VOLUME II
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Native Use and Occupancy of Royce |
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The Treaty of Grouseland of |
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Native Use and Occupancy of Royce |
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Use and Occupancy of Royce Area 72 |
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Native Use and Occupancy of Royce |
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The Treaty of Fort Wayne of |
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Native Use and Occupancy of |
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A History of the Mohican Claim to |
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An Evaluation of Certain Statements |
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The 1816 Kickapoo and Wea Dispute |
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Defendant's
Exhibits Used in This Report
(Bibliography)
(Anth.
Rep. Docket 317 Volume I Table of Contents)
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MAPS |
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facing page |
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182 |
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188 |
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6. Indian Locations in Royce Area 71 . . . |
236 |
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7. Portages
and Travel Routes From the Great Lakes |
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8. Lands
Claimed by Delaware Indians in 1775 |
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9. Royce Area 72 . . . |
325 |
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337 |
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Chapter V. Native Use and Occupancy of
Royce Area 56, 1739-1805
In the Treaty of Grouseland of August 21, 1805 (7 Stat. 91) the Miamis, Weas, and Eel River Indians ceded a large tract of land in southern Indiana) now referred to as Royce Area 56 (see Map 4, this Report). In this chapter we review native use and occupancy of Royce Area 56 from earliest known date up to the time of the treaty of August 21, 1805.
Royce Area 56 consisted of all the land lying south of a line drawn from the northeast corner of the Vincennes Tract (Royce Area 26) to a point on the western boundary line of the 1795 (Greenville) cession 50 miles above the mouth of the Kentucky River (7 Stat. 91). East of Royce Area 56 lay Royce Area 11, west of it Area 26 and to the south Royce Areas 49 and 25 and the Ohio River. By the treaty of August 21, 1805 and the Treaty of August 18, 1804, the Indians had relinquished to the United States the entire north bank of the Ohio River, between the mouths of the Kentucky and Wabash rivers. No longer, after 1805, were the Whitewater and Wabash valleys (two of the three then inhabited sections of Indiana Territory) separated by a strip of unceded land.
Topographically, Area 56 is mainly eroded upland. The only extensive prairie-like regions are part of the flood plains of the Muscatatuck River and one of this river's tributaries, Vernon Creek. These flood plains are in northwestern Area 56. The valleys of the other waterways in or contiguous to Area 56 are very narrow; even the flood plain of that portion
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of the Ohio which bounds Area 56 on the south is less than two miles wide. Although all of the rivers and streams in Area 56 eventually drain into the Ohio River, only a few do so directly. Over half of Area 56 is drained by the Muscat a tuck River and its tributary creeks; this River (see Map 4) flows westward through Area 56 to empty into the East Fork of White River, a tributary of the Wabash. Only one stream in Area 56, Indian-Kentucky Creek, enters the Ohio from the north in the entire 30-35 mile stretch of the Ohio River forming the southern boundary of Area 56. This stream heads less than 18 miles north of the Ohio River.
Because of its location, topography and hydrography, most of Area 56 is isolated from the main geographical reference points for southeastern Indiana, i.e., the Ohio River, the mouth of the Kentucky River (the terminal point of the western boundary of Royce Area 11) and the Falls of the Ohio at present-day Louisville, Kentucky). Up to 1805, the date of treaty, there was no road cut through Area 56. The only land route remotely near Area 56 was the "Buffalo Trace" and the Falls of the Ohio; this Trace formed the southwestern boundary of Area 56, and came into existence after Whites settled at the Falls in the 1780's.
Historically, southeastern Indiana was terra incognita until after the middle of the eighteenth century. The region lay east of the three main French river routes connecting Canada with Louisiana: the Maumee-Wabash-lower Ohio-Mississippi
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route, the Chicago-Illinois-Mississippi route; the Fox-Wisconsin- Mississippi route.
The westernmost British trading house around this time was Pickawillany on the Great Miami River. This post was destroyed in 1752 (pp. 35-37, this Report). Consequently, few references were made to the Area prior to the Revolutionary War. After George Rogers Clark captured Vincennes and the Illinois country from the British, some references to what is now Royce Area 56 appear.
