THE LITTLE TURTLE
The greatest of the Miamis and, perhaps, by the standard of
achievement, which is
the fairest of all standards,
the greatest Indian the world
has known, was Mi'-shi-kin-noq'- kwa, commonly known as The Little
Turtle, but that is not what his name means.
Literally it means The Great
Turtle's Wife, but it is not
in that sense that it was applied to this great chief.
The Miamis have specific names for the most common turtles —
at-che'-pong for the
snapping turtle, ah-koot'-yah
for the soft-shell turtle,
we-neet'-chah for the
box
turtle or tortoise,
kach-kit'-yot for the map turtle, and mi-shi-kin-noq'-kwa for the
painted
terrapin. This last is the
commonest of all the turtles
in this region, and the most gaudily colored, which probably explains
its
Indian name, for who should
be handsomely dressed if not
the wife of The Great Turtle, who typified the Earth, and who was the
chief beneficent manitou of
the Algonquian tribes in the olden
time ? But when it came to translation the interpreters knew no
specific English name for the painted terrapin, and, as it
is a little turtle, never
growing more than six or eight
inches across, they conveyed the idea as well as they could by saying
"The Little Turtle."
The Little Turtle was rather small of stature, and was probably a puny
infant, which may account for his name, for a more sprawling,
helpless-looking creature
than
a newly hatched painted
terrapin can hardly be imagined.
It has been stated that his mother was a Mohegan woman, but his
granddaughter
Kil-so'-kwa (The Setting Sun)
says that both his father and
his mother were full- blooded
Miamis. He was born near the present city of Ft. Wayne, about 1751.
Though small of stature, he was both brave and
wise. He had also a
remarkable dignity of manner that
commanded respect, and although not a hereditary chief, he soon rose to
a
position of leadership. His
first opportunity for special distinction
came in 1780.
Up to that time the region about the headwaters of the Maumee had not
been disturbed in the war
with the Americans, but had been a center, easy of access to the
British,
from which supplies were
distributed and warriors were
sent out to harass the frontiers. It had been an Indian stronghold for
many years. Before the Miamis dwelt there it was
occupied by the Ottawas, or
Pierced Noses — so called
because they punctured the cartilage of the nose, as women do their
ears, and
suspended ornaments from it —
and the Maumee was in early
times known as the Ottawa River.
At the site of Ft. Wayne was the town of one of their clans or
divisions, who were called Kis-ka-kons or Ki-ka-kons, i. e., Clipped
Hair, or as the French called
them, Queues Coupees, because
they shaved the sides of
their heads and wore their hair in a bristling band across the head
from front
to back. This name always
attached to the place, but
the Delawares corrupted it to Ke-gey-unk, which would mean "old place"
if
it meant anything, and the
Miamis to Ke-ki-oon'-gi, which
would mean "cut place" if it meant
anything, but both tribes disclaim knowledge of the meaning of these
names,
which is very proper because they lost the real meaning long ago. Here
and at smaller
villages in the vicinity the
Miamis had dwelt for nearly a
century in apparent security.
But in 1780 a rude shock occurred. Out from the East there came Colonel
Le Balme,
a French officer, who came
over with Lafayette and had
been serving withthe Continental army in New England. Inspired perhaps
by the success of George Rogers Clark, he conceived a plan for
capturing Detroit with a force raised in the French
settlements. He won the
confidence of the French settlers on the Mississippi, and thirty of
them
started with him on his
expedition. At Vincennes he
recruited nearly as many more.
The expedition was well managed in the earlier part. The men were
mounted, and they passed up the Wabash quickly and
quietly, making the journey
from theWea towns in four
days, and taking Ke-ki-oon'-gi by surprise. There were few Indians in
the town and they fled, as did the British
traders, most of whom were of
French birth. The invaders took
some plunder from the stores and then fell back to the Aboite River,
where
they encamped in fancied security. But they counted without their host.
The alarm spread rapidly and soon came to The Little Turtle, who
quickly gathered a band of warriors to attack the enemy.
