Locations of Piankashaws (ca. 1708- ca. 1763) PART 4 of 4 (pages 47- 57)
/pg. 47/
... and that he [Celeron] had ordered Macarty to destroy this settlement
to forestall in that place the results from a larger settlement on account of the nearness of Vincennes, which is only about fifteen leagues from that river. (Ibid., Dft. Ex. A-47, p. 728)
In October of 1752 De Ligneris wrote that after all their hostile acts (e.g., their attacks first at the Illinois and Vincennes, and then the killing of 5 Frenchmen at the Vermilion River) the Piankashaws had gone off in the direction of White River with most of the Weas. De Ligneris had been successful in keeping one band of Weas at his post during the spring and summer of 1752, and succeeded, by threats and with the aid of the Potawatomis of St. Joseph, in bringing back all the Weas about the end of August and the first part of September of 1752. The returned Weas protested their loyalty to the French, but De Ligneris had the Kickapoos return to Ouiatenon from Terre Haute to guarantee Wea respect for the French. (De Ligneris, Dft. Ex. A-47, pp. 730-731) De Ligneris minimized the results of the Chippewa and Ottawa attack on the Miamis of Great Miami River, but reported that
some English who were with the Piankashaw toward White River left as soon as they heard this news which disgusted them perhaps with the trade they carry on with the Miami, among whom they are no longer safe. (Ibid., Dft. Ex. A-47, pp. 733-734)
He also repeated an Indian report that the Miamis had
all returned to their village, and they had also pillaged and killed two English who came or were going to the Piankashaw. (Ibid., Dft. Ex. A-47, p. 734)
From a less direct source (Captain Henri D'Orgon, apparently writing on the basis of a letter to him from De Guyenne in the Illinois country
/pg. 48/
who was reporting what the Wea messengers had told him) Vaudreuil learned again that the
half of their people [i.e., Weas] who had taken sides with the Piankashaw had abandoned them. (D'Orgon, Dft. Ex. A-47, p. 736)
The same source added
that the Piankashaw had no forts on White River, but that the English planned a considerable establishment on one of the branches of the White River, that nearest the Illinois. (Ibid., Dft. Ex. A-47, p. 737)
In December of 1752 Macarty reported to Vaudreuil that his escaped prisoners had joined the "ill-disposed band on White River." (Macarty, Dft. Ex. A-47, p. 751) He had learned from St. Ange that the Piankashaw chief Le Maringouin who had been to visit him had died on his return from Macarty's to the post at Vincennes and that his nephew had given St. Ange Macarty's letters. (Idem) He also reported that Sieur Delisle, a French officer whom Macarty had sent to Detroit with provisions and who had returned to the Illinois country by way of Ouiatenon and Vincennes, another Frenchman, and two Indian chiefs, "one of them Vincennes," had met 12 Piankashaws of the rebel group who did not bother them. (Ibid., Dft. Ex. A-47, pp. 751-752)
St. Ange also wrote Macarty that lack of ammunition had
compelled the Piankashaw to drive away two murderers who were among them, and that they came to beg him to take pity on their wives and children; and upon their promising him that they would not appear again, he let the traders supply their wants. (Ibid., Dft. Exo A47, p. 760)
It is not clear from this remark whether St. Ange was referring to the rebel Piankashaws or the ones still around his post at Vincennes.
