190 |
that I [Clark] had a design on their Country, by my excepting [accepting] a Tract from them as a preasant, would prove sufficiently to them that what they had been told was false, being satisfyed in this they also had a desire of my Remaining In their Country as their Chief and Guardian and that my refusial had given them suspicion, in order to Remove it I made a suitable Speech to them which gave Gen[era]l satisfaction.
In this speech Clark apparently asked for a specific area, for on June 16, 1779, "Francis son of Tobacco," "Grand Chief of all the Peankashaw Nations," stated "After many Silicitations to make [a] choice of a Tract he [Clark]" chose "the Lands adjoining the falls of [the] Ohio on the west side of said River." This tract was to begin "opposite the middle of the fist Island below the falls" and was to be 2.5 leagues (ca. 6.5-7.5 mile) square, bounded on the south by the Ohio River.13 This was the second time within four years that the Piankashaws had either sold or given away lands in southeastern Indiana.
In 1781, pro-British Indians raided the Americans at the Falls of the Ohio. According to the deposition of a Virginia soldier, Ottawa Indians had captured him at the Falls on March 9, 1781, and had taken him to the British commandant at Detroit.14
After the close of the Revolutionary War Clark and other officers petitioned the Virginia legislature for the
13. Ibid., vol. 8, pp.
151-153; Dft. Ex. 67.
A 2.5 league tract would contain between 31,000 and 36,000 acres.
14. Ibid., vol. 8, pp. 581-582; Dft. Ex. 67.
191 |
grant of land, not to exceed 150,000 acres, which had been promised to Clark's army for its occupation of the British possessions in present-day Indiana and Illinois. This grant was made within two years,15 and as it was ultimately surveyed, encompassed the Piankashaws' grant to Clark made in 1779. The grant by the Virginia legislature to Clark's army was approximately 4 to 4.5 times larger than the one made to Clark by the Piankashaws.
After the close of the Revolutionary War the need for a land route from the Falls of the Ohio to Vincennes increased; eventually a road along the route became the southwestern boundary of Royce Area 56. However, before there was such a road, in 1785 and again in 1786, John Filson, Kentucky explorer, surveyor and trader, traveled over this route on two trips from Vincennes to the Falls of the Ohio, a distance of approximately 130 miles. On his first trip made on horseback, August 6-15, 1785, Filson was guided by three Indians: a Delaware, a chief of the Piankashaws of the Vermilion, and the chief's son. Over half of this ten-day trip was spent covering a stretch from the upper reaches of Blue River to the Falls, within Royce Area 56. Filson left a good account of his first trip, and it is possible to trace his route across southern Indiana in a general way. He makes it quite clear that he was not at all impressed with the land he traversed, and did not mention Indians, or signs of Indians, in his account except for occasional references to his Indian guides. Filson's comments
15. Ibid., vol. 19, pp.
233-234, 413; Dft. Ex. 67.
192 |
concerning the region at the headwaters of the Blue River were as follows:
passed Some hilly land, and Some low level ground not Very fertile which was much Cut by Water- and at Some Seasons might Contain large Streams, but was now almost dry;. . . .Great difficulty in Crossing the Cuts and passing through Brambly woods. bad water, and Scarce. . . . Came into thickets almost impassable and was obliged to go north to extricate ourselves and accidentally found a fine Spring the Stream of which ran but a little distance. . . . Our Journey this day might be 15 miles a great deal of good limestone land full of Sinks and badly water[ed]16
According to Filson's own estimation he traveled over 90 miles from the headwaters of the Patoka to the Falls, which are approximately 45-50 miles apart in a straight line.
Filson's second overland trip, made in 1786, took less time, but was apparently equal to the 1785 trip in the discomfort endured by the travelers.17
Use and Occupancy of Royce Area 56, 1787-1805. In 1787 conditions were such at Vincennes that the United States government sent a military force there, to establish and keep law and order. In June, 1787 General Josiah Harmar led the United States Army into Vincennes. After fulfilling his orders, Harmar and most of the army left in early October, 1787, and marched overland to the Falls. The two accounts of this march make it plain that Harmar and the army had a much shorter trip than Filson had had two years before. According to
16. Indiana Historical Society Publications, vol. 15, pp. 193-195; Dft. Ex. 79.
Brackets by Wilson and Thornbrough, eds.