Finding Ke-ki-oon'-gi
abandoned,they followed back
the trail and in the darkness of the night struck the sleeping camp. La
Balme had not
even posted sentinels, and he
and his men were all killed
except a young man named Rhy,
who was carried captive to Canada and handed over to the British
authorities. He
said he was aid-de-camp to La
Balme, and that they had
fallen back to the Aboite to await
reinforcements to the number of 400, which were expected, but of these
nothing further was ever heard. The news of the
destruction of the expedition
against Detroit
was
received
with great satisfaction
by the British, and
thenceforth The Little Turtle was
the recognized war chief of the Miamis.
It has been surmised by local historians that the Aboite received its
name from
this event, the original form
being Abattoir, which was
later corrupted to the present form.
This is wholly unfounded, as the stream is called Riviere a Boite in
documents and maps of earlier date. Boitte, or its variant bouette, is
a word used by French
fishermen for minnows that
are used as bait for larger
fish and their name for the stream was River of Minnows. The Miamis
call it Na- kow'-e-se'-pe, or Sand Creek.
In the next ten years there was an abundance of fighting, of Indian
raids on the
Kentucky settlements and all
along the frontier, with
counter expeditions by the whites. It has been estimated that between
the close
of the Revolutionary war and
1790 the Indians killed 1,500
people and ran off 20,000 horses. They did the greater damage, but they
were
being gradually forced back
and losing their old homes.
Many retired to the Miami country, and in 1785 Ke-ki-oon'-gi is said to
have had a population of 1,000 warriors of
various tribes. But the white
man was growing weary of this
petty and harassing warfare, and
this feeling was increased by the belief, supported by very convincing
evidence, thatthe British, who still held the region
about Detroit, were
furnishing supplies to the Indians and urging them to war. It was
decided that a crushing blow must be struck, and in 1790 an expedition
was started
against the Miami town under command of Gen. Josiah Harmar, the
commander-in-chief
of the American army.
The expedition consisted of 1,453 men, rank and file, of whom 320 were
regulars
and the remainder militia and
volunteers from Pennsylvania,
Virginia and Kentucky. But the
latter were not up to the frontier standard. Many were boys and old
men, and most of them were poorly equipped. They were almost without
discipline, and showed a
great deal of
insubordination. There was jealousy among the officers that extended to
the
men. Nevertheless, the army
moved forward. The advance
guard of 600 men, under Col. Hardin,
reached Ke-ki-oon'-gi on October 15, and the remainder of the army two
days later. They found the place deserted. Most
of the men were away on their
fall hunt and the rest had
hastily retired.
On the 18th Colonel Trotter was sent out with 300 men, thirty of whom
were
regulars, to look for
Indians, while the remainder of the force engaged in the destruction
of
the villages and crops.
Trotter's trip was unsuccessful, and on the 19th Colonel Hardin was
sent out with the same command. The Indians were not strong enough to
attack
the main army, but The Little
Turtle had collected one
hundred warriors and he placed them
in ambush some ten miles northwest of Ke-ki-oon'-gi when Hardin was
reported coming. Hardin marched into the ambush and the Indians opened
fire and advanced. All the militiamen except nine fled, and
these, with the regulars,
were quickly hemmed in and
subjected to a pitiless fire, from which only one escaped to tell the
tale.
On the same day the army left Ke-ki-oon'-gi and moved two miles down
the Maumee to a Shawnee town, where the work of
destruction was kept up. On
the 21st,
having destroyed five
villages and 20,000 bushels of corn,
with quantities of beans, pumpkins, hay and fencing, the army started
on its
return and marched eight
miles south. That night, at
the request of Hardin, who desired to retrieve his misfortune of the
19th, Harmar sent back a force of four hundred men
under his command, of whom
sixty were regulars under
Major Wyllis.
The detachment marched in three divisions a few hundred yards apart,
intending to surprise the Indians, who, it was
anticipated, would return to their villages
early in the morning. But The Little Turtle was not
surprised. A small force of
Indians appeared before the
right wing and when attacked fled
up the St. Joseph, which the Miamis
called K6-chis-ah-se-pe, or Bean River, the division, contrary to
orders,
following them for several
miles.
Then The Little Turtle, with his main force, fell on the center
division, which
included the regulars. The
regulars fought bravely, but
lost so heavily that they were
forced
to retire up the St. Joseph. They were on the east side of the stream
and the
Indians followed, mostly on
the west side, pouring in a
deadly fire from behind trees and other cover.
