By George Ironstrack & Cameron Shriver

aacimwitaawi: ciikaahkwe iihkipisinonki waapaahšiki siipionki neehi nimacihsinwi siipionki, niiyaaha myaamiaki eeminooteeciki. aalinta naapiši eeminooteeciki waapanahkiaki. wiihsa mihtohseeniaki weešitookiki weehki-wiikiaama, wiiyoonkonci mihši-maalhsaki šaakosankiki amenooteenawa.

‘Let us recount: Near Peru, Indiana on the Wabash and Mississinewa Rivers, there the Miami Indians build a town. Some Delawares built a town there as well. Many people had built new houses because the Americans had burned their villages.’^[1]

Early in the morning on Dec. 17, 1812, three days before the winter solstice, men on horseback rode into the towns located at the confluence of the Waapaahšiki Siipiiwi ‘Wabash River’ and Nimacihsinwi Siipiiwi ‘Mississinewa River.’ Their arrival alerted the communities to an attack on the Waapanahkia ‘Delaware’ and Myaamia villages on the Nimacihsinwi Siipiiwi, about a two-hour horseback ride to the south.

Throughout the morning and into the afternoon, refugees from these villages surged into the Nimacihsinwi Siipiiwi towns on foot. Their arrival likely spread a sense of fear and panic. Myaamia people rightly worried that the Mihši-Maalhsa–the American “long knives”– would continue down the Mississinewa River to attack and destroy the remaining Nimacihsinwi Siipiiwi towns.

The evacuees reported the details of that morning’s attack to the people of the Nimacihsinwi Siipiiwi towns. Shortly after dawn, the Mihši-Maalhsa surprised the southernmost Mississinewa valley village, a Waapanahkia community on the river’s east bank. Most of the villagers fled, but a few men engaged in a brief firefight with the American soldiers in order to protect their escaping families.^[2]

In the skirmish, the Mihši-Maalhsa killed seven of the men and captured 42 residents of the village, mostly women, children, and older men. Later, the villagers heard that the Mihši-Maalhsa killed a wounded man who, after capture, “fell upon his knees pleading for mercy, declaring he was a Delaware,” before being executed and scalped. Years later, a veteran of the attack recalled an American officer’s commentary on the violent and disorderly conduct of the troops, “We shall suffer for this, we have not seen the end.”^[3]

The Mihši-Maalhsa continued north and attacked and destroyed three more villages downstream on the Mississinewa. One of these villages was identified as Mihtohseenia’s village and another as Silver Heels’ village. Alerted by gunfire up the valley, the residents of the downstream communities evacuated before the arrival of the Americans. They later learned that the Americans burned more than 50 houses in these four towns and killed most of the livestock.^[4] The Mihši-Maalhsa then encamped in the remains of the first village, confining their 42 captives in a couple of large structures.

A peace betrayed

This invasion surprised the Myaamia and Waapanahkia villagers. They had spent most of the past year attempting to maintain neutrality in the spreading violence, which we know today as the War of 1812. For example, Weas and Piankeshaws—tribes closely related and allied to the Myaamia—sent “messages to the different villages” in the Wabash valley “to consult upon the measures which were proper to be taken in the circumstances in which they were placed.” Those communities “unanimously agreed” to push for peace.^[5] Likewise, Waapanahkiaki (plural of Delaware) and Myaamiaki (plural of Miami) living at Mississinewa invited leaders from the area to council. Their speakers scolded their brothers in other tribes for past violence. “Our white brethren are on their feet, their guns in their hands,” the Waapanahkia orator said. “Let us make our voices (for peace) be heard and respected, and rely on the justice of our white brethren.”^[6] Two years later, Myaamia leaders recalled that they had decided to pursue a policy of neutrality. Even after American forces had burned several of their northern towns, Myaamiaki “would bear our loss.”^[7]