Use and Occupancy of Royce Area 56 from 1739 to 1775. In 1739 Charles Le Moyne, the second Baron de Longueuil, led a large French and Indian expedition down the Ohio River from its source to its mouth. Three years later, in 1742, an English party was sent down the Ohio by the Governor of Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, however, neither of these very early expeditions yield any information relating to the Indians of the Ohio River region.1
However, we do know that some Indians were in the neighborhood of the Falls of the Ohio eight years later. In 1750 Christopher Gist was sent by the Ohio Company, a private land company, to search and discover "the Lands upon the River Ohio, & other adjoining Branches of the Mississippi down as low as the great Falls there of [present-day Louisville Kentucky]."2 By March, 1751, Gist had proceeded down the Ohio
1. Stevens and Kent, The Expedition of Baron de Longueuil, pp. 1-7;
Dft. Ex.
156. Darlington, Christopher Gist's Journals pp.
253-255, Dft. Ex.
122.
2. Mulkearn, George Mercer Papers, p. 7; Dft. Ex. 108.
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River to within 15 miles of the Falls of the Ohio, which were south of Area 56. After being warned of the presence of a hunting party of "French Indians" at the Falls by some Shawnees who were canoeing up stream, Gist decided not to go any further down the Ohio.3 Who the "French Indians" at the Falls were, we can not say with certainty, the outstanding center of pro-French Indian population in 1750 was at Detroit, and the Indians Gist was told about may have been Ottawas from the Detroit region.
After the British obtained sovereignty of the Ohio Valley and the Illinois country, George Croghan, deputy Indian agent for the Northern Department was sent from Fort Pitt (present Pittsburgh, Ohio) to treat with the various Indian groups living in the present states of Indiana and Illinois. Croghan and his party went down the Ohio River, and on May 31 and June 1, 1765, traveled along the southeastern boundary of Royce Area 56, i.e., that part of the Ohio River between the mouth of the Kentucky River and a few miles above the Falls. In his account of this trip Croghan makes no mention of seeing any Indians (except those in his party) or signs of any Indians along that particular stretch of the Ohio.4
This same year, 1765, Lieut. Alexander Fraser of the British Army also traveled down the Ohio River.5 In the report of his trip on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers,
3. Ibid., pp.
25-26, Dft. Ex.
108.
4. Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library, vol. 11, pp. 28-29; Dft. Ex. 67.
5. Ibid., vol. 11, p. 72; Dft. Ex. 67.
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Fraser stated:
There are no Indian Nations living contiguous to the Banks of the Ohio but those two I have Just mention'd (the Delaw: & Shaw.) & the Mingoes or Senecas who live a little above Fort Pitt- excepting those of Ouabache, on which there are five Nations [in margin: Ouiachtonons, Quicapous, Mascoutains, Peankishaw & Vermillion] settled besides a French Village call'd St Vincent [Vincennes] in which there are about Sixty Farmers who raise a considerable quantity of wheat & Tobacco And have a good Stock of Cattle.6
A year later, in 1766, another English traveler described his journey down the
Ohio. In that year, John Jennings, an employee of the Philadelphia trading
house of Baynton, Wharton and Morgan, went to the Illinois Country and kept a
careful journal of his trip down the Ohio. Jennings noted that after passing
the mouth of the Scioto River (at present Portsmouth, Ohio) "we always
encamp'd on the North side [of] the [Ohio] River, if possible it being thought
most safe."7 There was at this time considerable raiding
between the Indians living north of the Ohio, and the Cherokees and Chickasaws
living south of this River. From Big Bone Lick, about 40 river miles north and
east of Area 56, to present-day Salt River, about 30 miles south and west of
Area 56, Jennings and his party passed several groups of "Warriors
Cabbins,"
6. Ibid., vol. 11, p. 227; Dft. Ex. 67.
Brackets by Alvord and Carter, editors.
7. Ibid., vol. 11, p. 169; Dft. Ex. 67.
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which were distinguished from hunting camps by
a Tree having the Bark Strip'd of[f] all round, about four feet from the Ground, with particular marks Cut on it, denoting what Nation they are, & their good or bad success in War, which is known by the Indians, who happen to pass that way.