At last the remnant met the returning militia, and with their united
forces they
compelled the Indians to fall
back, and the soldiers rejoined
the left wing at
Ke-ki-oon'-gi. From there they returned to the main army without
pursuit, the regulars having lost
two officers and forty-eight
men and the total loss to the
army now reaching 183 killed and missing, besides many wounded, a
number of
whom had to be carried on
stretchers. Hardin desired Harmar to go back with the army, but a
council of officers decided that it
was in no condition to do so.
The Indians had suffered large
loss of property, but were left with the belief that they had driven
the Americans back.
The expedition of Harmar was followed by renewed attacks all along the
frontier,
the Indians being inspired
both by the desire for revenge
and the necessity
of obtaining supplies of food. A bitter cry went up from the settlers.
The Ohio company voted to raise troops to protect its settlements.
Virginia provided for
military expeditions from Kentucky, which was then part of its domain.
Congress directed an expedition under General St. Clair, and the
erection of
forts in the Indian country
to guarantee peace. The Kentucky
expeditions against
the Wabash towns
were successful, and early in September St. Clair's forces moved
northward about twenty-five miles from Fort Washington and
erected Fort Hamilton, on the
Great Miami River. On October
4 they advanced again, this
time forty-two miles, and erected Fort Jefferson. On October 24 the
army again
advanced, and on November 3
reached a point on the headwaters of the Wabash near where Fort
Recovery was afterward established.
The advance was much delayed by failure of the contractors to forward
provisions,
and the army was weakened by
numerous desertions, and by
sending back one
of the best regiments
in search of deserters. It now numbered
about 2,000 men.
Meanwhile the Indians had been busy. They had been kept informed of the
American plans as made public
by their British friends and
of the movements on the
frontier as gathered by their own scouts. Efforts
had been made to unite the
tribes in sufficient force
not only to repel invasion, but also to drive the whites from the
region north of
the Ohio. Foremost in these
efforts were The Little
Turtle, the Shawnee chief Blue Jacket (Wey'-ah-pier-sen'-wah) and the
great
Delaware war chief known in
our frontier literature as
Buckongehelas (properly pronounced Poch-gont'-she-he'-los. Heckewelder
writes
it Pachgantschihilas and
translates it "A fulfiller ;
one who succeeds in all he undertakes." This is figurative; literally
it means
"The Breaker to Pieces".
In the latter part of October these and minor chiefs had gathered 1,400
warriors in the vicinity of
Ke-ki-oon'-gi, and these assembled on the prairie, five miles below
that place
on
the St. Marys River, which
the Miamis called
Mah-may'-i-wah-se-pe'-way, or
Sturgeon Creek, on account of the large number of sturgeon that used to
run up it
in the spawning season.
There was a division of sentiment as to who should have the chief
command that threatened for a time to become serious. Some favored The
Little Turtle and
some Buckongehelas, but the latter was not a
man to let personal
consideration stand in the way of
success. Dawson, who voiced General Harrison's opinion, said of him:
"This man
possessed all the qualities of
a hero ; no Christian knight
was ever more scrupulous in performing all his engagements than the
renowned Buckongehelas." He settled the controversy
by withdrawing in favor of The
Little Turtle on the ground
that he was the younger and
more active man.
And now The Little Turtle had no ordinary Indian foray on his hands. He
had an army to deal with, and it must be handled
as an army, for the Indians
were determined not to await invasion and another destruction of their
winter supplies. They must be
furnished with food on their
march to meet the enemy.
The Little Turtle divided his warriors into squads or messes of twenty
each, and
ordered that four from each
mess, in rotation, should act
as hunters for that mess for one day, bringing in at noon whatever game
they had
obtained. The commander was
well informed as to the
enemy. His scouts had hovered about
the army for a month, stealing horses and cutting off stragglers at
every
opportunity. In the night of
November 3 he brought his
warriors close in around St. Clair's
camp and prepared for the attack.
The Americans were summoned to arms for parade at daylight, as usual,
and the
waiting Indians silently
watched their maneuvers. Half
an hour before sunrise —
near 6 o'clock — they were dismissed for
breakfast, and as they
dispersed to their quarters The Little Turtle gave the signal for
attack.