The United States’ declaration of war against Great Britain made the tenuous position of the Waapanahkia and Myaamia leaders increasingly difficult. They listened to overtures from groups of Shawnees, Ho-Chunks, and Potawatomis, but ultimately rejected those early efforts to pull them into the violence. “After we had heard the voice of our red brethren, who endeavored to draw us into the war, we abandoned them, and determined we would not be drawn in by them,” Keetankwaanka ‘Charley’ asserted in the war’s aftermath.^[8] Tecumseh, a Shawnee leader then allied with the British against the Americans, recognized Myaamia neutrality. Rather than ask for their aid, he told them to stay out of his way if he were to lead a large force from Detroit to the Wabash.^[9]

The Waapanahkia and Myaamia peoples also had to respond to American demands for alliance. At the start of the war, the Americans, whom the Myaamiaki called Mihši-Maalhsa ‘Big Knives,’ summoned leaders from these communities to a council in Piqua, Ohio.^[10] Some Waapanahkia representatives attended, and the U.S. and Waapanahkia leaders agreed to maintain their peace. However, no Myaamia representatives attended, a sign the Americans took as evidence of ill intentions.

Although no one knows, it is likely that the Myaamiaki feared for their safety among nearby Americans after Ohio militia killed allied Shawnees, and soon after imprisoned a small group of Waapanahkiaki and Myaamiaki. The Piqua Indian agent wrote that “armed parties of our people” were “breathing destruction against the Indians indiscriminately.” The white communities in Ohio circulated handbills that described the Delawares attending the peace council as “warriors, completely armed and equiped [sic]” and called men to report with their firearms: “your wives and children, all you hold dear are in danger of being destroyed by savage violence.”^[11]

Despite unease and distrust, Myaamia leaders did not withdraw from diplomacy. Mississinewa townspeople dispatched influential men in late September and October to try to convince the Americans of their neutrality. The Americans demanded that they send five unnamed chiefs to be held as hostages in Piqua. This was an uncommon request that went unanswered.^[12] Rather than venture to Piqua, many of the Waapanahkia and Myaamia leaders met the U.S. Indian agent at Fort Wayne. Meanwhile in Piqua, Shawnee and Waapanahkia orators declared their neutrality on “behalf of all present, and of the Myaamiaki, whom they were instructed to represent.” Thus, “A kind of negotiation” was ongoing between the Mississinewa townspeople and General William Henry Harrison, the American commander wrote in early December. For his part, Harrison, the former governor of Indiana Territory, increasingly painted the Mississinewa towns as hostile toward the U.S. In the buildup to violence at Mississinewa, Harrison cited the Miamis’ refusal to submit hostages as evidence of “the base ingratitude” of the Miami Nation, which “merits in my opinion the severest chastisement.”^[13]

Harrison recognized that the Nimacihsinwi Siipiiwi minooteena ‘Mississinewa River communities’ were struggling to maintain their neutrality. He privately acknowledged that “the chiefs are no doubt desirous of preserving their friendly relations with us, but as they are unable to control the licentious part of their tribe it is impossible to discriminate.”^[14] But by mid-October, Harrison argued that the “great bulk of the tribe were decidedly hostile.” This view was widespread among the Americans.^[15]

Last, it would have been difficult for the Mississinewa villagers to have gauged the rising political pressure on Harrison to provide a military success. In November 1812, Gen. Samuel Hopkins engaged in an embarrassing, failed campaign to attack and destroy indigenous villages in Illinois. “As soon as” Harrison learned that Hopkins had not burned any native towns, “I determined to direct an expedition against the Miami town of Mississinewa,” he wrote.^[16]

In public, Harrison asserted that the Mississinewa could provide shelter and supplies for Potawatomi, Kickapoo, and Ho-Chunk attackers from the prairies of northern Illinois. The Mississinewa communities “would not perhaps however have been attacked at this time but for the facility which their town affords to the other tribes to attack our settlements and the convoys of the left wing of the army—The whole of the provisions must therefore be destroyed and the houses burned.”^[17]

But Harrison’s personal ambition also played a part in this timing. He had promised much but delivered little in his brief tenure as commander of the Northwestern Army. Harrison frequently complained that he wanted to bolster his military credentials and felt affronted that the U.S. Senate had not yet endorsed his brigadier generalship.^[18] Arguing that the Mississinewa towns harbored belligerents, Harrison perceived an opportunity to invade the Myaamia homeland.

