THE OHIO VALLEY-GREAT LAKES ETHNOHISTORY
ARCHIVES: THE MIAMI COLLECTION
It is noted that the following work from the Miami Archives should be read and
considered within the historical context in which it was composed and printed.
The opinions expressed and the language used do not reflect the opinions or
standards of the Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology, but are, rather,
indicative of thought in that historical moment during which the document was
published.
Journal of Captain William Trent
(1752)
(Due to length divided here into three parts)
Trent, William in: Goodman, Alfred
T., ed.,
Journal of Captain William Trent from
Logstown to Pickawillani. . .1752,
Cincinnati, 1871, excerpts,
pp. 5-55.
When the French Jesuits first traversed the Great West, they described in their Relations the numerous nations and tribes of Indians through whose country they passed. The principal among these was said to be the Miamis, whose various bands occupied that part of Ohio west of the Scioto, nearly all of Indiana, and a large portion of Illinois. About the middle of the seventeenth century, the Miami Confederacy was in the zenith of its power. It was composed of many tribes under the same form of government, each tribe with a particular chief or king, one of which was chosen indifferently from either tribe, to rule the whole nation, and was vested with greater authority than any of the others. The dominions of these kings is thus described by the celebrated chief, Little Turtle:
"My forefather kindled the first fire at Detroit; from (page 6) thence he extended his lies to the head waters of the Scioto; from thence to its mouth; from thence down the Ohio to the mouth of the Wabash; and from thence to Chicago over Lake Michigan. These are the boundaries within which the prints of my ancestors' houses are everywhere to be seen."
In 1670, the principal towns of the Miamis were on the Great and Little Miami in Ohio, on the Miami of the lakes and its tributaries, and on the Wabash. They then numbered over two thousand families, with a large array of fighting men. It was about that time that the Jesuit priests first appeared among them. The Iroquois of Five Nations had early become attached to the English. They Miami Confederacy soon became allied to French interests. We find traders among them as far back as 1680. During that year and the following one, La Salle and Hennepin were with them, and bartered for fur skins. La Salle invited the nation to send representatives to Montreal to see the governor of Canada, assuring them of a cordial welcome by the French. In (page 7) 1681, the Iroquois were at war with the Illinois, a nation near the Mississippi, whom they subjugated in their own country. Upon returning the Iroquois were inclined to attack the Miamis, but from some cause desisted, and proceeded eastward to their hunting grounds. Acting upon the invitation of M. de La Salle, who had bestowed many presents among the nation, during the summer of 1682, the Miamis sent deputies to Montreal to meet Count de Frontenac, the governor of Canada. The meeting took place on the 11th of August, 1682, the Indians being received with much ceremony. A treaty of amity and good will was agreed upon. The French promised assistance to the western tribes against the depredations of the Iroquois. The deputies of the Miamis had hardly returned to their territory before war with the Iroquois was commenced. The latter tribes were very much incensed at the friendship displayed by the Miamis for the French, and determined upon their subjugation. They sent a large force into the Ohio country, where the two nations met in conflict near the (page 8) western end of Lake Erie. The Miamis were defeated, but the Iroquois lost so many men that they were unable to follow up their triumph. A temporary peace followed, but deadly enmity existed between the antagonists. Hostilities reopened in 1687, and continued for six years with varying fortune, but we presume as the Miamis still held their territory, they achieved a virtual triumph. In 1693, the governor of New York sent a large present of goods to the Miamis, and invited them to a council, in the hope of separating them from the French. These presents were conveyed by the Mohegans, but the object wholly failed. Instigated by the English, the Iroquois, in 1696, again made war upon the Miamis, when another of those long and desperate conflicts occurred, so remarkable in the wars of the Five Nations. In 1697, a bloody engagement (page 9) took place between the Senecas and Miamis, which resulted in the complete defeat of the Senecas. For more than three years the Miamis followed up this triumph with a hatred and animosity perhaps unequaled in the annals of Indian warfare. The Senecas were obliged to repair to their fortified towns, and their brethren of the Iroquois kept near the eastern boundaries of their territory. So terrible was the vengeance of the Miamis that the Iroquois asked a council with the English governor at Albany, and begged the aid and protection of him and his people against their depredations. The governor explained the impossibility of his furnishing troops, and advised the Iroquois to ask their enemies to a meeting, and, if possible, consummate a speedy and honorable peace. The haughty Iroquois would agree to no such course, upon which the Earl Bellomont sent some trust half-breeds to