/pg. 49/
St Ange's post was short of supplies as well as the camp of the rebel Piankashaws. Le Gros Bled, the chief of the rebel Piankashaws, who lived two days journey from St. Ange's post, came to the post twice, ostensibly to ask pardon of St. Ange, and reported that
since the Miami had killed two English who were with L'Enfant and La Mouche Noire no one came to supply their needs. (Ibid., Dft. Ex. A47, p. 761)
St. Ange thought Le Gros Bled was insincere and that he had come to Vincennes "to seduce those who remained at the Post." (Idem)
It seems apparent that the rebel Piankashaws were now having a difficult time and were losing the support of some of their adherents. Le Petit Plat Cotee, the chief of the seven Illinois cabins which had Joined the rebel Piankashaws in the summer of 1752, came to St. Ange pledging his fidelity to the French again. Also, the son of La Mouche Noire, one of the rebel Piankashaw chiefs, abandoned his father's party along with seven cabins, and asked St. Ange for pity. St. Ange told him to go to Macarty and beg for pardon there. (Ibid.) Dft Ex. A-47, pp. 760-761) Macarty thought that they feared to come to him for fear of being imprisoned, and remarked that
they had spread the report that we killed Le Maringouin seeing that he wished peace established. (Ibid., Dft. Ex. A-47, p. 761)
Macarty felt that if the French attacked them in earnest the Indians would all "hear reason" and support the French again. (Idem)
Trouble with the Piankashaws was not yet finished. In the spring of 1753 Macarty sent supplies by boat for the support of the expected
/pg. 50/
French expedition "to bring to reason the tribes of the Ohio River. ( Ibid., Dft. Ex. A-47, p. 814) The leader of one of these convoys, a M. Leonardy, reported that on the 27th of March, having passed White River on their way up the Wabash, that
two men who were ahead of the boats a little more than a gunshot were attacked by six or seven [Indian] scouts who killed the man called Le Conte. The other one retreated to the boats. (Ibid.., Dft. Ex. A-47, p. 815)
The Indians abandoned their own boats and fled after taking the dead man's scalp. A party of Kickapoos and Mascoutens out to make war on the Chickasaws were "positive by the marks of the party that they were rebel Piankashaw." (Idem) This may have been a correct identification, but since it was not done by direct observation it may be questioned, especially in view of Macarty's comment:
two prisoners and an Englishman from the Chickasaw who reported to us [i.e., Macarty] that it is this tribe and the Cherokee who have made all the attacks for the last eighteen months on the Mississippi and the Wabash on which they have taken or killed about thirty people and wounded several....The difficulties of the tribes of the Ohio River and of our domiciled Indians have prevented sending parties there against them, and, seeing themselves secure in their own territory, they have come without fear while we thought they were parties of the rebels. (Ibid. Dft. Ex. A-47, p. 817)
The French position on the Ohio remained precarious. In commenting on the situation the "commandants of the Wabash posts" (i.e., probably St. Ange of the post at Vincennes, and De Ligneris of the post at Ouiatenon) informed Macarty that the Indian tribes might band together in opposition to the French if the proposed French military expedition
/pg. 50/
did not take place. (Ibid., Dft. Ex. A-47, p. 816) An Illinois chief had also informed Macarty that "two or three hundred men of the rebel tribes" were spread along the rivers that the French would pass. (Idem)
In August of 1753 Louis Billouart, Sieur de Kerlerec, who succeeded Vaudreuil as Governor of Louisiana, reported on information Macarty sent him of the French expedition which still had not set out but was to start "at the end of next month," (Kerlerec, Dft. Ex. A-47, p. 824) that is, in September. About 1,500 men were
to go to Great Miami River to oppose the rebels, who I think on hearing of it will retire each to his tribe, perhaps after having made some expeditions, especially when they are informed that this detachment is to remain there three years, establish posts, and be relieved at the end of that same time by the same number (Ibid., Dft . Ex. A-47, p. 825)
The major French expedition down the Ohio did not take place when planned. However, from this time additional French troops did begin to move into the area, and Michel-Ange, Marquis Duquesne de Menneville, who succeeded La Jonquiere as Governor-general of New France, reported, in October 1753, that some of the rebel Miami had come to make peace with him as a result of the French display of Military strength. They had taken two English scalps in December of 1752 as proof of their return to the French. However, during the winter they had seen the English again on the lower Ohio and only the movement of troops persuaded them to return to their old settlement (near present-day Ft. Wayne) and to sue for forgiveness. (Duquesne, Dft. Ex. A-47, pp. 839-840, 843-844, 915-919; Kerlerec, Dft. Ex. A-47, pp. 861-866; De L'Isle Dieu, Dft. Ex. A-47, pp 907-910).
/pg. 52/
De Ligneris now informed Duquesne that the Piankashaw chief, Le Gros Bled, had made peaceful overtures to him;
the Piankashaw chief had sent a belt to the tribes of that post to be received with his band into their village and to have intercession made with their father [the Governor of Canada] to get pardon for his fault. (Duquesne, Dft. Ex. A-47, p. 847)
De Ligneris put the Piankashaws off until he received Duquesne's consent. Duquesne then directed De Ligneris
to bring the chiefs to await the Sieur Pean on his journey to Post Vincennes because he was the bearer of my orders which are that if they come to acknowledge their fault and offer him the murderers that he is to pardon them and bring them to me unless he finds the difficulties insurmountable; inasmuch as all these Indians are hunting there, it would not be possible to overtake them and reduce them by force, scattered through the woods as they are. (Ibid., Dft. Ex. A-47, p. 848) [see Footnote 14]
Duquesne was sorry they couldn't be punished by an attack as an example to the other Indians, but realized that it would be difficult to surprise the Piankashaws who would be wary, with troops who would be exhausted by the march there. (Idem)
Circumstances prevented Pean from meeting the Piankashaws to accept their submission as planned. Duquesne, however, felt that these Indians could be considered to have submitted themselves to French authority in view of the fact that he
/pg. 53/
had fixed for the Peanquichias to be at the Miamis where Sieur Pean would pass, and as those Indians have waited for that officer with all possible patience, nearly a month, evincing great repentance for their fault, I have ordered the Commandant of the Wyatanons, whither that nation had retired to grant them pardon on condition that they would bring me, next year, the murderers. (Ibid., Dft. Ex. A93, p. 263)
It seems likely that the Piankashaws thus returned from White River to the vicinity of their settlements at Vermilion River and Vincennes at this time.