17. Ibid., vol. 15, p. 196; Dft. Ex. 79.
193 |
Lieut. Ebenezer Denny, American army officer, the land between a branch of the Patoka and a branch of the Blue River was "barren," that from the Blue River to the Falls was
|
|
broken with knobs and small
mountains, |
The latter region was probably the valley of Silver Creek. Harmar's own account
is not as explicit as Denny's; however he does explicitly state that on the
entire trip, they "saw no Indians or signs of Indians." This despite
the fact that the time was early October, when Indians were generally either at
or on their way to their winter hunting grounds.18
However, by the following year, 1788, some Indians were in evidence in Area 56. In late March, a combined war party of Shawnees, Potawatomis, Ottawas and Cherokees, raiding on the upper Ohio, captured two boat loads of White travellers. One of the White captives was Thomas Ridout, a British subject and later Surveyor-General of Upper Canada. After his capture Ridout was given to a Shawnee and was taken to a Shawnee wintering camp north of the Ohio River. There he learned that his captors had formerly lived on the Scioto River, but had had their village on the Scioto burned by Kentuckians in the fall of 1787. After crossing the Great Miami and two other rivers, Ridout was taken by his captors to a Shawnee hunting camp near either the Whitewater River or Laughery Creek in southeastern Indiana. This camp contained 14 or 15 cabins.
18. Smith, St. Clair Papers, vol. 2, p. 34;
Dft. Ex.
95. Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Memoirs, vol. 7, pp.
312-313; Dft. Ex.
105.
194 |
Three weeks after Ridout's capture, after the Shawnee women had made their maple sugar, the entire camp population set out by horseback for Detroit via the lower Wabash, to dispose of their winter catch of furs. Proceeding overland across southern Indiana the Shawnees reached a village where a large council was held. This village was probably located on the Patoka or Blue rivers or one of their tributaries. In view of Ridout's generalized description it is impossible to say with certainty whether the village was located in western Royce Area 56, or eastern Royce Area 26, or northeastern Royce Area 49. Also, Ridout does not identify the village. It may have been a Shawnee town, but he does not state that it was.
After the council was concluded in the village on Patoka or Blue River, Ridout and the party of Shawnees proceeded westward to a spot near the mouth of White River, where the Shawnees planted corn before going north along the Wabash toward Detroit.19
Groups of Shawnees continued to use southeastern Indiana after 1788. In the spring of 1789 a party of Shawnees whose village was then on the Mississinewa River in northern Indiana were hunting on the north bank of the Ohio near the mouth of the Kentucky River, in extreme southeastern Area 56 or extreme southwestern Area 11. There they were attacked by several Americans who were in pursuit of a Miami war party that had just passed by. The Americans killed several of the women and children in the Shawnee hunting party. A year later, in
19. Edgar, Ten Years of Upper Canada, pp. 343
- 362;
Dft. Ex.
116.
195 |
February of 1790, a war party drawn from the same Shawnee group returned to the Ohio and in retaliation for the Americans' unprovoked attack, captured a White hunter.20
Two years afterward, in 1792, some Shawnees were again hunting near or in southeastern Indiana. In early spring of that year "Blue Jacket, with a band of Shawnees, was encamped . . . up Hogan Creek" not too far from its mouth. Hogan Creek heads in eastern Area 56 and flows into the Ohio at Aurora, Indiana, in southwestern Area 11. This Shawnee group was, apparently, on a winter hunt and remained on Hogan Creek for some time.21
After a treaty held at Vincennes in September, 1792, several of the Indians who had been signatories to the treaty visited Washington in Philadelphia. The first stage of their trip east was overland, from Vincennes to the Falls of the Ohio. According to John Heckewelder, a Moravian missionary who accompanied the Indians, on the last day of their journey toward the Falls, while the party was near the southwestern part of Area 56, Heckewelder and the Indians were concerned for their safety. Heckewelder wrote
We were only 18 miles from Fort Steuben [Louisville], but in a neighborhood through which the Miami warriors frequently pass on their way to Kentucky and are also frequently pursued by those from there. He had cause for anxiety, viz., that if the warriors had recently committed ravages in Kentucky and they were pursued, our
20. Indiana Historical Society Publications, vol. 7, p. 344;
Dft. Ex.
79.
21. History of Thomas Morrison; Dft. Ex. 123.
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