the Miamis, inviting them to trade with the English, but upon the advice of M. de Cadillac, commandant at Detroit, the English messengers were sent to Canada as prisoners. The western boundary line of the Iroquois reached to the eastern (page 10) limits of the Miami Nation. The Senecas occupied the western part of the Iroquois dominion. They suffered terribly from the incursions of their hostile neighbors, and long wished for that peace which their less afflicted brethren prevented. Finally (in 1702), a council was held between the two belligerent powers- peace was effected, and each nation delivered to the other the prisoners taken in battle. This termination of a long and eventful struggle was joyfully hailed by the English, who felt that a new avenue of trade was opened. In July, 1702, a message was sent from the governor of New York, inviting the Miamis to visit their "English Fathers" in the east. Upon the acceptance of this the nation was divided, which led to considerable difficulty. A portion of the nation determined to hold a council with the English, upon which a large party with their families moved to a point near Detroit, at the northwest of Lake Erie. The dissatisfaction became so great that a war "among themselves" seemed unavoidable. That portion favoring the English suddenly turned upon the French and drove M. de Juchereau, an officer from Montreal, with thirty-four Canadians, from a settlement they had formed at the (page 11) mouth of the Wabash. The angry tone of the French commandant at Detroit, and their Indian allies, prevented the English from gaining any advantaged from this discord among the Miamis. A few representatives of the latter went to New York and received marked attention, but they declined entering into a treaty at that time. In 1705, the Marquis de Vaudreuil sent M. de Vincennes as an ambassador to the Miamis, to effect a treaty of friendship, but his efforts proved unavailing. Finding it impossible to bring their "refractory children" to terms by means of pacific measures, a resort to arms was made. M. de Cadillac marched against the towns on the Maumee, Great Miami, and Wabash, and soon perfected a peace at his own terms. The humbled tribes asked forgiveness and protection, which was promised them. The formalities of a peace were hardly concluded when a deputation of the Miamis proceeded (1708) to Albany, where they were welcomed by the English, and received presents of great value. Lord Cornbury, in writing the Board of Trade, congratulating them upon his meeting, said he had been five years endeavoring to get the Miamis to trade, and he regarded it as an event of unusual importance that a meeting, favorable to his purposes, had been held. During the four years which followed the council at Albany, the English derived considerable benefit from trade with the Miamis. These actions gave the French great uneasiness, and they were determined they should (page 12) cease. The governor of Canada again sent M. de Vincennes as his messenger, offering peace or war; the former on terms of friendship, amity, and good will, or the latter with a destruction of their warriors and principal towns. The Miamis wisely determined against war, and for several years afterward gave the French comparatively little trouble. The disorders which had divided the nation were almost wholly healed, and a new era dawned upon the Confederacy. A small tribe on the Wabash, near the Ohio, alone refused to become allies of the French. These invited the New York traders to come among them, and it is said that as early as 1715, the English made their way with goods to the Wabash. In a memoir on the Indians between Lake Erie and the Mississippi, written in 1718, we find the following reference to the Miamis. It is probably the writer had bee posted but as to one of the tribes, or else the figures four hundred should be about four thousand:
"The Miamis are sixty leagues from Lake Erie, and number four hundred, all well-formed men, and well tatooed; the women are numerous. They are hard working, and raise a species of maize unlike that of our Indians at Detroit; it is white, of the same size as the other, the skin much finer, and the meal much whiter. The nation is clad in deerskin, and when a married woman goes with another man, her husband cuts off her nose and does not see her any more. This is the only nation (page 13) that has such a custom. They love plays and dances, wherefore they have more occupation. The women are well clothed, but the men use scarcely any covering and are tattooed all over the body." In 1719, an unsuccessful attempt was made by the French to induce the Miamis to remove from the Great and Little Miamis and Wabash to the St. Joseph, near the French fort. The following year a census of the tribes on the Maumee and St. Joseph showed two thousand souls. These were heartily in the French interests. "Fifty years ago," writes Charlevoix, in 1721, "the Miamis were settled at the south end of Lake Michigan, in a place called Chicagon, from the name of a small river which runs into the lake, and which has its source not far from the river of the Illinois. They are divided into three villages; one on the river St. Joseph, the second on another river which bears their name and runs into Lake Erie, and the third upon the Ouabache, which runs into the Mississippi. These last are more known by the name of the Ouyatonon.
