, the Weas had
existed as a body politic, separate and distinct from the Miami, throughout the
historic period. Even though the historic span of the Eel Rivers is much
shorter than that of the Weas, they were, like the Weas, considered a distinct
group by both British and American authorities, as shown in Chapter 4 of this
Report. In 1792, as pointed out in the same Chapter, the Eel Rivers and Weas
were considered competent, by American authorities, to sign a Treaty of Peace
and Friendship which did not include the Miamis. Furthermore, although it is
true that Harrison in 1805 at the insistence of "the three tribes that
call themselves Miamies"2 began Article 4 of the Treaty of
Grouseland thus:
As the tribes which are now called the Miamis, Eel River, and Weas, were formerly and still consider themselves as one nation. . .(7 Stat. 91)
yet in the same Treaty, and in subsequent treaties Harrison referred to, awarded annuities to, and dealt with the separate
2. See pp.
230-231, this Report.
3 |
"tribes" of this so-called "nation" time after time in the same way3 that Wayne had dealt with the Miamis, Eel Rivers and Weas at Greenville. Therefore we regard, on all counts, Harrison's stricture of Wayne as unwarranted, and Harrison's attempt to include the Weas and Eel Rivers as "Miamies" unfounded in historical fact, and contra to his own previous actions.
Harrison's statement in the same paragraph of his letter that
The Miamies, Maumees, or
Tewicktovies, are the undoubted proprietors of
all that beautiful country which is watered by the Wabash and its branches
is also open to contradiction, even assuming Harrison was referring to the Miamis and Weas and Eel Rivers as a single
3. See, for example, Treaty of Grouseland, Art. 2: "The said Miami,
Eel River, and Wea tribes cede. . ." Art. 3: . . .the United States
will give an additional permanent annuity to said Miamis, Eel River, and Wea
tribes, in the following proportions, viz: to the Miamis, six hundred dollars;
to the Eel River tribe, two hundred and fifty dollars; to the Weas, two hundred
and fifty dollars;. . .; Art. 5: The Putawatimies, Miami, Eel River, and
Wea tribes explicitly acknowledge. . ." Signers: Miamies (5); Eel
River (3); Weas (3). 7 Stat. 91, 92. Treaty of Fort Wayne, Preamble:
. . .the Sachems, Head men and Warriors of the Delaware, Putawatame, Miami and
Eel River tribes of Indians, have agreed. . . .; Art. 2: "The
Miamies explicitly acknowledge the equal right of the Delawares. . .;" Art.
3: ". . .to the Delawares a permanent annuity of five hundred dollars;
to the Miamies a like annuity of five hundred dollars; to the Eel river tribe a
like annuity of two hundred and fifty dollars; and to the Putawatimies a like
annuity of five hundred dollars;" Art. 4: All the stipulations made
in the treaty of Greenville, relatively to the manner of paying the annuities.
. .shall apply to the annuities granted by the present treaty;" Art. 5:
The consent of the Wea tribe shall be necessary to complete the title to the
first tract of land here ceded; a separate convention shall be entered into
between them and the United States, and a reasonable allowance of goods given
them in hand, and a permanent annuity, which shall not be less than three
hundred dollars, settled upon them;" Signers: Delawares (5); Putawatimies
(11) ; Miamies (7); Eel Rivers (2). 7 Stat. 113, 114, 115. See
also: A Separate Article (7 Stat. 115) and A Convention (7 Stat. 116).
