Summary of Piankashaw Locations (ca. 1783 -ca. 1795)(pp. 170-175)
/pg. 170/
Some Piankashaws attended the British Council at Detroit in 1783 where the peace between the United States and Great Britain was announced to the Indians.
Filson's compilation of locations of Indians, published in 1783, locates Piankashaws at Vincennes, and "Vermilion Indians" about 30 miles below the Weas. Piankashaws, apparently both from Vincennes and the Vermilion village, also held a council with Dalton in 1784 at Vincennes. Filson, who took a trip to Vincennes in 1785, identified the Indians living near Vincennes as Piankashaws.
In 1786 Piankashaws attacked some Americans on the Wabash River,
/pg. 171/
a few miles below Vincennes. In 1786 also a group of Piankashaws were attacked on the Saline River in southeast Illinois by Americans. American citizens in this same year attacked another group of Piankashaws who were a short distance from Vincennes.
In 1786, too, probably partly as a result of these conflicts Piankashaw Indians sold lands of the Indian village at Vincennes to citizens of that town and apparently stopped living inside the town boundaries at that time. Though they did not all move away from that general area, a number of Piankashaws did move west and formed a settlement on the Kaskaskia River in the Illinois country, and some moved to the west side of the Mississippi River, and took part in raids on Americans living in Kaskaskia.
In July 1789 some Piankashaws who apparently were living at Terre Haute came to Vincennes, glad to make peace with the Americans.
Some Indians (Piankeshaws?) also were apparently still living in the vicinity of Vincennes at this time. In August a party of forty Indiana led by a Piankashaw who had formerly lived in Vincennes were reported to be lying in wait to attack an American party which is traveling up the Wabash River to bring supplies to Vincennes.
Piankashaws were reported still to be living at the Vermilion River village in the spring of 1790 before their dispersal for spring hunting, but one of the village warriors was said to be hostile to the United States. In May of 1790 a number of Piankashaws also were living in the country below Kaskaskia. The same year a number of Piankashaws were attacked by Whites when they were on the Saline River
/pg. 172/
in southeastern Illinois. Piankashaws also frequented lands along the lower Wabash River.
In May of 1791 a small group of Piankashaws was located on a small western tributary of the Wabash River, about two and a half days' journey from Vincennes, in southeastern Illinois. A number of Piankashaws were still in the Vermilion village in the spring also in December of this year an estimate has made that there were 35 warriors (probably mainly Piankashaws) near Vincennes, thirty warriors at Terre Haute (possibly including Piankashaws), and one hundred warriors at the Vermilion village (probably mostly Piankashaws). Those Piankashaws living in the Illinois country were not included in this estimate.
Piankashaws were still "on the Wabash" in the spring of 1792 when Hamtramck made a preliminary peace between the "Wabash Indians" and the United States. They were delayed by the death of their leader on the way to the meeting at Fort Knox with Weas and Eel River Indians, but arrived after a new leader had been selected and made peace too. After this peace was made a number of Weas and Piankashaws moved toward the Illinois country, possibly from fear of an attack by the United States or by other Indian groups. Despite this, at least 79 Piankashaw men and 127 women and children attended the formal peace treaty held by Putnam in Vincennes at the end of September. Five Piankashaws signed the treaty and two went to Philadelphia to meet the president. While on this trip the young village chief died, and a Piankashaw war chief spoke of the Piankashaws living on one side of the river and the Americans on the other. It seems likely also that at this time Piankashaws
/pg. 173/
generally were living in small groups mainly to the west of the Wabash River in southeastern Illinois, though they may still have hunted on both sides of the Wabash and along the Ohio River.
In the winter of 1793-1794 some Piankashaws were reported to be living in the vicinity of Cape Girardeau on the Mississippi River and to be under Spanish influence. Some of these, at least, were living on the Spanish (western) side of the Mississippi.
In 1795 when Anthony Wayne made a general treaty of peace with the Indians in the Northwest Territory at Greenville some Piankashaws may have visited while the negotiations were being conducted, but they took no part in the deliberations and three Wea Indians signed the treaty on their behalf. The Piankashaws were given and did receive an annuity from this treaty.
In 1796 Piankashaws were reported to be living along the Wabash River near Vincennes, with no single large settlement, but regarding the Vincennes area as their home grounds, and hunting and trading as far as Louisville on the east side of the Wabash. Piankashaws also were reported to be trading at St. Louis. This latter group may be those Piankashaws who had moved to Southwestern Illinois and the Cape Girardeau region in the late 1780's and early 1790's.
Some Piankashaws were still living and hunting in the vicinity of Vincennes in 1800, when William Henry Harrison became Governor of Indiana Territory, and also in the St. Louis region, and it seems possible that some were living near the Kaskaskias in southwestern Illinois.
One of Harrison's first jobs as governor was to bound the Vincennes
/pg. 174/
tract as ceded by the Indians in the Treaty of Greenville of 1795, and to treat for United States use of the Saline Springs in southeastern Illinois. This proved to be an awkward assignment. Three Piankashaw chiefs only came to the meeting; further, no Piankashaws had signed the Treaty of Greenville which ceded the Vincennes area, and the Weas who had signed for them were dead. A preliminary arrangement was made with the various Indian groups who did attend the negotiations, in addition to the few Piankashaws, and four chiefs were selected (none of whom was a Piankashaw) to make the final settlement of the Vincennes boundary, though it seems to have been conceded by everyone at the time that the Piankashaws were the most interested Indian group. A After some fuss the final agreement was signed in 1803, and some Piankashaws, together with some Eel River, Huron, Kaskaskia, and Kickapoo Indians signed it and agreed that the United States could also locate three one-mile square sites in southern Illinois between Kaskaskia and Vincennes, and one between Clarksville and Vincennes to enable the Government to erect accommodations for travellers.
Harrison apparently felt that the Piankashaws did have some kind of interest or claim to lands on the Saline River in southeastern Illinois, and possibly to some of the lands he treated for with the Kaskaskia Indians in 1803 in southern Illinois as well as lands between the Ohio and Wabash River. The Secretary of War shared this feeling and Harrison negotiated separately with the Piankashaws and the Delawares for the lands contained in Royce Area 49, and, in the Piankashaw treaty, got the Piankashaws to agree to the boundaries of the earlier
/pg. 175/
Kaskaskia cession in southern Illinois (Royce Area 48). There was much protest by other Indians (especially Miamis and Potawatomis) against the Delaware cession of Royce Area 49, but none against the Piankashaw cession of it.
Harrison was also ordered to extinguish as soon as possible Piankashaw claims to lands in southeastern Illinois. At this time at least two or three Piankashaw chiefs apparently lived in the vicinity of Vincennes (probably in southeastern Illinois) and at least one Piankashaw chief was "on the Mississippi." Three Piankashaws did sign the treaty of cession for these lands in 1805 (Royce Area 63), but the Indians were to be allowed to remain on the lands to hunt and live, as they had been doing, until the lands were surveyed and sold by the United States. A permanent area of two square miles was to have been set-aside for them, but this was never located. The treaty was ratified and became effective in 1807. It is uncertain how many Piankashaws actually were in southeastern or southwestern Illinois at this time or in the few years just before or after this date, but it seems apparent that a number of them were still there.
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