The militia outposts were
quickly driven in, and the
Indians pressed after, keeping under cover and maintaining a continuous
rifle
fire.
The troops were soon put in position and discharged repeated volleys at
their concealed foes, but
with little effect. Charge after
charge was made, but the Indians
nimbly retired before the bayonets and were back again as soon as the
soldiers turned,
while a destructive fire was
poured into the charging columns
from the flanks. The Indians did not show themselves except when raised
by
a charge. They made special
marks of the officers and
artillerymen.
The fight was one-sided from the start, and by half-past 8 o'clock the
army was
helpless. The artillery was
silenced. The men were
huddling in the center of the
camp, deaf to orders. The Indians were closing in.
Most of the officers were
dead, and those remaining saw
that the only hope was in retreat. .A few brisk charges made an opening
to the road, and those who were able to go made their way to it in
utter rout. And as they
fled the panic seemed to
grow. Fortunately the Indians
pursued for only four or five miles, but the road for miles beyond that
was strewn with arms and accoutrements of men who desired nothing to
impede their
flight.
The Little Turtle had vanquished an American army 50 per cent, larger
than his
own and had inflicted a loss of 37 officers, and 593 men killed and 31
officers and
242 men
wounded. He had captured all
the enemy's artillery, camp
equipage and supplies, valued at
$32,800, besides much private property. He had blocked for the time
being the
invasion
of
his country.
This was the greatest victory ever gained by Indians over American
troops. In the Sioux victories at Fort Kearny and on the Little Big
Horn the Indians greatly
outnumbered the whites. The
Nez Perces, under Chief
Joseph, met equal and superior forces of soldiers, but their successes
were only
defenses and skilful
retreats. The only engagement comparable
with the defeat of St. Clair was
Braddock's defeat, and in that the Indians were aided and officered by
Frenchmen, and would have retreated but for their officers, while the
Americans were not
allowed by Braddock to fight
in their own way. The Little
Turtle's victory was over a superior force, on its own chosen ground
and was achieved wholly by Indian military
skill.
The defeat of St. Clair was a fearful blow to the frontier settlements,
most of which
were at once abandoned, except
those adjoining the forts. Nearly all the
able- bodied settlers had gone to the front, and there was mourning in
nearly every family. The
Indians were greatly
emboldened, and war parties appeared
all along the lines of the frontier,carrying havoc that brought forth a
bitter
cry for aid.
President Washington realized that more adequate means must be taken to
subdue the
Indians, and he asked Congress
for authority to raise three
additional regiments of foot
and
a
squadron of horse. There was
opposition to this in
Congress on account of the poverty
of the country, and it was even proposed to abandon the Northwest
Territory
and
make
the Ohio River the boundary
of the United States. But
such sentiment was not popular,
and there was soon manifested a widespread determination for adequate
measures for conquering the
Indians.
Congress provided for raising an army of 5,000 men, and President
Washington called
"Mad Anthony" Wayne from his
farm to command it. Meanwhile
every effort
was made to
settle the trouble peacefully. Commissioners were sent to the Indians
through Canada, and councils were held, but the
Indians stubbornly refused to treat except on condition that the
Americans retire from north of the Ohio and make it the boundary
betwfeen them.
Wayne went to Pittsburg in June, 1792, and began the work of organizing
the army,
but no offensive movements
were made during that year,
or until October,
1793, when he
advanced to a point six miles beyond Ft. Jefferson and built Ft.
Greenville. In
December he sent a detachment
forward which took possession
of the field of St. Clair's defeat and established Ft. Recovery at that
point. At these two posts Wayne wintered his army, and prepared for a
sure blow in
the coming summer.
Only one attack was made on Wayne's forces in 1793. On October 17 a
train of twenty wagons, under convoy of two
officers and ninety men, was
attacked seven
miles north of
Ft. St. Clair. Most of the men fled, and the two officers and thirteen
men who
remained, were killed. The
Indians captured seventy
horses and took some of the supplies, but did not destroy the
remainder.
The winter passed without material incident, Wayne drilling his troops
and making
everything ready, while the Indians were striving to bring other tribes
to their
aid.