In July, 1723, a party of Miamis who had become (page 14) dissatisfied with the
French visited New York, with an interpreter, and asked the English to come to
their country with goods. They stated that they lived upon "the branches
of the Mississippi." The English seem to have taken advantage of the
opportunity presented, for in 1725, we find the governor of Montreal complaining
that "the English have built two houses and some stores on a little river
which flows into the Ouabache, where they trade with the Miamis and the
Ouyatonons." As the New York traders to reach the Miami country passed
through that of the Iroquois, the French devised a plan, which, if successful,
would soon have ridden them of the English encroachments. They proposed that
the Miami Confederacy make war upon the Iroquois, who had, in 1712, become
powerfully reinforced by the admission to their ranks, of the Tuscaroras. The
Miamis declined the proposal, much to the disheartenment of its advisers. In
1733, a number of the Wabash Miamis killed three French traders in an affair of
trade. For this the commandant at Detroit determined to punish them. He
accordingly sent M. de Arnaud with a suitable force, but when the officer
arrived at his des- (page 15) tination,
the offenders begged for peace, which was granted without loss of blood. In
1744, the Miamis entered into a covenant with the French to drive all English
trader from the Ohio and its northern tributaries within their territory. This
was never carried into effect. In 1745, a dispute arose with the Senecas, in
which several of the latter were killed, but no general warfare followed. In
1747, the Miamis entered into the conspiracy of Nicholas, the distinguished
Huron chief, who resided at "Sandosket," on the bay of that name. A
plot was formed for a general extermination of the French power in the West.
Seventeen tribes joined in this movement. In July, the Miamis danced the
calumet at Detroit, yet soon after seized Fort Miami, took eight Frenchmen and
destroyed the buildings. The general plans* of the conspirators
were defeated by (page 16) the
treachery of a squaw, who informed the commandant at Detroit of them, in time
to place most of the posts and trading houses on their guard. In February, (page 17) 1748, the Miamis asked
for peace, and obtained it. Sieur Dubuisson was sent with a number of men, and
rebuilt Fort Miami. Notwithstanding the repeated (page 18)
alliances with the French, the general feeling of the Miamis was that
of friendship for the English. This was perhaps induced by the fact that
English traders (page 19) sold
their goods for less, by one half, than the French; for instance, while the
English gave a quart of powder for a skin, the French gave but a pint, which
the Indians (page 20) in
course of time looked upon as a downright robbery. Within a month after
Dubuisson had rebuilt Fort Miami, a message was sent by several of the tribes
to the (page 21) Six Nations,
informing them that they were desirous of entering into a friendly alliance
with the English, and wished the Six Nations to communicate their desires to
___________________
*An extended reference to these will not be out of place:
In 1746, a large party of Huron Indians belonging to the tribes of the war chief Nicholas removed from the Detroit river to lands on the north side of Sandusky bay. They were a powerful body of men; active, energetic, and unscrupulous. They had in some manner been offended by the French at Detroit, which affords the reason of their change of habitation. Nicholas, their principal chief, was a wily fellow, full of savage cunning, whose enmity, when once aroused, was greatly to be feared.
Late in the same year a party of English traders from Pennsylvania visited the village of Nicholas, and were received with marked attention. Nicholas had become an implacable enemy of the French, and was therefore ready to make a treaty of amity and good will with the English. He accordingly permitted the erection of a large block house at his principal town on the bay, and suffered the traders to remain and dispose of their stock of goods. Once located, the English established themselves at that place, and, according to French accounts, acquired great influence with Nicholas and his tribe. This influence was always exercise to the injury of the French.
On the 23rd of June, 1747, five Frenchmen, with peltries, arrived at the Sandusky town from the White river, a small stream falling into the Wabash nearly opposite the present town of Mt. Carmel, Ill. These Frenchmen, being wholly unaware of the presence of English among the Hurons, were unsuspicious of danger, and counted upon the hospitality and friendship of the Indians. Their presence, however, inspired anything but tokens of good will. Nicholas was greatly irritated at the audacity of the French in coming into his towns without his consent. The English traders noticing this feeling urged the chief to seize the Frenchmen and their peltries. This was accomplished on the afternoon of the day of their arrival. The fate of the poor Frenchmen was soon determined. Nicolas condemned them to death, and they were tomahawked in cold blood. Their stock of peltries were disposed of to the English, and by them sold to a party of Seneca Indians.
