Historians concede that the Miamis preceded the Pottawattamies in the occupation of the soil included within the present limits of Indiana. When the French first came into the country they were both being crowded south by the Sacs, Foxes and other northwestern tribes, and at the beginning of the nineteenth century the Pottawattamies had been circumscribed to the country around the southern shores of Lake Michigan and extending over northwestern Indiana to the Wabash River. They were inferior in every way to the Miamis and acknowledged their dependence upon them by insisting in every cession which they made of the lands they were occupying that the Miamis should sanction such action.
At the beginning of the War of 1812 the Pottawattamies occupied Northwestern Indiana from the north bank of the Wabash and had several prosperous villages along the Tippecanoe and its branches. As we have seen, after the battle of Tippecanoe in 1811, at least two villages of considerable size were founded in White county, the larger being on the east bank of the Tippecanoe River, at what afterward became known as Holmes' ford in Liberty Township, seven miles north of Monticello.
When the whites first came into the county in the early '30s this Indian village consisted of nearly 100 wigwams and some 300 Pottawattamies. They had three or four acres adjoining the village which they cultivated to corn, pumpkins, squashes and potatoes with which to vary their meat diet of possum, venison and other wild game. They were hospitable, dirty beggars, and neither their cooking nor their personal habits appealed to the settlers, who were glad to see the last of them, mournful and romantic as was their departure for their western reservation a decade later.
Without going into the intricacies of the general, or blanket treaties, by which Great Britain and the United States secured their color of title from the Indians, it is sufficient to know that the specific treaties by which the primitive owners transferred the White County lands to general Government were made in 1818, 1826 and 1832.
On October 2 and 3, 1818, the Pottawattamies, Weas and Delawares—all closely related in tribal affairs—ceded their lands in Indiana west of the Tippecanoe River, the last two relinquishing all claims to real estate within the limits of the young commonwealth. The Pottawattamie treaty of October 2d, which is the most important from a White County standpoint, was concluded at St. Mary's, Ohio, between Gov. Jonathan Jennings, Lewis Cass and Benjamin Parke, United States commissioners, and the principal chief and warriors of the Pottawattamie nation. The following tract was thus ceded to the general Government: Beginning at the mouth of the Tippecanoe River and running up the same to a point twenty~five miles in a direct line from the Wabash River, thence on a line as nearly parallel to the general course of the Wabash River, thence down the Vermillion River to its mouth, and thence up the Wabash River the place of beginning.
Within the following eight years the Miamis, the Pottawattamies and the Weas ceded various tracts in central and western Indiana, which did not affect any territory within the present White County.
Both the Pottawattamies and the Miamis ceded all their lands east of the Tippecanoe by the treaty of October 23, 1826, the tract being thus formally described: Beginning on the Tippecanoe River where the northern boundary of the tract ceded by the Pottawattamies to the United State at the treaty of St. Mary's in the year 1818 intersects the same, thence in a direct line to a point on Eel River half way between the mouth of said river and Parrish's village, thence up Eel River to Seek's Village (now in Whitley County) near the head thereof, thence in a direct line to the mouth of a creek emptying into the St. Joseph's of the Miami (Maumee) near Metea's village, thence up the St. Joseph's to the boundary line between the Ohio and Indiana, thence south to the Miami (Maumee) thence up the same to the reservation at Fort Wayne, thence with the lines of the said reservation to the boundary established by the treaty with the Miamis in 1818, thence with the said line to the Wabash River, thence with the same river, to the mouth of the Tippecanoe River, and thence with the Tippecanoe River to the place of beginning.
By the treaty with the Pottawattamies of October 26, 1832, a tract of land in the northwestern portion of the state was obtained by the Government, which overlapped the Kickapoo cession in Illinois. It embraced a portion of White County to the north and northwest. On the following day the Pottawattamies of Indiana and Michigan also relinquished all claims to any remaining lands in those states, as well as In Illinois, south of Grand River, thus perfecting the Government title to a northern strip of what is now Liberty Township.
By the four treaties mentioned, the settlers of White County, the pioneers of whom commenced to come into the county at the time of these Pottawattamie cessions, were enabled to read their titles clear to their homesteads and mansions on earth.
On the 11th of February, 1836, the Government concluded the agreement with the Pottawattamies by which all former treaties were ratified and a stipulation made that they would migrate, within two years, to their reservation beyond the Missouri River, the United States to pay the expenses of such removal and furnish them one year's subsistence.
On April 23, 1836, there was introduced in the Twenty-fourth Congress a memorial from the Indiana Legislature asking Congress to extinguish the title of the Pottawattamie and Miami Indians to all lands in said state. This memorial recites that said matter is one of the greatest interest and importance and asks that their titles be extinguished and the Indians removed from said state. This was referred to the Committee on Indian Affairs and ordered to be printed. Two years later the Indians were removed beyond the Mississippi River.