Harrison ordered Lt. Col. John B. Campbell to attack and destroy the Mississinewa towns and, if he deemed it possible, to assault “a banditti of scoundrels principally of the Potawatomi tribe” who lived “at the White Pigeon’s village” some 50 to 60 miles north of the Mississinewa towns.^[19]

Harrison ordered Campbell to avoid the Waapanahkiaki and to be careful not to victimize the families of Little Turtle, Silver Heels, White Loon, Charley, Richardville, Godfroy, and Pakaana, all leaders who “undeviatingly exerted themselves to keep their warriors quiet and to preserve their friendly relations with us.”^[20]

In December of 1812, neutrality failed the Myaamia and Waapanahkia communities in the Mississinewa valley. Their villages, stored food, and people were once again targets of the U.S. Army. The Myaamia storyteller Clarence Godfroy recalled: “Campbells army of distruction [sic] would march upon” the towns of the Nimacihsinwi Siipiiwi“and destroy them without any cause.”^[21]

The popular modern-day annual “Mississinewa 1812” re-enactment-based event portrays the same assumption held by the U.S. Army and militias: that the Mississinewa villagers were “hostile” toward the U.S.

Campbell’s attack

On Dec. 15, a day after leaving Fort Greenville, Campbell’s force crossed the border between ceded lands under the control of the U.S. and Myaamia lands. This invasion occurred unbeknownst to the Mississinewa townspeople, whose communities were relatively depopulated because many residents were temporarily living in winter hunting camps. In a good year, each village lived comfortably, sustained by stored agricultural produce such as dried corn, beans and squash. Winter hunting parties, which returned periodically to the villages, augmented each community’s diet with fresh animal protein. At night, the towns typically would have been filled with the sound of storytellers recounting Aalhsoohkaana ‘Winter Stories,’ tales restricted to the wintertime that explore the mysteries of life and humankind’s relationship to all the beings with whom they share the world. The frosty stillness would be punctuated at times by the boisterous laughter, groans and gasps of their audiences.

In a good year, Myaamia families also used this quiet winter time to prepare their equipment and supplies for the maple sugaring season, when a portion of each village would relocate to temporary camps set up in the large stands of beech-maple forests that covered much of the upland terrain in the Wabash valley.

But the winter of 1812-1813 was not a good year. Refugees from Mihšihkinaahkwa minooteeni (Little Turtle’s village), Waapimaankwa minooteeni (White Loon’s village), and Wiipicahkionki (Forks of the Wabash) swelled the population of the Mississinewa towns. Their villages had been destroyed as a response to a siege of Fort Wayne earlier in the year. “I had no evidence,” Harrison wrote after Native men besieged Fort Wayne, “of the inhabitants of that [i.e., Turtle’s] Town having joined in the hostilities against Fort Wayne but as they had fled from it, and the corn would support the hostile Indians in a second attempt upon fort Wayne, it became necessary for the safety of that place that it should be destroyed….If we have no alternative but operating upon their fears by severe chastisement I am convinced that the appearance of so large a force at Fort Wayne and the destruction of the Indian villages and property will be of considerable service to our future operations.”^[22] Harrison’s strategy of devastation aimed to strike fear into the neutral Myaamia communities.