Only one group of these warriors' cabins was located within Area 56; others
were either just east or just west of this Area. No mention is made of the
identity of the Indians using these particular cabins, but it is significant
that only warriors' cabins and not "Indian Cabbins" were seen on this
particular stretch of the Ohio.8 Two years later, on October 9,
1768, General Thomas Gage, British commander in chief in North America,
reported that navigation on the Ohio River was
precarious from the War-Partys of the Western and Southern Indians, who cross the Ohio to attack each other. And sometimes meeting the Traders in their Boats, they too often insult and plunder them.
In another letter dated October 10, 1768, Gage elaborated on his first statement, thus:
The Western Indians going to war against the Cherokees, seem to spare neither white or Red People who fall in their way. and some of the war Partys of the Cherokees have acted in the same way. And it is pretty plain, that the Navigation of the Ohio is become very unsafe. The Indians of the Ouabache [Weas, Piankashaws, Kickapoos,
Go to Map 5, facing p. 188: Lands Sold & Donated by Piankashaws, 1775, 1779
8. Ibid., vol. 11, pp.
170-171; Dft. Ex. 67.
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Mascoutens and Eel Rivers], Miamis, Pouteatamies, and some Tribes of the Chippewas, which last killed the Boats Crew last year are those who are principally concerned in committing Hostilities upon the Ohio.9
In 1775 several Piankashaw chiefs sold a large part of present-day southern and
central Indiana to a private land company. The two tracts sold by the
Piankeshaws were separated by another tract of land approximately 40 miles deep
and as wide as the other two tracts, which was reserved by the Piankeshaw for
the use of the French inhabitants of Vincennes (Map 5, this Report).
Approximately the western half of Royce Area 56 is included either in the
tracts sold to the land company or in the tract reserved for the French of
Vincennes.10 In 1778 the Weas complained to a British officer about
this sale (see pp. 101-102, this Report). This 1775 sale by the Piankeshaws was
repudiated by the British and was never recognized by either the British or
United States governments. Another claim to southern Indiana was made by the
Delawares. In 1779, all of Area 56, as well as all of the present state of
Indiana between the White and Ohio Rivers was claimed by this Indian group in a
speech addressed to George Washington and the Continental Congress (see Map 8,
this Report). In this 1779 speech, the Delawares offered "to give to the
United States, such a part" of their
9. Ibid., vol. 16, pp.
416-417; Dft. Ex. 67.
10. American State Papers, Public Lands, vol. 2, pp. 119-120; Dft. Ex. 92.
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claim "as will be convenient to them and Us [the Delawares]."11
Use and Occupancy of Royce Area 56, 1776-1786. After the beginning of the Revolutionary War the middle Ohio Valley region grew increasingly important as a theater of wartime operations. In May and June of 1778 George Rogers Clark, Virginia officer, trained his little army on an island in the Ohio River at the Falls of the Ohio. During this time a small fort was constructed, and 10 or 12 families lived on the island,12 which served as the staging area for Clark's invasion and occupation of Vincennes and Kaskaskia in 1778.
After Clark's reoccupation of Vincennes in the spring of 1779, he held conferences there with a number of Indians. Apparently the first time Clark had occupied Vincennes, in 1778, the Piankashaws had offered him a tract of land which he had refused- at least Clark claimed that the ultimate idea of the gift emanated from the Indians. In 1779 the Indians again pressed a gift of land on Clark, and again he refused. However, seeing the displeasure evinced by the Indians, Clark
inquired of several Gentlemen acquainted with them [the Indians], why they were Silicitus about it; their oppinions was that the Indians being exceedingly Jealous of their Lands being taken without their Consent, being told by the English
11. Collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, vol. 23, pp. 317-321;
Dft. Ex.
64. Thwaites and Kellogg, Revolution on the Upper Ohio, pp.
86-87; Dft. Ex.
113.
12. Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library, vol. 8, pp. 118, 221-222, 613, 615; Dft. Ex. 67.
Go to
Continuation of Chapter V
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Chapter VI
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