161 |
As a result, in mid-June of 1792 Hamtramck reported to St. Clair that:
a number of the Eel River Indians have arrived [at Vincennes] and says that the remainder part of their Eel River Nation are coming down: This wants more confirmation for it is my opinion that few of them are come only in expectation to get their prisoners as they expected to have had a treaty at this place.
. . .I also think that the Eel River may be persuaded to detach themselves entirely from the Miamis and come under the protection of the United States.36
At this date, the Miami were one of the leading Indian opponents of the United States. But Hamtramck's prophesy concerning the attitudes of the Eel Rivers was correct. This group with the Weas and Piankashaws, signed the unratified Treaty of September 27, 1792, held at Vincennes.37
This unratified Treaty of September 27, 1792 was held at Vincennes, with one Rufus Putnam as commissioner. The Treaty was made between the United States and the representatives of nine different Indian groups - Eel Rivers, Wea, Potawatomi, Kickapoo, Piankashaw, Mascouten, Kaskaskia, Peoria, and Ottawa- and the United States.38 Five Eel River chiefs signed the Treaty: Peankeshaw ("the name of the river at the Vemillion Town"), Nawunsuneah ("the name of the beautiful
36. Hamtramck to St. Clair, June 17,
1792; Dft. Ex. 74.
37. Carter, Territorial Papers, vol. 2, p. 374; Dft. Ex. 69. Buell, The Memoirs of Rufus Putnam, pp. 119-120, 257-278, 280-290, 325, 335 - 362; Dft. Ex. 98.
38. Ibid., pp. 335 - 362; Dft. Ex. 98.
162 |
animals invoked by their ancestors," or "Joseph"), Awlawmawnwe ("a wave"), Shemahanechseah ("the Soldier"), and Haghhaghkeah ("Grasshopper").39 One of the Eel River chiefs, Peankeshaw or Peankeunshaw, signed both the September, 1792, treaty and the March, 1792 temporary agreement. We conclude that Nawunsunseah or Joseph, is the same as "Joseph" or "Great Joseph," the uncle of the Soldier's wife, who died in Philadelphia prior to February 1, 1793.40 Of the remaining four signers of the 1792 treaty, we can identify only one "Shemahanechseah the Soldier" (1792) or "Sha-me-kun-ne-sa (or Soldier)" who signed the Treaty of Greenville of August 3, 1795.41
According to John Heckewelder, the Moravian missionary who accompanied Rufus Putnam to the Vincennes treaty of September 27, 1792, the Eel Rivers were Weas. Heckewelder listed in his account of this treaty the names and locations of the various attending groups, to wit:
|
|
the Eel-Creeck Wiachtenoos
from the source of the Wabash, Wiachtenoos |
39. List of
Signers of 1792 treaty; Dft. Ex. 76.
40. Lipscomb and Bergh, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 16, pp. 382, 386-387; Dft. Ex. 90.
41. 7 Stats. 54.
42. Heckewelder, Journal of Journey to the Wabash, 1792, p. 35; Dft. Ex. 126.
163 |
Heckewelder's identification of the Eel Rivers as Weas in 1792 differs from Croghan's 1755 and Hamilton's 1778 identification of them as "Twighteves" or Miamis.
Apparently peaceful relations were maintained between the Wabash Indians and the United States during 1793. However in March of 1794 Capt. Thomas Pasteur, who had replaced Hamtramck in command of Fort Knox at Vincennes, reported that both the Spanish and the still hostile Miami were sending belts and messages to the Wabash Indians. The Spanish informed the Wabash Indians of a rumored raid on their villages by the Americans; the Miami invited them to join in attacking the Americans. Pasteur was able to counteract the effect both these messages had on the chiefs of the Wea, Kickapoo, and Potawatomi of the Tippecanoe River. The Eel Rivers, however, did not visit Pasteur when the other three groups did.43 In 1794 some of the Eel Rivers were actively hostile towards the United States. According to information received from a captured Potawatomi warrior the Indian force which attacked Fort Recovery was composed of 1434 warriors, viz. 48 Shawnee, 160 Delaware, 130 Wyandot, 100 Six Nations, 40 Potawatomi, 170 Ottawas, 78 Miami, 700 Chippewa, and 8 "Eel river Indian."44 In June, 1794 a warrior of the "Eel River Tribe" also reported that shortly before he had raided the American army and had stolen six horses from it.45
43. Pasteur to [Wayne], March 8,
1794; Dft.
Ex. 74.
