by Gerald Therrien
The Unveiling of Canadian History, Volume 3.
The Storming of Hell – the War for the Territory Northwest of the Ohio, 1786 – 1796.
During the American Revolution, when General Washington had asked General Wayne to undertake an extremely perilous enterprise – the storming of Stony Point, Wayne replied : “General, I will storm Hell, if you will only plan it.”
Part 3 – Peace on the Frontier
Chapter 15 – The Treaty at Vincennes, September 27th 1792
The United States continued their efforts for peace with the western Indian nations, and in trying to free them from the British manipulations and intrigues. In spite of the British opposition even to a meeting, the Wabash and Illinois Indians signed a peace treaty with General Putnam.
General Rufus Putnam
Earlier in July, Colonel Pickering had met with the Seneca Indians and all the other of the Six Nations – except the Mohawks, inviting them to send a delegation to come and visit the United States government in Philadelphia.
Now, on December 19th 1791, Colonel Pickering wrote to the Five Nations Indians that:
“in the last speech I made to you at the council at Newton, I proposed that a small number of the chiefs should come to Philadelphia after the Corn Harvest to see the Great Chiefs and the Great Council of the United States in order to fix with them the time and manner of introducing among you the knowledge of farming, of smiths and carpenters work, of spinning and weaving, and of reading and writing.”
This was President Washington’s policy for the advancement of the Indian nations at peace with the United States. And this is what the British feared – because it would make the Indian nations independent, and independent of British manipulation.
On December 20th, Knox wrote to Samuel Kirkland asking him to send runners to the several chiefs, who were named by Pickering in his letter, to appoint Geneseo as the meeting place, and for him to accompany them on their trip to Philadelphia.
On January 7th 1792, Knox wrote to Cornplanter and the chiefs of the Seneca nation on the waters of the Allegheny river, inviting them to meet Kirkland and the other chiefs at Geneseo, and to also come to Philadelphia.
On January 9th, Knox sent instructions to Captain Peter Pond and William Steedman to go to Detroit and to see if the western Indians wanted peace:
“no doubt can exist that our strength and our resources are abundant to conquer, and even to extirpate the Indians, northwest of the Ohio. But this is not our object. We wish to be at peace with those Indians – to be their friends and protectors – to perpetuate them on the land. The desire, therefore, that we have for peace, must not be inconsistent with the national reputation. We cannot ask the Indians to make peace with us, considering them as aggressors: but they must ask a peace of us. To persuade them to this effect is the object of your mission.
Repair to Niagara and Detroit, without suffering your business to escape you, until proper time. When at Detroit, assume the characters of traders with the Indians – a business Mr. Pond is well acquainted with. Mix with the Miami and Wabash Indians. Find their views and intentions, through such channels as your discretion shall direct. Learn the opinions of the more distant Indians. Insinuate, upon all favourable occasions, the humane disposition of the United States; and if you can by any means ripen their judgement, so as to break forth openly and declare the readiness of the United States to receive, with open arms, the Indians, notwithstanding all that is past, do it. If such declaration should be made, at the Miami or Wabash, and be well received, you might persuade some of the most influential chiefs to repair to our posts on the Ohio, and so, from post to post, to this place.’ [i.e. to Philadelphia]
However, when Pond and Steedman arrived at Niagara, the British commander, Colonel Gordon, refused permission for them to travel any further, and Pond and Steedman were forced to return home.
On January 31st, Colonel Gordon, along with British Indian agent Butler and Joseph Brant of the Mohawks, attended a council with the chiefs of the Five Nations Indians at Buffalo Creek, and gave a speech that, after the recent Indian defeat of St. Clair’s forces in November, they should not trust Pickering’s offer, that:
“tho this invitation from Colonel Pickering is dated at Philadelphia, eight days after they had received accounts of the defeat of their army in the Miami country, yet they take not the least notice of that affair. Your own good sense will point out to you, why they have concealed it and the same good sense will cause you to discover for what purpose so many of your chiefs and sachems are now invited to Philadelphia … I think it will be imprudent in you to attend this invitation.”
The chiefs at this council then met (but without Gordon or Butler) and decided not to accept Pickering’s invitation, and they sent a runner to Geneseo ‘to stop any, should they be inclined to go (to Philadelphia), until the council meets at Buffalo creek’.
When the chiefs at the Geneseo council, who were meeting with Kirkland, received this message, Red Jacket then spoke that it was evident that the design in calling the Indians to Buffalo creek was to extinguish the Geneseo council fire, and to prevent anyone from going to Philadelphia; but this was contrary to their ancient usages to extinguish or remove a council fire by lighting another, until the purpose of the first had been decided at the appointed place.
