Drs.

Erminie Wheeler-Voegelin Emily J. Blasingham Dorothy R. Libby

Treaties of:
    August 21, 1805
    September 30, 1809
    October 26, 1809
    December 9, 1809

Areas and Treaties Involved. In October, 1957, the Great Lakes-Ohio Valley Research Project of Indiana University was requested to prepare a Report for the Department of Justice on native use and occupancy of Royce Areas 73 and 74 in west-central Indiana and east-central Illinois, and the cession of these two Areas.

Royce Area 73, which comprises a strip of land ca. 60 miles long and some 15 miles wide at its widest point, lies along and west of the middle Wabash River. Royce Area 74, which is directly north of Royce Area 73, is in rough outline a northwest-southeast slanting parallelogram, with the Wabash bounding it on the eastern, and eastern third of the northern side, and the Vermilion River bounding it on the remainder of its northern side.

Royce Area 73 was originally ceded to the United States in Article 9 of the Treaty of Fort Wayne of September 30, 1809, William Henry Harrison, commissioner, by the "Delaware, Putawatame, Miami, and Eel River tribes of Indians" (7 Stat. 114). Article 9 of this Treaty reads as follows:

Art. 9th. The tribes who are parties to this treaty, being desirous to show their attachment to their brothers the Kickapoos, agree to cede to the United States the lands on the north-west side of the Wabash, from the Vincennes tract to a northwardly extension of the line running from the mouth of the aforesaid Raccoon creek, and fifteen miles in width from the Wabash, on condition that the United States shall pay them an annuity

of four hundred dollars. But this article is to have no effect unless the Kickapoo will agree to it (7 Stat. 113:115).

In a treaty which Harrison, as commissioner, held with "the Sachems and war chiefs of the Kickapoo tribe, on the part of said tribe," on December 9, 1809, the Kickapoos agreed, in Article 1 of this Treaty, to the "ninth article of the treaty of Fort Wayne on the thirtieth of September last, and the cession it containes" (7 Stat. 117). A "permanent additional annuity of four hundred dollars, and goods to the amount of eight hundred dollars, now delivered," was "to be considered as full compensation for the said cession" (7 Stat. 117).

Royce Area 74 was also ceded in the Treaty with the Kickapoos of December 9, 1809 (7 Stat. 117). Article 2 of this Treaty reads:

Art. 2. The said tribe further agrees to cede to the United States all that tract of land which lies between the tract above ceded [Royce Area 73], the Wabash, the Vermillion river, and a line to be drawn from the North corner of the said ceded tract, so as to strike the Vermilion river at the distance of twenty miles from its mouth. For this cession a further annuity of one hundred dollars, and the sum of seven hundred dollars in goods now delivered is considered as a full compensation. But if the Miamies should not be willing to sanction the latter cession, and the United States should not think proper to take possession of the land without their consent, they shall be released from the obligation to pay the additional annuity to the United States (7 Stat. 117).

The Treaty of Fort Wayne of September 30, 1809 has a lengthy Journal of the Proceedings² recorded by Peter Jones,

Secretary to Treaty commissioner William Henry Harrison, Governor of Indiana Territory. There is no such Journal, or any informal report, for the Kickapoo Treaty of December 9, 1809, but in the Journal of the Proceedings of the Treaty of Fort Wayne there is the following remark:

The separate article with the Miamies had been agreed on before upon [sic] their consenting to the Article [9] in the original Treaty [Treaty of Fort Wayne of September 30, 1809, 7 Stat. 113] which embraces the Kickapoos.³

The "separate article" referred to in the remark quoted above was an article entered into at Fort Wayne, on September 30, 1809, between the United States and "the Sachems and chief warriors of the Miami and Eel river tribes of Indians" which was "to be considered as forming part of the treaty of this day [Treaty of Fort Wayne of September 30, 1809]" (7 Stat. 115). The Separate Article stated:

As the greatest part of the lands ceded to the United States, by the treaty this day concluded, was the exclusive property of the Miami nation and guaranteed to them by the treaty of Grouseland, it is considered by the said commissioner just and reasonable that their [Miamis¹] request for additional compensation should be complied with. It is therefore agreed that the United States shall deliver for their use, in the course of the next spring at fort Wayne, domestic animals to the amount of five hundred dollars, and the like number for the two following years, and that an armoree [sic] shall be also maintained at fort Wayne for the use of the Indians as heretofore. It is also agreed that if the Kickapoos confirm the ninth article of the treaty [of Fort Wayne of September 30, 1809], the United States will allow

to the Meamies a further permanent annuity of two hundred dollars, and to the Wea and Eel river tribes a further annuity of one hundred dollars each (7 Stat. 115- 116).