44. Examination of a Patewatime Warrior, July 23, 1794; Dft. Ex. 74.
45. Pasteur, Information received from No. 1, June 22, 1794; Dft. Ex. 74.
164 |
In July and August of 1795 some of the Eel Rivers were in attendance at the council preceding the Treaty of Greenville (7 Stat. 49). In fact, it was noted that a "considerable number of Delawares, Ottawas, Pottawatamies, and Eel River Indians" had been at Greenville from early June, 1795, several days before the official opening of the actual treaty proceedings and also prior to the arrival of Little Turtle and Le Gris, two Miami chiefs. However, no remarks by Eel River speakers were recorded. Little Turtle often spoke for Eel Rivers as well as for the Kickapoos, Weas, Potawatomis, Piankashaws and Miamis.
Two of the three Indians who signed the Treaty of Greenville either as "Eel River" or "Eel River and Miami" chiefs can be identified. One, Sha-me- kun-ne-sa (or Soldier), was an Eel River chief who had signed the Putnam treaty of 1792 at Vincennes. The other was Pee-jee-wa (or Richerville), a Miami chief formerly from Kekionga, at the head of the Maumee but in 1795 from near the mouth of the Mississinewa River. We cannot identity Coch-ke-pogh-togh, the third Eel River or Miami signer of the Treaty of Greenville.46
At about the time of the Greenville Treaty the Eel Rivers seem to have left their village near the mouth of Eel River. The period between 1790 and 1795 was one of general Indian unrest, throughout present-day Indiana and Ohio. Some
46. American State Papers, Indian Affairs, vol. 1, pp. 564
- - 582; Dft. Ex. 96.
7 Stat., 53-54.
165 |
of the Weas had left Ouiatanon prior to 1792,47 and in 1795 the Miami were no longer living at the head of the Maumee.48 In Lieut. John Wade's account of his trip up the Wabash in the late spring of 1795 there is no mention of any Indian village at or near the mouth of Eel River.49 We know that the Eel Rivers must have been in a village on "Sugar Tree Creek" (present Sugar Creek), probably at or near present Thorntown, Boone County, Indiana, in 1818.50 But when, after their village on Eel River was destroyed in 1791, they moved to upper Sugar Creek we do not know.
Part II. The Eel River Indians, 1805-1888. On August 21, 1805 three Eel River Indians signed the so-called "Treaty of Grouseland" (7 Stat. 91) whereby the Eel Rivers, together with the Miamis and Weas, ceded a tract in southeastern Indiana designated by Royce as Area 56.51 In the same Treaty the United States engaged to consider the Miamis, Eel Rivers and Weas "as joint owners of all the country on the Wabash and its waters, above the Vincennes tract,52 and which has not been ceded to the United States, by this or any former treaty" (7 Stat. 91:92).
47. See p. 120,
this Report.
48. See p. 68, this Report.
49. Wade, Extracts of a Journey [sic]; Dft. Ex. 74.
51. Ibid., pp. 558-669; map, Indiana.
52. See p. 140, this Report.
166 |
The background of the Treaty of Grouseland of August 21, 1805 is discussed at length in Chapter 6 of this Report. We are concerned here only with the identity of the three Eel River signers of the Treaty of Grouseland. These three signers were: Waronecana, or Night Stander; Metausauner, or Sam; Archekatauh, or Earth. None of the above had signed for the "Eel River Tribe" or the "Miamis and Eel River" at the Treaty of Greenville of August 3, 1795 (7 Stat. 49:54). However, one Eel River signer of the Treaty of Grouseland, "Archekatauh, or Earth," (7 Stat. 90:91) may have been identical with "Akeketa, or Ploughman," a signer of a council agreement concluded between the United States and the Eel River, Wyandots, Piankashaws, Kaskaskias and Kickapoos at Vincennes on August 7, 1803 (7 Stat. 77).
In 1828, probably as a result of pressure by certain Indiana officials for removal of the Indians from a district which contained a fairly heavy White population,53 the Eel River reservation on "Sugartree Creek," Indiana,53a was purchased by the federal government from the "Eel River or Thorntown party of Miami Indians," alone (7 Stat. 309). This despite the fact that one of the provisions of the August 21, 1805 Treaty of Grouseland had been that the Miamis, Eel Rivers, and Weas were to be considered as a single entity. No consent was obtained from the Miamis or Weas by the Eel Rivers before
53. Indiana, Letters Received, Blake to Barbour, January 7,
1828; Dft. Ex. 127.
53a. See p. 165, fn. 50, this Report.