The Geneseo council chiefs agreed, and sent a message to the Buffalo creek council, inviting them to come to assist in answering the invitation to meet with the Congress of the thirteen fires. The entire Buffalo creek council agreed (except for Brant, Fish Carrier and Great Sky) to set out for Geneseo. The Geneseo council ended on February 20th, and every influential chief accepted the invitation to go down with Kirkland and Cornplanter – a company upwards of fifty, and they reached Philadelphia on March 13th.
On March 23rd, the Indian delegation was welcomed by President Washington, who asked Congress that:
“the United States, in order to promote the happiness of the Five Nations, will cause to be expended, annually, the amount of one thousand five hundred dollars, in purchasing for them clothing, domestic animals and implements of husbandry, and for encouraging useful artificers to reside in their villages.”
Israel Chapin was appointed as the United States’ deputy agent to the Five Nations of Indians. Some of the chiefs proposed ‘to attend the great council of Western Indians, soon to be held near the west end of lake Erie’ and they were authorized ‘to assure those Indians of the sincere disposition of the United States to make peace with them’. Before they departed, twenty-two of the most respectable chiefs dined with President Washington on April 22nd.
Earlier on March 9th, at a meeting of the heads of the executive departments, the President and his cabinet were informed of a letter from Kirkland that the Indian delegation was on its way, and also, of the report of Pond and Steedman that their mission was forced to end; after which President Washington then asked ‘shall a person be sent to the Northwest Indians by way of Fort Pitt and Vincennes to propose peace?’
In response to the president, on April 3rd, Knox wrote to Major Alexander Trueman that he should repair to Fort Washington – with a speech for the western Indians, that he should disclose to Lieutenant Colonel Wilkinson the object of his mission, and to concert with him the proper means of carrying it into execution – to repair to the Miami village ‘to affect a peace with the hostile Indians on the terms of humanity and justice’.
Prior to this, Wilkinson had already sent 3 men on April 3rd with a message to the western Indians, inviting them to send some of their chiefs to Fort Washington for a peace council. It would be later learned that the men met with some Indians, who were to accompany them to the Miami towns, but the Indians decided the men were spies and they were killed and scalped. Wilkinson now would send Colonel John Hardin to the Wyandot towns along the Sandusky river with a message for peace.
On May 21st, Trueman and Hardin, along with their guides and interpreters, left Fort Washington and travelled together for a week before they split – Trueman travelled to the Miami towns, and Hardin to the Sandusky towns. The next day, both missions were met by small Indian hunting parties, that surprised and killed them – sending their scalps back to Detroit.
On May 21st, Joseph Brant of the Mohawks wrote to Gordon at the British fort at Niagara, and then to Knox, that he would accept the invitation to visit the government at Philadelphia. Knox had tried earlier, through letters from Pickering and Kirkland and himself, to have Brant accompany the chiefs of the Five Nations on their visit to Philadelphia in March, but Brant refused until he could first send messengers to the western Indians to ask their advice. When the messengers returned, Brant then decided to go, leaving his home at Grand river in Upper Canada, travelling to New York, and arriving at Philadelphia on June 20th.
Brant met with President Washington and with Knox, arguing for a new boundary line between the United States and the western Indians, running along the Ohio and Muskingum rivers – the line that had been agreed to by the Indians and Lord Dorchester in August 1791!!! Knox told Brant that:
“the United States require no Indian lands but those which have been ceded by treaties … if, however, it should hereafter be made to appear, either that the compensation then given was inadequate, or that other than the parties who made it have any just claims on the lands ceded thereby, that we shall be willing to give them a just compensation.”
Knox hoped that when Brant repaired to the soon-to-be-assembled council of Indian nations at the Maumee river of lake Erie, he would ‘fully and truly unfold to them those things which may conduce to their happiness’. Brant left Philadelphia on June 28th and returned to Niagara.
On May 22nd, Knox wrote his instructions to Brigadier General Rufus Putnam that:
“you have, at the request of the President of the United States, agreed to attempt to be present at the general council of the hostile Indians about to be held on the Miami river of lake Erie, in order to convince the said Indians of the humane dispositions of the United States, and thereby to make a truce or peace with them …
And that there should be no mistake as to the boundaries claimed by the United States, by virtue of the said several treaties, you have herewith delivered to you a map, whereon the boundaries are clearly marked …
The United States are desirous, in any treaty, which shall be formed in future, to avoid all causes of war, relatively to boundaries, by fixing the same in such a manner as not to be mistaken by the meanest capacity. As the basis, therefore, of your negotiation, you will, in the strongest and most explicit terms, renounce, on the part of the United States, all claim to any Indian land which shall not have been ceded by fair treaties, made with the Indian nations…
You will make it clearly understood, that we want not a foot of their land, and that it is theirs, and theirs only; that they have the right to sell, and the right to refuse to sell, and that the United States will guaranty to them their said just right. That all we require of the Indians is a peaceable demeanor; that they neither plunder the frontiers of their horses, or murder the inhabitants; that the United States are bound to protect the inhabitants at the risk of every inconvenience of men and money.”