Accordingly, U.S. forces burned Mihšihkinaahkwa minooteeni and Waapimaankwa minooteeni. The Kentuckian William Northcutt noted that Waapimaankwa minooteeni had been evacuated but there was “a great deal of corn and vegetables of all kinds.” He concluded the description of White Loon’s town by noting “We destroyed their corn and everything else in their town which we burned.”^[23] Down the Wabash, Harrison himself participated as four Myaamia villages “burned & the corn cut up & piled under the expectation that it would rot before the Indians Could do any thing to prevent it.”^[24] Their minooteena smoldering and agriculture destroyed, the Miamis from the north moved in with their relatives on the Mississinewa River. Their relatives took in the refugees, but the necessities of life, like housing and food, were no doubt stretched to the breaking point.^[25] A vast majority of the adult men of the villages were absent, hunting at some distance from the villages. As a result, at the time of the attack, there may have been as few as 60 to 80 adult men of arms-bearing age in the vicinity of the Mississinewa towns.

There is no record of how the Myaamia townspeople reacted in the first hours after receiving news of Campbell’s attack. Presumably, a small detail of scouts traveled up the Mississinewa valley to ascertain the position and movement of the American army. It is also likely that families prepared to flee in the event that the American invasion continued to the Wabash River.

Sometime in the afternoon, the men of the Mississinewa towns gathered to decide their course of action. However, after some discussion, none of the established war leaders agreed to captain a counterattack on the American army. Then, an elder war leader named Šiipaakana stepped forward and indicated his willingness to lead. Šiipaakana had earned fame within his community during the 1780s and 1790s, a period of intensive violence with Kentuckians and U.S. federal forces. Later, after the War of 1812, he became well-known to Americans as the husband of the modern-day locally famous captive Mahkoonshkwa, also known as Frances Slocum.

Majenica, another Myaamia leader, opposed Šiipaakana’s offer. He grabbed Šiipaakana, hit him on the head, and berated him. It is not clear whether Majenica opposed the entire war effort or only Šiipaakana’s leadership, but his abuse of the war leader angered a young man named Palaanswa (Francis Godfroy), who stood and forcefully separated the two men. In response, Majenica attacked Palaanswa. In the struggle that followed, Palaanswa threw Majenica to the ground. Eventually, Majenica yielded to Palaanswa and then addressed the whole council, asserting that Palaanswa should assume leadership of the war effort.^[26]

 

No option but to fight

Palaanswa, together with Waapimaankwa (Joseph Richardville), Sakimia (Francis Lafontaine Sr.), Anikoonsa (Captain Squirrel), and Ciinkweensa (Little Thunder), quickly organized all the men and suitable older boys, and traveled toward the location of the American encampment. The group likely included Eempahwita (Silver Heels) and other men from the Delaware communities living in Mississinewa valley. As one trader reported, the U.S. army was “attacked by sixty Indians and boys…all the men they could muster that were in the two villages.”^[27]

As the Myaamia men and boys traveled south over the snowy ground, they would have passed sites of deep and ongoing significance to Myaamia people. The Aašipehkwa waawaalici ‘Seven Pillars’ and Aašipehkwa weeweencihkwapici ‘Double Cliffs Facing Each Other’ were formed 425 million years ago, long before humans inhabited the Mississinewa valley. Having lived near these places for generations, Myaamia people imbued them with stories of long-ago events and more recent episodes, where people sometimes interacted with the other-than-human beings who also were said to dwell there. Eventually, the Myaamia–Waapanahkia force would have passed the smoldering remains of their villages to the north of the American camp. They probably witnessed their relatives’ homes and observed the carcasses of the cattle and dogs that the Americans slaughtered after seizing the villages. They may have inspected their families’ wiikiaama ‘houses’ to see if anything of value survived. They may also have checked the hidden corn, which was typically cached underground. The descendants of Mihtohseenia’s community remembered their ancestors’ relief at finding their corn deposits untouched.^[28]

While passing through these villages under full moonlight, the Myaamia–Waapanahkia corps must have moved with extreme caution. They planned to attack during the darkest period of the night, after moonset but before dawn. The darkness would hide the Myaamia–Waapanahkia numerical disadvantage, approximately six-to-one, and thereby reduce the effectiveness of American fire once the battle began. Their primary objectives were to free the captives and to prevent an attack on the Mississinewa towns.