In this they were
assisted by the British, especially those at the Roche de Bout (Rock of
the End), a place at the lower end of the Maumee rapids, so called from
a massive rock in the stream. Here the British had established a fort
after the close of the Revolutionary war, far within the American
lines, and here were located
the storehouses of Colonel
McKee, an Indian trader, who was
one of the most obnoxious of the British agents in urging the Indians
to war.
The Little Turtle appeared before Ft. Recovery on June 30 with a force
of 1,500 men, a large number of whom were whites in disguise. They had
expected to find
the
cannon they had captured from
St. Clair and to use them in
assaulting the fort, but they were
disappointed. The Americans had discovered their hiding places, mostly
under logs, and they were now mounted in the
fort. But by chance they
struck a convoy of ninety riflemen
and fifty dragoons under Major McMahon,
who were returning to the fort. They at once attacked and overwhelmed
this
force, killing five officers
and seventeen men, wounding thirty, killing and wounding eighty-one
horses and capturing 204. They then attacked the fort and continued
their
assault through most of the
following day, but their
rifles were of little effect and they withdrew.
A division of sentiment now arose among the Indians. They had found it
impossible to surprise Wayne in camp, for his camps were always
fortified by surrounding '
walls
of logs and there was no
opportunity to attack in the
open except when the troops were
ready for battle. The Little Turtle insisted that this was hopeless on
account of Wayne's superior force; that it was
useless to try to surprise "a
chief who always slept with
one eye open," and that the only way to fight him was to get in behind
him and cut off his convoys, leaving him stranded
in the wilderness. But they
had succeeded only twice in
striking convoys, and one of the
successes was accidental. The British urged an attack on the army and
promised aid. The Little Turtle was overruled and even accused of
cowardice. The majority encouraged by their success with St.
Clair, decided on a pitched
battle and The Little Turtle had no choice but submission to the
decision.
General Scott on July 26 joined Wayne at Ft. Greenville with 1,600
mounted men from Kentucky, and on the 28th the army advanced. On August
8 they reached '
the Grand Glaize and proceeded to build Ft.
Defiance at the junction of
the Auglaize with the Maumee.
On the 13th a prisoner was sent
out with a peace message, advising the Indians to listen no longer to
"the bad
white men at the foot of the
rapids," but to send peace
deputies at once if they desired to save themselves and their women and
children from famine and danger.
On the 15th, having received no answer, the army advanced down the
Maumee, and on the 18th, having marched forty-one
miles from Ft. Defiance, the
soldiers
began erecting a
light fortification for the baggage, in preparation for active work. On
the
morning of the 20th they
advanced about five miles,
when they came to a place known as the Fallen Timbers — a thick wood in
which
the ground was covered with
old trunks of trees, probably
blown down by a tornado, which
prevented the action of cavalry. Here the Indians were lying in ambush,
to give battle.
The advance guard was received with so severe a fire that it was forced
to fall
back, although under orders,
in case of attack, to hold
its position until the army
could come to
its support. But there was no
other confusion.
Wayne at once dispatched his cavalry on both flanks to gain the enemy's
rear, and ordered his infantry, who were marching with loaded guns and
fixed bayonets,
to
advance, raise the Indians
with the bayonet, fire at
short range, and chase them out of the woods without stopping. The
movement was carried out to the letter. In the
course of an hour the Indians
were driven over two miles,
and, being refused admission to Ft. Miami — the British post — they
dispersed
in all directions, the
cavalry not having had time
to reach their position.
The pursuit was carried almost under the walls of Fort Miami, whose
commander sent a protest to Wayne against this
"insult to the British flag."
Wayne replied with
a demand
for the garrison's removal from United States territory, to which the
commander declined to accede. But he offeredno interference to the
army, which
remained there for three
days, destroying the crops and
property of the Indians and the storehouses of Colonel McKee, which
were within pistol shot of the fort.
The loss of the Americans was comparatively small, being five officers
and twenty- eight men killed, and sixteen officers and
eighty-four men wovinded. Of
the
wounded eleven died. The
loss to the Indians was never
definitely learned, but it was much larger than that of the whites.