The Weas had not been parties to the Treaty of Fort Wayne of September 30, 1809, but on October 26, 1809 William Henry Harrison, acting as commissioner, entered into "A Convention" with them, whereby the Weas declared "their full and free consent to the treaty concluded at Fort Wayne" on September 30, 1809, "and also to the separate article entered into on the same day with the Miami and Eel river tribes" (7 Stat. 116). The Weas were allowed, by the United States, for their consent,

an additional annuity of three hundred dollars, and a present sum of fifteen hundred dollars, in consideration of the first article of said treaty [of Fort Wayne, ceding Royce Areas 71 and 72, 7 Stat. 113-114] and a further permanent annuity of one hundred dollars, as soon as the Kickapoos can be brought to give their consent to the ninth article of the treaty [of Fort Wayne of September 30, 1809] (7 Stat. 116).

Materials Covered in Report. Clearly, as can be seen from the above series of stipulations in Treaty proceedings, provisos in the treaties concerned, and the reference in the Separate Article to a previous Treaty guarantee,⁴ any study of use, occupancy and cession of Royce Areas 73 and 74 necessitated, if it was to be at all thorough, full consideration of

all treaties concerned. This study we made, after consultation and with the approval of the Department of Justice.

Full investigation of the treaties raised, however, the question of actual historical use and occupancy of the several Areas ceded in the treaties, and the eighteenth and early nineteenth-century history of several of the groups signatory to these treaties. In consultation with Mr. William H. Lundin, attorney for the Government, it was decided that a full and extended study should be made, and that particular attention should be given to the relation of our ethnohistorical findings to the ethnohistorical findings of the Indian Claims Commission in Dockets Nos. 67 and 253.

As a result of our study, we found that we were at variance with several of the Commission's findings of fact in the above-named Dockets. For example: In the Commission's Findings in Dockets 67 and 253 it is stated

a) That the Eel River Tribe was originally and at all times referred to as a part of the Miami (2 Ind. Cl. Comm. 618; 5 Ind. Cl. Comm. 181). This is discussed and shown to be incorrect in Chapter 4 of the following Report. At the suggestion of Mr. Lundin, the history of the Eel Rivers was carried beyond the Treaty of Grouseland of 1805, up to 1881;

b) That the Wea tribe was originally a part of the Miami Tribe, but after 1805 separated from the Miami (2 Ind. Cl. Comm., 618, 620, 643-644; 5 Ind. Cl. Comm. 181). The history of the Miamis and the history of the Weas, up to 1805, which is presented in Chapters 2 and 3 of this Report, shows

no historical documentation for this statement, and much contemporary evidence to the contrary. Prior to 1805, for some 90-95 years as far back as we know their history, the Weas had led an existence politically separate from the Miamis. After 1805 the Weas continued to exist politically separate, and were removed from the Miamis a considerable distance in space;

c) That the Miamis (according to Harrison) were undoubted proprietors of all the country from the Wabash to the Scioto, etc. (2 Ind. Cl. Comm. 624; 5 Ind. Cl. Comm. 191). The several erroneous statements in the Harrison letter of March 22, 1814, in which the above statement occurs, and the views of Government officials other than Harrison as to who were the rightful claimants to the Wabash region and to the White River-Ohio River region, are presented in Chapter 12 and in Appendices 1 and 2 of this Report.

d) That the lands historically used by the Miamis, according to Little Turtle, a Miami chief speaking in 1795, included Royce Areas 56, 71, and 72 (5 Ind. Cl. Comm. 184). In 1795 Little Turtle, as shown in Chapter 2 of this Report, was a Miami war leader, not a chief. In his well-known speech made during the proceedings of the Treaty of Greenville, which the Commission quotes in part (5 Ind, Cl. Comm. 184) Little Turtle spoke not only for the Miamis, but for the St. Joseph Potawatomis and the Wabash Indians as well.

These are some of the points at which our material in this Report is at variance with some of the ethnohistorical findings of the Commission in Dockets 67 and 253. These and other differences are covered in detail in the various Chapters

of this Report.

During the course of our investigation we also discovered that the Mohican or Stockbridge Indians seemed to have some interest in the White River country of Indiana which included a large portion of Royce Area 71 ceded by the same Fort Wayne Treaty that ceded Royce Area 73. Since we had thought it necessary to discuss all of the provisions and cessions of the Fort Wayne Treaty, it seemed pertinent to include whatever information we were able to find about any of the Indians mentioned in the provisions and cessions of the Fort Wayne Treaty, even though such information concerned tribes other than those involved in the present case. We therefore included a chapter on the history of the Mohican claims to lands on the White River in Indiana.

Research and Form. Much of the documentary material gathered for this Report was assembled by the two Junior authors, Drs. Emily J. Blasingham and Dr. Dorothy R. Libby, Research Associates on the Great Lakes-Ohio Valley Research Project, under the supervision of the senior author. The Report in its final form, including numerous additions and all conclusions, is the work of the senior author alone, in day-by-day consultation with the two Junior authors.

In the Report, a league is assumed to represent 2 1/2 miles. In population estimates, one warrior is taken to represent four persons. All inserted material enclosed in brackets in quoted material is ours, unless otherwise noted; parenthetical material in quoted material is that of the author of the quotation.