Over the course of the night, Myaamia and Waapanahkia men scouted the edge of the American position and were continually challenged in the dark by sentries shouting the phrase: “Who comes there?”^[29]

A little more than an hour before dawn, an American guard discovered a small group of these men sneaking along the high bank of the river trying to get into position near the southern corner of the camp. They probably intended to wait there until a diversionary attack began on the northern side of the encampment. But as one of the men stuck his head up over the rise, the American sentry fired his weapon and woke the entire camp. As drums began to roll, the Myaamia and Waapanahkia men must have realized that they had lost the element of surprise.

At this point, the bulk of the Myaamia–Waapanahkia force on the north side of the encampment decided to go forward with the attack despite their enemy’s rising state of readiness. As they moved tree-to-tree toward the north angle of the camp, they came upon a sentry post with three men deployed in isolation from the main American line. In response to the sentries’ challenging call: “Who comes there?” Sakimia shouted out, “Pottawattomies, God damn you!” and opened fire.^[30]

Sakimia’s response reflected a bitter frustration among the Myaamiaki that, from their perspective, they had done their utmost to avoid war. Yet, the Americans appeared to be punishing them for the actions of other tribes. A little over a year after the battle, Keetankwaanka ‘Charley’, one of the leaders of the Eel River village, described his state of mind at the time: “I concluded we were in a precarious situation; it resembled a wild horse, surrounded on every side by people, endeavoring to catch him, and at last, all fall on him and kill him.” When the Americans attacked that winter, Keetankwaanka “concluded we were no longer at liberty to choose,” meaning he thought war was their only realistic option.^[31]

In the opening moments of the battle, the Myaamia-Waapanahkia force overran the northern sentry post. Anikoonsa killed one of the sentries with his tomahawk but the remaining Americans fled back to the encampment. Using the treeline as cover, the Myaamia and Waapanahkia men fired into the camp from the north and northwest. They watched as the Americans extinguished their campfires and sought cover behind their horses, which were tied in a line just twenty paces behind the camp’s defensive perimeter.^[32] As the gunfire intensified, the Americans and many of their horses began to fall, and their defensive fire weakened. In response, Myaamia and Waapanahkia men moved inside the boundaries of the encampment to press their advantage, but they were quickly pushed back into the trees by American reinforcements from south side of the camp. After retreating beyond the original defensive perimeter, the Myaamia-Waapanahkia force extended its attack down the western edge of the camp and kept up a steady fire on the American line.^[33]

After the battle lines stabilized, the Myaamia-Waapanahkia fighters could make out the sounds of the Americans repeatedly calling out “Fight on,” to each other. In a taunting response to these calls, at least one of the Myaamia or Waapanahkia men shouted at the Americans, “Fight on and be dam to you” and “Fight on you damned rascals; the day is ours.”^[34]

Over the sounds of the gunfire and yelling, the combatants could clearly hear screams of terror and cries for help coming from the forty-two Waapanahkia captives, who were still imprisoned on the southeast side of the encampment.^[35] The cries of their families likely filled the Myaamia and Waapanahkia men with a sense of fear and urgency. They must have continued to hope that they could disrupt the Americans enough to ensure the escape of their relatives.

The fighting continued for around an hour, but shortly after the sun began to rise the Myaamia–Waapanahkia force began to withdraw into the woods to the north of the occupied village site. Before they could safely retreat out of range, the Americans launched a mounted attack. Using the trees to their advantage, the Myaamia–Waapanahkia rearguard quickly enveloped about twenty mounted American soldiers and wounded five, forcing the riders to retreat back into the encampment.^[36]

Once at a safe distance from the American camp, the Myaamia–Waapanahkia force organized for an ambush, believing that the Americans would push downriver to the Mississinewa towns. A small handful probably hid nearby to scout the American position, while the wounded made their way back to the Wabash River.