On the 24th the army started on its return to Ft. Defiance, laying
waste the
cornfields and villages for
fifty miles on each side of
the river. Wayne reported that the
margins of the Maumee and Auglaize were like "one continued village"
for miles,
and that he never "before
beheld such immense fields of
corn in any part of America, from Canada to Florida." The work of
destruction was continued at
Ft. Defiance, and the fort
was strengthened for permanent occupancy.
On September 14 the army marched to Ke-ki-oon'-gi and began building
the fort
opposite the Indian town, which was named Ft. Wayne by Colonel
Hamtramck,
who was left in command. The Indian dominion of "the Glorious Gate of
the Wabash" was ended
forever, and it is fitting
that the name of the man who
ended it should remain as a permanent
memorial. But the old memories linger
also, and to this day the older Miamis call the place Ke-ki-oon'-gi.
The spirit of the Indians was broken. They suffered much during the
winter, though the British furnished them
extensive supplies. The
British governor Simcoe,
aided by
Colonel McKee and the Mohawk chief, Captain Brant, tried to unite them
for
further resistance, but in
vain. The action of the
British in refusing admission even to wounded Indians at Ft. Miami and
permitting Wayne's men to
destroy goods of both Indians
and British under the guns of the fort, had convinced them that the
British were afraid of the Americans.
Wayne had been a revelation to them. The Miamis named him The Wind
(a-lom'- seng), on account of the way he had swept them from the Fallen
Timbers ; but the
Delawares named him The
Blacksnake (Suk-ach'-gook), because they esteem the black- snake the
wisest and most cunning of
animals, and the most
destructive to smaller animals and
birds. With very little resistance the Indians obeyed his summons to
assemble
at Ft. Greenville in the
summer of 1795, and on August
3 a treaty, which he dictated, was concluded.
The Little Turtle now realized, as few others did, that a new era had
come to his
people, which called for a
change in them. In the past
he had contended against
the vices
of barbarism, and had been the chief agent in suppressing "the ancient
sacrificial rites," including
cannibalism, which had been
practiced among the Miamis as late as the Revolutionary war.
He now entered on a campaign against the vices of civilization, and an
effort to
gain its advantages. Most
destructive of the former was
intemperance. He visited
the Legislatures
of
Ohio and Kentucky, as well as
Congress, and begged for the
prohibition of the liquor
traffic among the Indians. In a speech, which was taken down in shorth
and at the time, he denounced it as "an evil that has
had so much ruin in it, that
has destroyed so many of our lives, that it causes our young men to
say, 'We had better be at war with the white people. This liquor that
they
introduce into our country is
more to be feared than the
gun or the tomahawk ; there are more of us dead since the treaty of
Greenville than we lost by
the years of war before, and
it is all owing to the introduction of this liquor among us.' "
While on a visit to Washington The Little Turtle learned of the
benefits of
inoculation as a preventive
of smallpox. He at once had
himself and the members of his
party
inoculated, and he also carried this remedy to his people, which was
the means of saving the lives of many of them and of
the surrounding tribes.
He tried to introduce a civilized system of agriculture among the
Miamis, and at
his request the Society of
Friends of Baltimore, established
a training farm on the Wabash.
It was located at a place known as "The Boatyard," because General
Wilkinson built a fleet of
boats there to transport his
baggage down the river. This is some two miles below the present city
of Huntington, the site of which was known to the
Miamis as We'-pe-chah'-ki-oong or "The Place of Flints," because there
is here a flint
ridgerunning across the
limestone, from which they
obtained abundant supplies of flints.
The farm was not a success, however, and Philip Denis, the hard-headed
Quaker, who was put in charge of it, abandoned it at
the end of the first season
because
his Indian pupils
gave
no co-operation beyond
sitting on the fence and
watching him work.
The Little Turtle also endeavored to promote friendship with the
Americans, and opposed
British influences, which
brought him into opposition
to Tecumtha.