A French document (anonymous) written sometime between 1754 and 1758 describes the Indians who traded at Ouiatenon as
the Ouiatanon, the Kickapoo, the Mascouten, and the tribes of the Vermilion. They can furnish three hundred warriors [representing ca. 1200 persons]. From this post and its dependencies are shipped from three hundred to four hundred packages [of furs]. (Anonymous, Dft. Ex. A-55, pp. 220-221)
From the statement (see below) of Louis Antoine Bougainvllle, a French officer, it can be assumed that at least one of the "tribes of the Vermilion" were Piankashaws. This anonymous document also notes that Piankashaws traded at Post Vincennes and estimated that "perhaps eighty packages" were made there. (Ibid., Dft. Ex. A-55, p. 221)
Bougainville, in his memoir on Canada of 1757, mentions Piankashaws as trading at both the Ouiatenon post (together with Weas, Kickapoos, and Mascoutens with whom they amounted to 360 warriors or a population of ca. 1440 persons), and at Vincennes, and that from 400 to 450 packages of furs came from the post at Ouiatenon in a year, while only about 80 packages were produced by the Piankashaws trading at Vincennes.
/pg. 54/
(Bougainville, Dft. Ex. A-117, p. 176) Although Bougainville did not visit these posts, his information on them was received from other French officers who had responsibilities and experience with these areas and who would have fairly accurate current knowledge of them.
Another anonymous document entitled "List of Indian Nations, their places of abode & Chief hunting" gives an estimate of the population of the Piankashaws. This document is dated 1759, and although it was found in the papers of the British officer Col. Henry Bouquet, it may have been written or compiled by George Croghan. According to this document, the Piankashaws who lived "on the heads of the Wabash, are computed at 300 fighting Men, [ca. 1200 persons]" and had "two Towns." (Anonymous, Dft . Ex. A-68, p. 86) At this time Croghan's direct contact with the Piankashaws was limited to those few he had met at the Great Miami River settlement when he made a pact of friendship with them. His knowledge of the Wabash villages was indirect and cannot be accepted with confidence.
By 1762, however, the British were actively probing the lands as far west as the Wabash River, and they sent out several expeditions to discover more about their new lands and about the natives living there. As a result of one of these expeditions an estimate was made by a D. Franklin which listed the numbers of fighting men of various nations who lived at or near the western posts that he went through. For the vicinity of Ouiatenon he listed 100 Piankashaw warriors which represented a population of about 400 Piankashaws (in addition to the Weas, Kickapoos, and Mascoutens). (Franklin, Dft. Ex. A-206, p. 411)
/pg. 55/
He did not go to Vincennes so did not enumerate the Piankashaws in that area. Thomas Hutchins, at this time a Lieutenant in the British army, confirms the presence of Weas, Kickapoos, Mascoutens, and Piankashaws in the Ouiatenon area in his journal of the trip he made to the west in the spring and summer of 1762. (Hutchins, Dft. Ex. A-68, p. 171) At a council Hutchins held at Ouiatenon in which he tried to learn the temper of the Indians of the Wabash, a Wea chief spoke for the Weas and Kickapoos, and a Mascouten chief spoke for the Mascoutens and Piankashaws. The Indians had expected a present from Hutchins on behalf of the British Government and asked him for goods since many of them were ill and could not hunt, and since they had not gone to the French who were still in control in the Illinois country and who would give them ammunition, at least, because the English had asked them not to. (Ibid., Dft. Ex. A-68, pp . 171-172)
Hutchins also prepared for Croghan, who sent it on to the British Commander-in-chief in America, Jeffrey Amherst, in October of 1762, "A List of the Number of fighting Men of Different Indian Nations..." through which he passed. He included in the list Miamis of the Miami Fort and the various groups of Indians in the vicinity of Ouiatenon, but did not include the Indians of Post Vincennes where he had not gone. Piankashaws dependent on Ouiatenon numbered 100 fighting men (representing ca. 400 persons). (Ibid., Dft. Ex. A-63, pp. 544-546)