There are no reliable counts of Myaamia–Waapanahkia dead and wounded from the battle. Eight Americans died and 48 were injured, two of whom died in the days that followed. The Myaamia–Waapanahkia force likely suffered a higher casualty rate, but likely not as many as the 40 to 100 that American commanders claimed in the newspapers.^[37]

Much to the surprise of the Myaamiaki and Waapanahkiaki, the Americans did not advance on the Mississinewa towns that day. Instead, they retreated. Before they left the occupied village, they buried their dead within the last standing lodge and pulled the structure down on top of their graves and burned it. They then took up their original line of march heading back toward Fort Greenville.^[38] When the Myaamiaki and Waapanahkiaki learned of the American withdrawal, they probably sent a small force to pursue the invaders and observe their position. They would have likely followed them at a safe distance, heading towards Fort Greenville, until the army exited Myaamia territory and returned to U.S. soil.

Aftermath and the rise of misconceptions

Harrison’s military ambition helped bring about the 1812 invasion of the Nimacihsinwi Siipiiwi  ‘Mississinewa River’ Valley, which he publicized as a success. Military officers, receiving false information from a captured Waapanahkiaki, believed (or wanted to believe) that Tecumseh, the famous Shawnee, had led the force that attacked them. In the mindset of the U.S. military, Tecumseh’s anti-American militancy made him both a known villain and legitimate target of violence.Therefore, despite being told by his knowledgeable scout that Ciinkweensa—a young Myaamia man—had been calling orders to the Myaamia–Waapanahkia units, Col. Campbell added in his official report, “I shall not be surprised to learn that Tecumseh commanded in the action against me.”^[39] Harrison relayed this tidbit to Ohio’s governor, encouraging him to publish it. Harrison’s adjutant general wrote an effusive report that would be “published to the world.”^[40] Newspapers celebrated the campaign nationwide.^[41] Campbell earned a brevet as a reward for his “gallantry and good conduct.”^[42]

After returning to the Mississinewa towns, the Myaamiaki began in earnest, for the first time in eighteen years, to prepare their communities for war. By the spring of 1813, Myaamia men of arms-bearing age were fighting alongside age-old allies—Wyandot, Shawnee, Potawatomi, Ottawa, Ojibwe, and British—against the U.S. The Myaamia allied most closely with the Wyandot war leader Roundhead. This connection may have resulted from continued feelings of resentment directed toward Tecumseh and western Potawatomis, whom the Myaamia people held partly responsible for the attacks on their villages during the previous year.

While these men fought together with their allies in Upper Canada, the Americans attacked the Mississinewa towns. The Americans carried out these raids in the summer of 1813, and once again burned all of the homes and destroyed the agricultural fields. Luckily, the townspeople were able to flee and escape capture or execution. But once again, hundreds of Myaamiaki were homeless and without food.

aacimwitaawi: meehci pooni-meekaahkiiciki, aapooši  eeminooteeciki nimacihsinwi siipionki mihtoseenia eeweemaacihi. kapootwe keehkaapiišankiki mihtoseenia akwihsali mihšiinkweemiša. noonki, aahkweewi atašiihkiomawe eetaaweenki miinaawa kiimotenki. ileehši eehkwa nimacihsinwi siipionki  weeyaahkiciki mihtohseenia eeweemaacihi.

‘Let us recount: After the war ended, Mihtohseenia and his family rebuilt their town on the Mississinewa. Later Mihtohseenia’s son, Mihšiinkweemiša and his family divided their lands. Today, most of that land had been sold or taken, but Mihtohseenia’s family still lives in the Mississinewa River Valley.’

An earlier version of this essay appeared in July/August 2018 edition of Outdoor Indiana, which can be found here: https://www.in.gov/dnr/9768.htm.

If you would like to comment on this story, ask historical questions, or request a future post on a different topic, then please post a comment below. This blog is a place for our community to gather together to read, learn, and discuss our history. Our history belongs to all of us and we hope we can use this blog as one place to further our knowledge and or strengthen connections to our shared past.