Putnam was supposed to be assisted by –
Major Trueman [who had been recently killed] and his ‘ardent zeal’;
by ‘the chiefs of the Five Nations who were lately in this city (and) have agreed to repair to the Great Council … well impressed with the justice and humanity of the United States and … to use their highest exertions to effect a peace’;
by Colonel Louis of the Caynawagas of the Seven Castles in Canada who ‘had been invited to the council to be held at the Miami river of lake Erie … being also convinced of the justice of the United States, promised to use his influence towards a peace’;
by Captain Hendrick Aumauput, chief of the Stockbridge Indians, ‘specially charged to prepare your reception and to meet you at fort Jefferson’;
and also by Brigadier General Wilkinson and Major Hamtramck.
Putnam arrived at Fort Washington on July 2nd, and he was informed by Wilkinson that on June 25th about 50 Indians had attacked a party of 15 men cutting hay at Fort Jefferson, killing four and taking the others as prisoners.
In a message he had sent earlier from Fort Pitt, Putnam had told the Indians that he would be at Fort Jefferson on the 24th, and Putnam realized that he was probably the true object of the attack. Putnam also learned, from reports that had been received from some American prisoners who had escaped from the Indians, of the deaths of Trueman and Hardin, and their guides and interpreters.
Putnam was also informed by Hamtramck that he had met with some of the Wea and Eel River chiefs at Fort Knox on March 14th who said that they wished to be at peace with the United States, and that they had signed an agreement that ‘measures may be speedily taken to conclude a solid and everlasting treaty of peace between the Wabash Indians and the United States and that the treaty shall be held in Vincennes.’
Putnam ‘was soon convinced that the Indians who met at the great council were determined on war, and that it was in vain to make any further attempt to bring them to treat of peace at present’ and on July 22nd wrote to Knox that:
“my tarrying here much longer, can be of no service whatever … there is a prospect that most, if not all the western tribes, may be detached from those nations who have originated the war, and return to, or be kept in a state of peace … this is the only remaining channel by which there is the least prospect of my being able to speak with the more hostile tribes … For these reasons, sir, I have been induced to form the resolution of going to Post Vincent, for the purpose of holding a treaty with the western tribe.”
On August 16th, Putnam and his party left Fort Washington, along with about 60 Indian prisoners that had been held there, arrived at Fort Knox on September 13th and released the prisoners to their Indian friends. Blankets and clothes were handed out to the 686 Indians that assembled there, and that included 31 chiefs from the Potawatomi, Piankashaw, Kaskaskia, Kickapoo, Wea and Eel River nations.
The council started on the 24th and a treaty was signed on September 27th that:
“[the Wabash and Illinois Indians] acknowledge themselves to be under the protection of the United States of America, and stipulate to live in amity and friendship with them … The United States solemnly guarantee to the Wabash, and Illinois nations, or tribes of Indians, all the lands to which they have a just claim; and no part shall ever be taken from them, but by a fair purchase, and to their satisfaction … The said kings, chiefs and warriors, solemnly promise, on their part, that no future hostilities or depredations shall be committed by them.”
After the council ended, Putnam invited one or two chiefs of each tribe to visit General Washington in Philadelphia. Captain Abner Prior and a small company of soldiers accompanied 16 of the Wabash Indians to Philadelphia, but while travelling through southern Pennsylvania, smallpox broke out among their ranks. Several died, the rest were inoculated, and when they recovered their health, the remaining delegation were finally able to meet with President Washington on February 1st 1793.
[next week – chapter 16 – The Indian Council at the Glaize, October 8th 1792]
*************
For those who may wish to support my continuing work on ‘The Unveiling of Canadian History’, you may purchase my books, that are available as PDFs and Paperback (on Amazon) at the Canadian Patriot Review :
Volume 1 – The Approaching Conflict, 1753 – 1774.
Volume 2 – Forlorn Hope – Quebec and Nova Scotia, and the War for Independence, 1775 – 1785.
And hopefully,
Volume 3 – The Storming of Hell – the War for the Territory Northwest of Ohio, 1786 – 1796, and
Volume 4 – Ireland, Haiti, and Louisiana – the Idea of a Continental Republic, 1797 – 1804,
may also appear in print, in the near future, while I continue to work on :
Volume 5 – On the Trail of the Treasonous, 1804 – 1814.