4 |
group- the so-called "Miamies, Maumies, or Tewicktovies." The Piankashaws, as shown in Chapter 7, used and occupied the western third of Royce Area 71 on the Wabash, exclusively, from 1752-1790; after 1800 Weas and Piankashaws used this region together.4 The Piankashaws, likewise, probably used Royce Area 73, which is also on the Wabash, to hunt in from 1725-1802; for some periods they used it exclusively, at other times they probably shared it with the Kickapoos, the Mascoutens, and finally, with the Weas from 1790 onward.5 Piankashaws exclusively occupied Royce Area 74, which lies on the Wabash, from 1725 up to about 1792, and had a well-known village in the Area at the mouth of the Vermilion River, a western tributary of the Wabash.6 Farther up the Wabash, at and in the vicinity of Ouiatanon (near present-day Lafayette, Indiana) not only Weas, but Kickapoos and Mascoutens and, after 1790, Potawatomis, lived along the Wabash.7
Harrison's further statement that "there is little doubt, that their [Miamies, Maumees, or Tewicktovies] claim extended at least as far east as the Scioto" is true only if he was referring to a claim- not endorsing one which by context he seems to have been doing. The Scioto River of Ohio flows from the north almost due south and divides the present State of Ohio into two equal parts. No Miami-Wea-Piankashaw-speaking
4. See pp.
322-323, this Report.
5. See p. 343, this Report.
6. See p. 390, this Report.
7. See pp. 145-150, this Report.
5 |
peoples, from 1655 on, and after 1710 no Miamis, Weas, Piankashaws or Eel River Indians lived farther east in the present State of Ohio than on the lower Maumee River in northwestern Ohio; or at present-day Piqua, in western Ohio; or near the mouth of the Little Miami River in western Ohio.8 The Miamis at the mouth of the Maumee moved, ca. 1711, westward to the headwaters of the same River; the Miamis and Weas who lived at Piqua were only there for five years, from 1747-1752 and hunted, we know, to the northward; the Miamis at the mouth of the Little Miami were a very small group and were not heard of after 1749.9 Therefore Harrison's statements about the extensive realm of the "Miamies or Maumees or Tewicktovies" [=Miamis, Weas and Eel Rivers] are typical of many careless statements that have been made about these groups, and lack any foundation in historical fact.
Harrison also stated in that section of his letter of March 22, 1814 quoted in extenso on p. 1 of this Appendix that the Miami "have no tradition of removing from any other quarter of the country." However, less than ten years after Harrison made this statement, G. C. Trowbridge, secretary to Governor Lewis Cass of Michigan Territory, obtained a migration legend from a Miami chief.10 Also, as we pointed out in Chapter 1 of this Report, there are no documentary records of the Miamis, Weas or Eel Rivers inhabiting the Wabash and Maumee villages until very near the end of the seventeenth century.
8. See pp.
13-14, 16-19, 27-37,
this Report.
9. Idem.
10. Trowbridge, Meearmeear Traditions, pp. 2-3, 7-13; Dft. Ex. 134.
6 |
Further misinformation on Harrison's part is apparent in his statement, in that part of his letter we have quoted, that Little Turtle's village on Eel River was composed of Eel River Indians. As we have shown in Chapter 2 of this Report, Little Turtle was a Miami leader who had lived at the head of the Maumee River in the 1700's, but who, in 1794, removed with his followers to the head of Bean Creek in northwestern Ohio or southeastern Michigan and who later moved again to the headwaters of Eel River.11 The Eel Rivers, up to ca. 1792-1793, lived a few miles above the mouth of Eel River. The leading chief of the Eel Rivers at this date was the Soldier, who signed Putnam's unratified Treaty of September 27, 1792, and the Treaty of Greenville of 1795 (7 Stat. 49:54), and who was the father of Fleur and Dixon (or Dickson), the two leading Eel River men by ca. 1820.
Another portion of Harrison's letter to the Secretary of War of March 22, 1814, dealing with the movements of two other groups, the Kickapoos and the Delawares, into the present State of Indiana further demonstrates Harrison's lack of valid ethnohistorical information. According to Harrison,
During the war of our revolution, the Miamies had invited the Kickapoos into their country to assist them against the whites, and a considerable village was formed by that tribe on the Vermillion river near its junction
11. See pp. 68-69, 71-72,
this Report.