You can email us at ironstgm@miamioh.edu, shrivecm@miamioh.edu, or find us on Twitter @camshriver, @caahceenhsa.

NOTES

^[1] The beginning and ending of this essay are marked by new bilingual aacimoona ‘historical narratives’ that we wrote to reflect the style of the aacimoona recorded in the late 1800s. We wove these bookends together with the English language aacimoona from the Myaamia storytellers Clarence Godfroy, who recorded multiple stories of his great grandfather’s accounts of the battle and the councils that preceded it, and Lamoine Marks, who recounted the impact of Campbell’s invasion on Mihtohseenia minooteeni and his family. These weavings represent an early effort of those of us working on Myaamia history to consciously engage in Tribalography. LeAnne Howe, the founding mother of Tribalography, describes it thusly: “Native stories by Native authors, no matter what form they take—novel, poem, drama, memoir, film, or history—seem to pull together all the elements of the storyteller’s tribe, meaning the people, the land, multiple characters, and all their manifestations and revelations, and connect these in past, present, and future milieu. (Present and future milieu means a world that includes non-Indians.) The Native propensity for bringing things together for making consensus, and for symbiotically connecting one thing to another becomes a theory about the way American Indians tell stories.” LeAnne Howe, “Blind Bread and the Business of Theory Making, by Embarrassed Grief,” in Reasoning Together: The Native Critics Collective, Janice Acoose et al., eds., (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2008) 330.

^[2] Campbell’s Report, Dec. 5, 1812, in Douglas E. Clanin, ed., The Papers of William Henry Harrison, 1800-1815 (Indianapolis) reel 7: 28-30 (hereafter WHH Papers); William Northcutt, “War of 1812 Diary of William B. Northcutt,” ed. by G. Glenn Clift, The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 56, no. 3 (1958): 257.

^[3] “Vernon’s Memoir” in John C. Fredriksen, “The Pittsburgh Blues and the War of 1812: The Memoir of Private Nathaniel Vernon,” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 56, no. 3 (1989): 199-200; Campbell to Harrison, Dec. 25, 1812, in Logan Esarey, ed., Governor’s Messages and Letters: Messages and Letters of William Henry Harrison, vol. 2, 1812- 1816 (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Commission, 1922), 257; Campbell to Harrison, Dec. 18. 1812 in Esarey, ed., Governor’s Messages and Letters 2: 248-49.

^[4] Campbell’s Report, Dec. 5, 1812, WHH Papers reel 7: 28.

^[5] Harrison to Eustis, March 4, 1812, in Richard C. Knopf, ed., Document Transcriptions of the War of 1812 in the Northwest, 10 vols., 1: 9.

^[6] Speeches of Indians at Massassinway, May 15, 1812, in Esarey, ed., Governor’s Messages and Letters 2: 50-53.

^[7] Speech of Charley, 1814, American State Papers, Indian Affairs, 2 vols., 2: 830. (hereafter ASPIA.)

^[8] Speech of Charley, 1814, ASPIA 2: 830.

^[9] Sept. 29, 1812, WHH Papers reel 6: 293-94. It should be noted that most Shawnees themselves did not join Tecumseh, and instead lived on reservations in Western Ohio.

^[10] Karim M. Tiro, “The View from Piqua Agency: The War of 1812, the White River Delawares, and the Origins of Indian Removal,” Journal of the Early Republic 35 (2015): 30-33.

^[11] Quoted in Tiro, “View from Piqua Agency,” 32; 30-36.

^[12] Harrison to Eustis, Oct. 13 1812, WHH Papers reel 6: 376.

^[13] Harrison to Shelby, Dec. 5, 1812, WHH Papers reel 6: 748-50.

^[14] Harrison to Eustis, Sept. 21, 1812, WHH Papers reel 6: 203-204.

^[15] Harrison to Eustis, Oct. 13 1812, WHH Papers reel 6: 377.