This opposition was
much aggravated by his supporting the treaties made by Governor
Harrison for
lands in the southern part of
Indiana. As the Government
had built a substantial log- house
for him at his town on Eel River and otherwise encouraged him in his
efforts
for civilization, his enemies
found many listeners to their
insinuations that he had sold himself
to the Americans. This feeling was worked up to such a point that in
1810
John Johnston, the Indian
agent, wrote to Governor Harrison
: "This Turtle is contemptible beyond
description in the eyes of the Indians." Nevertheless he still retained
his influence with most of
the Miamis, and very few of
them took part in the battle of Tippe- canoe. After that event, his
wisdom was again generally recognized, and he
regained much of his former
standing.
In his later years the old chief was much troubled by rheumatism and
gout, and was treated for them by the army surgeons at Ft. Wayne. One
day an interpreter rallied him with a suggestion that gout was
supposed to be a disease of
fine gentlemen. The Little
Turtle quickly replied: "I have always thought that I was a gentleman."
And he was. He had not only a philosophic mind and a ready wit, but
also a notable instinct for the proprieties that fitted him for any
social surroundings. These
qualities attracted attention among the whites wherever he went. One
who met him while on a trip East in 1807, writes:
"The Little Turtle and Rusheville, the Beaver and Crow (Delawares), and
the two Shawnees, were dressed in a costume usually worn by our own
citizens of the
time — coats of blue cloth, gilt buttons,
pantaloons of the same color,
and buff waistcoats ; but they all wore leggings, moccasins and
large gold rings in their ears. The
Little Turtle exceeded all
his brother chiefs in dignity
of appearance — a dignity which resulted from the character of his
mind. He was of medium stature, with a complexion of the palest copper
shade, and did not
wear paint. His hair was a
full suit, and without any
admixture of gray, although from what he said of his age, at Ft. Wayne
in 1804,
being then fifty-three, he
must at this time have been
fifty-seven years old. His dress was completed by a long red military
sash
around the waist, and his hat
(a chapeau bras) was ornamented
by a red feather. Immediately on
entering the house, he took off his hat and carried it under his arm
during the
rest of the visit. His
appearance and manners, which
were graceful and agreeable in an uncommon degree, were admired by all
who made his acquaintance.
"The "Rusheville" here mentioned was The Little Turtle's nephew, Jean
Baptiste Richardville, who succeeded him as head chief
of the Miamis. His Indian
name was
Pin-je'- wah, or the
Wild Cat. He was the son of The
Little Turtle's sister, Tah-kum-wah (On the Other Side, i. e., in
position, as across a river), and a scion of the noble French house of
Drouet de Richardville. This corruption of his name is quite common,
and a further twist is found in the name of Russiaville, Howard County,
which was originallly intended to perpetuate his memory.
We have also attempted to commemorate a grandson of The Little Turtle
in the name of the town of Coesse, in Whitley County, But this is our
reproduction of his Potawa- tomi nickname, Ku-wa'-ze, or as the Miamis
pronounce it, Ke-wa-zi, meaning "old," or as here "old man." He was the
son of The Little Turtle's son, Ma-kot'-ta-mon'-gwah (Black Loon). His
cousin, Kil-so-kwa, says his real name was Mtek'-yah, meaning "forest"
or "woods" ; but the nickname supplanted the true name, and in the
treaties he appears as "Co-i-sa," "Ko-es-say," or "Ko- was-see."
Kil-so-kwa is the daughter of The Little Turtle's son Wok-shin'-gah
(the Crescent Moon — literally "lying crooked"). Her mothe's name was
Nah-wa'-kah-mo'-kwa (the First Snow Woman — literally, the one that
comes first). She says that her own name means "the setting sun,"
though
literally it appears to mean
only "the sun" (feminine) or
"sun woman." Kil-so-kwa. married
Antoine Revarre, a French-Canadian, and now lives near Roanoke, Ind.,
with her son Antony Revarre, whose Indian name is Wah'-pi-m5n'-gwah
(White Loon), at the advanced age of ninety-seven years.
The Little Turtle prepared to take the side of the Americans in the war
of 1812, but
he was destined not to
participate in that conflict. His
old enemy, the gout, carried him off on July 14, 1812, while at Ft.
Wayne
for treatment. He was buried
on the bank of the St.
Joseph, above Ft. Wayne, with military honors. For a generation or more
the Indians were accustomed to visit his grave and pay tribute to his
memory, and well
they might, for if ever man served his generation to the best of his
ability, this man had done so.