12. See pp. 127-128, this Report. Also, Special File 112, Cole to Brown, February 18, 1850; Dft. Ex. 128.
7 |
with the Wabash. After the Treaty of Greenville, the Delawares had with the approbation of the Miamis, removed from the mouth of the Auglaize to the head waters of White river. . . .13
Harrison misdated the Kickapoo movement into Indiana by approximately 40 years. The Kickapoo moved eastward into Indiana from the Mississippi Valley and from the vicinity of their allies the Fox Indians in ca. 1735, at the instigation of the French and as a result of the French anti-Fox program of the early eighteenth century. They settled, not at the mouth of the Vermilion River, but within a few miles of Ouiatanon.14 In 1765 they and the Mascoutens were located immediately adjacent to this former French post. The Indian groups concerned with this new location of the Kickapoos were not the Miamis, but the Weas and, less immediately, the Piankashaws.15
As in the case of the Kickapoos, Harrison's date for the first appearance of the Delawares in Indiana (post-Treaty of Greenville) is much too late. Many years after the fact, in 1805, it was stated (presumably by the Potawatomis, Miamis, Weas and Eel Rivers) that the Piankashaws had given the Delawares the lands south of the Vincennes Tract bordering on the Ohio (Royce Area 49) "about thirty-seven years ago [1768]" (7 Stat. 51:92). This incidentally, was stated in
13. Indiana Historical Collections, vol. 9, p. 638;
Dft. Ex.
97.
14. Collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, vol. 17, p. 222; Dft. Ex. 64.
15. See pp. 94-95, this Report.
8 |
a Treaty Harrison negotiated- the Treaty of Grouseland of August 21, 1805. Be that as it may, a contemporary source of 1773 reported some Delawares as having gone that year to an undesignated location below the Falls of Ohio on invitation of the "Wabash Indians."16 Other Delaware groups trickled into the White River Valley for the next 25-30 years; the last Delawares to do so consisted of a group of Moravian or Christian Delawares from eastern Ohio, who sought permission to settle on White River from those Delawares who had preceded them there.17
Conclusion:
Examination of the two oft-quoted ethnohistorical excerpts from Harrison's March 22, 1814 letter, considered above, shows that Harrison was in error on seven points, as follows:
1) The separateness of the Miamis, Weas, and Eel Rivers had been recognized by various White observers, long before Wayne recognized it in the Treaty of Greenville of August 3, 1795.
2) "The Miamies, Maumees, or Tewicktovies'' [Miamis, Weas and Eel Rivers] were not the undoubted owners of all the country watered by the Wabash and its branches.
3) The "Miamies', Maumees' or Tewicktovies'" [Miamis', Weas' and Eel Rivers'] claim, on the basis of native use and occupancy, did not extend as far east as the Scioto River in central Ohio.
16. See pp.
260-261, this Report.
17. See pp. 260-262, 268-269, 271, 329, 332-334, this Report.
9 |
4) The Miami did have traditions of removals from other parts of the country; furthermore we have a documented history of Miami movements in regions other than the Wabash Valley during the late seventeenth century.
5) Little Turtle's Miami village was on the headwaters of Eel River, and is not to be confused with the Eel River Indians' village, which was near the mouth of Eel River.
6) The Kickapoo settled in the Wabash Valley 40 years earlier than Harrison stated they did. They settled there, not to assist the Miamis against the Whites in the American Revolution, but because the French wanted to break up a Kickapoo-Fox alliance.
7) The Delawares were in Indiana long before Harrison located them, on the headwaters of White River. They may have been in the lower White River Valley as early as 1768, and for the next 25-30 years groups of Delawares trickled into this Valley.
Harrison's inconsistencies are difficult to explain, but serve to shake our confidence in him as a reliable historian. Harrison's errors of fact may be due in large part to his having paid more attention and given more credit to hearsay and oral tradition, than to documentary sources.
Go to
Appendix 2
Return
to Anth. Rep. Docket 317 Volume II Table of Contents
Go
to Anth. Rep. Docket 317 Volume I Table of Contents
Return to Ohio Valley -
Great Lakes Ethnohistory Archive Menu
Return to Glenn A. Black
Laboratory of Archaeology List of Publications
Return to Glenn A. Black
Laboratory of Archaeology Home
Last updated: 11
September 2000
Comments: gbl@indiana.edu
Copyright 1997, Glen Black Laboratory of Archaeology and The Trustees of Indiana University.