^[16] Harrison to Worthington, Nov. 20, 1812, WHH Papers reel 6: 657-60; Harrison to Eustis, Nov. 15, 1812, WHH Papers reel 6: 597-600.

^[17] Harrison to Campbell, Nov. 25, 1812, WHH Papers reel 6: 685-89.

^[18] Worthington to Harrison, Nov. 28, 1812, WHH Papers reel 6: 704-08.

^[19] Harrison to Campbell, Nov. 25, 1812, WHH Papers reel 6: 685-89.

^[20] Harrison to Campbell, Nov. 25, 1812, WHH Papers reel 6: 685-89. In the case of Jacques Godfroy, “He is and has always been end to the U States.”

^[21] Clarence Godfroy, “The Story as Told by the Miami Indians About the Battle of the Mississinewa Which was Fought in the Month of December 1812 in What is Now Grant County,” Hal Phelps Papers, Miami County Historical Society, 1988.165.30, Vol. 8, H-2. Neewe ‘thank you’ to Stan Steiner for sharing this source with us.

^[22] Harrison to Eustis, Sept. 21, 1812, WHH Papers reel 6: 203-204.

^[23] William Northcutt, “War of 1812 Diary of William B. Northcutt,” ed. by G. Glenn Clift, The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 56, no. 2 (1958): 171.

^[24] Harrison to Isaac Shelby, Sept. 18, 1812, WHH Papers reel 5: 183-84

^[25] Campbell claimed that his horses could not recover due to the “scanty supplies of corn obtained in the towns” (Campbell’s Report, Dec. 5, 1812, WHH Papers reel 7: 29)

^[26] Clarence Godfroy, Miami Indian Stories, ed. Martha Una McClurg (Winona Lake, Indiana: Light and Life Press, 1961), 109-10.

^[27] George Hunt, “G. H. Escape from Five Potawatomi Indians in 1814” Historical Collections: Collections and Researches Made by the Pioneer and Historical Society of the State of Michigan (Lansing: Thorp & Godfrey, 1888), 12: 452.

^[28] Lamoine Marks, Kim-quah-ta: The Story of Hannah Thorpe (Lagro, IN: Commercial Printing of Lagro, Inc., 1984), 4-5.

^[29] Hunt’s Account, 12: 452.

^[30] Hunt’s Account, 12: 452.

^[31] Speech of Charley, 1814, ASPIA 2: 830.

^[32] Campbell’s Report, Dec. 5, 1812, WHH Papers reel 7: 28-32; William Northcutt, “War of 1812 Diary of William B. Northcutt,” ed. by G. Glenn Clift, The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 56, no. 3 (1958): 259-60.

^[33] Campbell’s Report, Dec. 5, 1812, WHH Papers reel 7: 28-32.

^[34] Hunt’s Account, 12: 453; William Northcutt, “War of 1812 Diary of William B. Northcutt,” ed. by G. Glenn Clift, The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 56, no. 3 (1958): 2560

^[35] Campbell’s Report, Dec. 5, 1812, WHH Papers reel 7: 28.

^[36] Campbell’s Report, Dec. 5, 1812, WHH Papers reel 7: 32-33; William Northcutt, “War of 1812 Diary of William B. Northcutt,” ed. by G. Glenn Clift, The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 56, no. 3 (1958): 260.

^[37] Campbell’s Report, Dec. 5, 1812, WHH Papers reel 7: 33-34.

^[38] William Northcutt, “War of 1812 Diary of William B. Northcutt,” ed. by G. Glenn Clift, The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 56, no. 3 (1958): 262.

^[39] Campbell’s Report, Dec. 5, 1812, WHH Papers reel 7: 38.

^[40] Levi Hukill, General Orders, Jan. 2, 1813, WHH Papers reel 7: 96-97.

^[41] See, for example, “Battle of Mississinewa,” Charleston Courier, Jan. 26, 1813.

^[42] Butler for Harrison, General Orders, June 5 1813, WHH Papers reel 8: 346.