The news of these outrages created much feeling among the French at Detroit, and especially so among the traders in the Ohio country. As soon as the Sandusky murders came to the information of the governor of Canada, he ordered M. de Longueuil, commandant at Detroit, to send a messenger to Nicholas demanding the surrender of the murderers of the five Frenchmen. The demand was not complied with. Three other messengers in turn followed, but were met with the same refusal. M. de Longueuil then sent a peremptory demand, requiring the surrender of the murderers, to be disposed of according to his pleasure; that the Hurons must ally themselves at once with the French, or the latter will become their irreconcilable enemies; that the French were disposed to look upon the recent murders as acts of irresponsible parties, and not of the Huron tribe, and that all English traders must leave the Indian towns forthwith.
The answer returned to these propositions amounted to a defiance, and preparations were made for an expedition against Sandusky.
The crafty Nicholas was not less active than the French. He formed a great conspiracy for the capture of Detroit and the upper French posts, and the massacre of the white inhabitants. How long this conspiracy had been brewing, we have no information; we know that by August, 1747, the Iroquois, Hurons, Outaouagas, Abenaquis, Pous, Ouabash, Sauteurs, Outaouas, Mississagues, Foxes, Sioux, Sacs, Sarastaus, Loups, Pouteouatamis, Chaouenons, and Miamis had entered into a grand league, having for its object the extermination of French dominion and authority in the West. Every nation of Indians, excepting those in the Illinois country, entered into the plan with zeal and alacrity.
Offensive operations were to commence at once. A party of Detroit Hurons were to sleep in the fort and houses at Detroit, as they had often done before, and each was to kill the people where he lodged. The day set for this massacre was one of the holidays of Penticost. A band of Pouteouatamis were commissioned to destroy the French mission and villages on Bois Blanc Island; the Miamis, to seize the French traders in their country; the Iroquois, to destroy the French village at the junction of the Miami and St. Joseph; the Foxes, to destroy the village at Green Bay; the Sioux, Sacs, and Sarastaus, to reduce Michillimacinac, while the other tribes were to destroy the French trading-posts in their respective countries, seize the traders, and put them to death.
This great conspiracy, so skillfully planned and arranged, would have been attended with a frightful loss of life, and the utter annihilation of French power, but for its accidental yet timely discovery.
It seems that a party of Detroit Hurons had struck before the other tribes were ready, by the murder of a Frenchman in the forest a few leagues from Detroit. This act was unauthorized by the Huron chiefs, who had made their arrangements for occupying the houses at Detroit, and were only waiting for the appointed time, to strike the fatal blow. So fearful were the chiefs that their object would be detected since the murder, that a council was held in one of the houses, which had been obtained for the purpose, to determine whether any change of operations was necessary. While they were in council, one of their squaws, going into the garret of the house in search of Indian corn, overheard the details of the conspiracy. She at once hastened to a Jesuit priest, and revealed the plans of the savages. The priest lost no time in communicating with M. de Longueuil, the French commandant, who ordered out the troops, aroused the people, and gave the Indians to understand that their plans had been discovered, and would be discomfited. With great alacrity messengers were dispatched to the forts and trading posts, which put the people on their guard, and caused them to retire to places of safety. All the settlers in the vicinity of Detroit were notified to enter the fort; the post at Miamis was abandoned, and relief asked for from Quebec.
When the Hurons at Detroit found they had been detected, they sullenly withdrew, the commandant being unwilling to open actual hostilities by detaining them. Soon after this the Indian operations began, though confined to a small scale, on account of the vigilance of M. de Longueuil in apprising his countrymen of their danger. The later part of August, 1747, a number of Frenchmen were killed at Chibarnani; eight traders were seized in the Miami country; a man named Martineau was killed near Detroit; the Sauteurs attacked a convoy of French canoes on Lake St. Clair, captured one and plundered the goods; the Outaouas killed a number of French traders residing in their country; the Foxes murdered several traders at Green Bay; a French trader was killed on the Miami; a party of Hurons attacked the inhabitants of Bois Blanc Island, and wounded three men. Five of the Hurons were captured, taken to Detroit, and heavily ironed. One was soon after killed by the people, and another committed suicide. Other murders were committed, and trading-houses destroyed, but the conspiracy had been pretty effectually broken up by its timely discovery. Soon after hostilities had commenced numbers of those who had entered the league deserted it, and craved the pardon and favor of the French. First among these were the Outaouagas, and Pouteouatamis, the latter having agreed to destroy the Bois Blanc villages. Thus weakened, the plans and efforts of Nicholas were in a measure paralyzed.