167 |
the latter sold their reservation. After the sale some of the Eel Rivers at least, moved back up the Wabash to the vicinity of present-day Logansport, Indiana.54
Up to 1828, and thereafter for the next 10 or 11 years the Eel Rivers and the Miamis received their annuities separately (see below). After 1838 or 1839 however all annuities due to the Eel Rivers, totalling $1,100, were paid over to Miami chiefs, who allocated them to members of the Miami band, not to the few Eel Rivers who were left by that time.55 This appropriation by the Miamis of the Eel River annuities continued for at least eight years without any official protests being made. In 1846, however, "five or seven women, the remnant of the Eel River band, presented themselves" to the agent disbursing Miami and Eel River annuities and "asked the privilege to participate in the Annuities of the tribes." The Miami chiefs refused this request, saying that when the Eel Rivers had ceded their reservation in 1828 they had "violated their agreement" made in the August 21, 1805 Treaty of Grouseland "that neither the Eel Rivers, Weas or Miamies should sell any portion of their country without the consent of the others." The Miamis conveniently forgot that as early as 1818 the Weas had completely ignored this agreement when they alone
54. Record Group 233, Fitch Report, December
11, 1851; Dft. Ex. 130.
55. Idem.
168 |
ceded all the lands claimed by them in Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois (7 Stat. 186). In 1846 the Miami chiefs were determined not to let them [the Eel Rivers] have any share of their [the Eel Rivers'] money" and they refused to allow the Eel Rivers the annuity due them.56
As a result of a treaty of 1840 entered into by the Miamis (7 Stat. 582) a large number of Miamis were to be removed west of the Mississippi by 1845. In 1847 the Miamis were still being collected for this removal and in that year Alexis Coquillard, Indian agent, detained a few Eel River Indians and stated that they were Miamis. The Eel Rivers objected, and a writ of habeus corpus was brought before the Miami Circuit Court in Indiana in their behalf. Judge A. A. Cole, an Associate Judge of the Miami Circuit Court, tried the case and became
convinced from the proof and from other reliable sources that this little band of Indians were what was formerly known as the "Eel River Tribe" and formerly inhabited the upper Eel River Country and were understood to be such by the Miamies and Weas and the earlier Settlers of the Country who were acquainted with the Indians.
I directed them to be discharged from the group of Indians who were to be removed west] on the grounds that they were not Miamies and not that they were Weas for I did not consider that the case required me to
56. Special File 112, Sinclear to Medill, February
25, 1846, Sinclear to Medill, July 24,
1848; Dft.
Ex. 128.
169 |
decide any thing further that that they were not members of the Miami tribe.57
Consequently none of the Eel River Indians were forced to leave Indiana and locate west of the Mississippi River.
As far as the question of Eel River annuities was concerned, the Department of Interior apparently did nothing about the annuities between 1846 and 1848. On April 10, 1848, however, Judge A. A. Cole, who had issued a judgement in favor of the Eel River Indians the preceding year, petitioned for the few Eel River Indians then extant that they might receive their annuities, which at that date were being paid to the Miami.58 Consequently, on July 12, 1848 William Medill, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, instructed Allen Hamilton and Joseph Sinclear, both residents of Fort Wayne, Indiana to look into this matter, saying:
It is represented that there are some twenty Indians residing in Miami county, Indiana, who are claimed to be Eel Rivers separate & distinct from the Miamies, & that they have distinct interests from the latter which have been neglected by the Government. The impression here is that this is entirely a mistake. that the Miamies & Eel Rivers and any separate interests they ever had have long been merged. As however it would require a long & tedious examination to ascertain all the facts & circumstances in relation to the matter, & as you are doubtly well informed on the whole subject, it has occurred to me as the most ready
57. Special File 112, Cole to Brown, February
18, 1850; Dft. Ex.
128.
58. Special File 112, Cole to Medill, April 10, 1848; Dft. Ex. 128.
170 |
mode of acquiring correct information to request you to be good enough to communicate to this office at your early convenience such facts & particulars as will enable the office clearly to understand the matter correctly. Any information in relation to the circumstances under which the alleged Eel Rivers are remaining in Indiana, their present situation &c, would be acceptable.59
In spite of several reports submitted by Hamilton and Sinclear, the affiliation
of these "some twenty Indians" remained unclear. On July 21, 1848,
Sinclear sent to the Office of Indian Affairs a list of some 14
"Weas" who lived on Deer Creek in Miami County, Indiana.60
Three days later, on July 24, 1848 Sinclear reported
There can be no doubt but that most if not all of the persons named in the list [of July 21] as Weas, are of that portion of the Miamis usually designated as Eel River Miamies, and that they are the remnant of the Thornton party of Eel Rivers. . . .
I have long been of the opinion that these Indians should be treated in every respect as Miamies,. . .
I do not think that the Indians in question should be regarded as having distinct and seperate interests from the other portion of the Miami. By Art 4 of Treaty of Grousland of Augt 21, 1805, it was declared that the "Miamis, Eel Rivers, and Weas were formerly, and still consider themselves as one Nation," and I know
59. Letter Book vol. 41, p. 91;
Dft. Ex.
129.
60. Special File 112, Sinclear to Medill, July 21, 1848; Dft. Ex. 128.
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