In June of 1762, also, a young Wea chief with a few other Weas and "a few Indians who live at a Great distance to the Westward of the Posts that Lieut. Jenkins Commands at [i.e., Ouiatenon]," came to Fort Pitt
/pg. 56/
to speak to the English. Among the visitors was "an old chief of the Pieyankeishaka [i.e., Piankashaw] Nation Who Came from the Post where Lt. Robert Holms Commands At [i.e., Miami]." These chiefs referred to the friendship they felt for the English and showed the "Writings of a Treaty held by Mr. Croghan" in 1750; they claimed that
they ever held this treaty in the greatest Esteem and that they never had violated their Promises made in Sd. Treaty tho' some of their Unthinking Young Men had been Active in the War in favour of the French, (Ward, Dft. Ex. A-67, pp. 155-156)
and that they wanted to renew their friendship with the English and to receive clothing and ammunition. (Idem)
In 1763 M. Aubry, last acting governor of French Louisiana, wrote a description chiefly on the French settlements in the Illinois country, but which also included some information on the Indians. In describing Vincennes he says that
The Indians that live near this place are called Peauguichia, they are about 6 Warriors [i.e., probably 60 warriors]. (Aubry, Dft. Ex. A-43, p. 3)[see Footnote 15]
/pg. 57/
Two versions of a 1763 memorandum of Sir William Johnson's on numbers and locations Of Indians in his Department give the number of Piankashaw men as 100 representing ca. 400 persons. (Johnson, Dft. Ex. A-90, p. 583; Ibid., Dft. Ex. A-62, p 245)[see Footnote 16] The Piankashaws, together with the Kickapoos, Mascoutens, and Weas, lived "in the neighbourhood of the Fort at Wawiaghta [Ouiatenon] and about the Wabache River." (Ibid., Dft. Ex. A-90, p 583)
There is another listing of "the different Nations & Tribes of Indians in the Northern district of North America" found in the "private Journal of George Croghan, Deputy Agent for Indian Affairs From Fort Pitt to the Illinois country...kept on his western trip from May 15, 1765 - December 13, 1766," which gives a figure of 300 "Pyankashas" who lived "On the branches of the Ouabache near Fort Ouiatanon" with hunting areas "Between Ouiatanon & the Miammies." This listing, too, seems almost certainly, at least for the Wabash and other western areas, based on the 1763 or earlier estimates, since it makes no mention of Piankashaws at Vincennes, Kickapoos and Mascoutens at Ouiatenon, and other specific points mentioned by Croghan in his descriptions and reports of his tour made in 1765-1766. (Croghan, Dft., Ex. A-170)
In the early 1760's then, to judge from these lists, there were two general locations for Piankashaw Indians - one at Vincennes - with about 60 warriors representing about 240 persons, and one near Ouiatenon with about 100 warriors representing about 400 persons.
Footnote 14: Michel Jean Hugues Pean was a French officer whom Duquesne sent on various missions to the Ohio area.[return to text]
Footnote 15: Aubry's report was held by the historians Clarence W. Alvord and Clarence Carter, who edited it, to be the basis of the second appendix in William Smith's Historical Account of Bouquet's Expedition against the Ohio Indians in 1764, which gives the number of Piankashaw warriors that could be furnished at Vincennes as 60. (Alvord and Carter, Dft. Ex. A-43, p. 1. Smith, Dft. Ex. A-102, p. 144) A second report based on Aubry's also lists the number of Piankashaw warriors around Vincennes as 60. (Dft. Ex. A-43, pp. 1, 218) From these two reports it seems probable that the correct figure was 60 rather than 6 Piankashaw warriors. Smith's account, which was first printed in 1765 and whose information thus must be earlier than that date, also includes an estimate by a French trader at Detroit in which the Kickapoos, Weas, and Piankashaws, who are described as living "on the Ouabache," have 300 (representing ca. 1200 persons) 400 (representing 1600 persons) and 250 (representing ca. 1000 persons) warriors respectively ascribed to them (Smith, Dft. Ex. A-102, p. 155) These latter figures seem somewhat exaggerated.[return to text]
Footnote 16: This figure of 100 Piankashaw men was probably based on the figures given by Franklin and Hutchins, mentioned before.[return to text]
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