On the 22nd of September, a large number of boats, containing one hundred and fifty regular soldiers, arrived at Detroit from Montreal. Upon hearing of this, Nicholas abandoned all his plans, and was ready to make peace on the best terms he could obtain. He knew that certain destruction awaited his villages, unless pardon was obtained, for the French commandant was already meditating a punishment for him and his people, for the murder of the five traders the June previous. During the summer two chiefs of the Detroit Hurons, Sastaredzy and Taychatin, had visited Detroit on a professed mission of friendship. They were seized and sent to Quebec to answer for the murders committed by the Sandusky Hurons. Sastaredzy died at Quebec on the 4th of August; Taychatin was released when peace was made. Nicholas secured the pardon of himself and the Sandusky Hurons upon the most favorable terms, that of maintaining peace in the future. The French abandoned their demand for the murderers of the five traders, and made no conditions as to the Indian trade with the English. Even during the winter that followed, 1747-8, Nicholas received at the Sandusky villages, on two occasions, a party of Englishmen from Philadelphia, and allowed his people to trade with them. Soon after this, Nicholas received belts and other tokens of friendship from the English. These things came to the ear of M. de Longueuil, and he lost no time in asking instructions from Quebec.
On the 14th of January, 1747, Nicholas sent fourteen of his warriors to Detroit to ask for the release of the three remaining Indians captured at Bois Blanc Island. M. de Longueuil wishing to secure Nicholas as an ally, granted his request, and the prisoners were released.
In February, 1748, French soldiers rebuilt and again occupied the post on the Miami. The same month, La Jonquire, governor of Canada, ordered M. de Longueuil to give Nicholas notice that no English traders would be allowed among his people, or in the Western country, and if any were found, they should receive notice to quit forthwith. Agreeable to these instructions, a French officer was sent to Sandusky, who notified Nicholas of the wishes of the governor of Canada. Finding several English at the towns, the officer commanded them to leave the country, which they promised to do.
Finding himself deserted by nearly all of his allies, his power for mischief gone, and the activity and determination of the French to suffer encroachments from the English no longer, Nicholas finally resolved to abandon his towns on Sandusky bay, and seek a home farther west. On the 7th of April, 1748, he destroyed the villages and fort, and on the following day, at the head of one hundred and nineteen warriors, and their families, left for the White river in Indiana. Soon after he moved with his people to the Illinois country, locating on the Ohio, near the Indiana line, where he died, in the fall of 1748.
The stern, unyielding conduct of M. de Longueuil toward most of the tribes who had been engaged in the conspiracy produced the desired effect. By the 1st of May, 1748, the power of the league had been utterly annihilated, and nearly every nation forced to sue for peace. This result was not produced by the sword. The withholding of supplies, the prohibition of traders, the reduction of the savages to want, not only of provisions, but of powder and ball, did much toward humbling their desire for war. In June, a proclamation was issued by the governor of Canada, granting pardon to all the tribes engaged in the conspiracy, excepting the Mississagues and Sauteurs. Those nations had committed offenses which could not be overlooked without punishment. These exceptions were afterward withdrawn, and peace was established in the Northwest. The French, however, for several years, looked with distrust upon the rebels, as they were called. The Detroit Hurons were sulky, and not willing to carry the yoke the French placed upon their shoulders. They had formerly enjoyed every privilege; no obstruction being placed in their way. Now they were subjected to military rule. In the general orders of the post at Detroit, June 2, 1748, we find the following:
"Should any Huron or other rebel be so daring as to enter the fort without a pass, through sheer bravado, 't would be proper to arrest him and put him to death on the spot." Similar orders were issued at all French posts in the Northwest. These harsh, but necessary measures, had their lessons, and the Indians became as quiet and peaceable as ever. Thus ended the conspiracy of Nicholas.
For the facts above given, the writer is mainly indebted to the New York Colonial Documents, and the Colonial Records of Pennsylvania.
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