The last tribal title to lands in Indiana was not extinguished until 1872, when Congress partitioned the ten-mile reserve originally granted in 1838 to the Metosinia band of Miamis (in Wabash County) to sixty-three of the descendants of the original chief.
Dr. J. Z. Powell, in his "History of Cass County," published by the company which issues this work, gives an authentic and condensed account of the various steps by which the Pottawattamies and Miamis were transferred to their reservations in the far West; the bands from White County were tributary streams to the main bodies which moved down the valley of the Wabash toward Illinois and the Mississippi River.
"The first emigration of the Pottawattamies," says Doctor Powell, " took place in July, 1837, under the direction of Abel C. Pepper, United States commissioner, and George Profit conducted them to their western home. There were about one hundred taken in this band and Nas-wau-gee was their chief. Their village was located on the north bank of Lake Muck-sen-cuck-ee, where Culver Military Academy (Marshall county) now stands. The old chief, Nas-wau-gee, was a mild-mannered man and on the morning of their march to their western home, as he stood on the banks of the lake and took a last, long view of his old home to which he was never to return, he was visibly affected and tears were seen to flow from his eyes.
"The last and final removal of the Pottawattamies was made in the fall of 1838. They were unwilling to go and Colonel Abel C. Pepper, then United States Indian agent stationed at Logansport, made a requisition on Governor David Wallace (father of General Lew Wallace, author of Ben Hur) for a company of militia, and General John Tipton, of Logansport, was directed to enlist a company of one hundred men, which he speedily did. The recruits were mostly from Cass county. The names of the men composing this company of militia are not obtainable, but the writer's father, Jacob Powell, and Isaac Newton Clary, pioneers of Bethlehem and Harrison townships, were among the number.
"Sixty wagons were provided to haul the women, children and those unable to march. There were eight hundred and fifty-nine Indians enrolled under the leadership of Chief Menominee. Their principal village was situated on Twin lake, about seven miles southwest of Plymouth, in Marshall county, where the entire tribe assembled and bid farewell to their old homes. The village consisted of one hundred and twenty wigwams and cabins; also a chapel in which many of them were converted to Christianity by Father Petit, a missionary in Indiana at that time. Many affecting scenes occurred as these red men of the forest for the last time viewed their cabin homes and the graves of their loved ones who slept in a graveyard near their little log chapel.
"On September 4, 1838, they began their sad and solemn march to the West. Their line of march was south on the Michigan road to Logansport, where they encamped just south of Honey Creek on the east side of Michigan avenue, on the night of the 7th of September, 1838; and that night two of the Indians died and were buried just north of Honey creek where the Vandalia Railroad crosses the stream and on the east side of Michigan avenue; and their bones lie there to this day.
General Tipton conducted these Indians along the Wabash river through Lafayette, and on to Danville, Illinois, where he turned them over to Judge William Polke, who took them to their reservation west of the Missouri river. Many of the whites had a great sympathy for this band of Indians and thought they were wrongfully treated in their forcible removal, although, by their chiefs, they had agreed to move West.
"A few of the Pottawattamies moved to northern Michigan and some remnants of this once powerful tribe have lived there to recent times. Among their number was Simon Pokagon, who died January 27, 1899. Just prior to his death he wrote an article for an eastern magazine in which he said: 'As to the future of our race, it seems to me almost certain to lose its identity by amalgamation with the dominant race.' When Pokagon was asked if he thought that the white man and Indian were originally one blood, he said: 'I do not know, but from the present outlook they will be.'
"There were bands of Pottawattamie and Miami Indians in Cass and adjoining counties that moved to the West at different times; sometimes they went voluntarily, at other times they were escorted. The last of the Miamis were conducted to their reservation west of the Missisippi by Alex. Coquillard in 1847, and again in 1851."
By the fall of 1838 there were few Pottawattamies left in their old encampments anywhere along the Tippecanoe. Another eye-witness to their greatest march toward the setting sun, that of September in the year named, and toward which the Pottawattamies of White County contributed a considerable contingent, thus describes the enforced migration: "The regular migration of the Pottawattamies took place under Colonel Abel C. Pepper and General Tipton in the summer of 1838. Hearing that this strange emigration, which consisted of about one thousand of all ages and sexes, would pass within eight or ten miles west of Lafayette, a few of us procured horses and rode over to see the retiring band as they reluctantly wended their way toward the setting sun. It was a sad and mournful spectacle to witness these children of the forest slowly retiring from the homes of their childhood. As they cast mournful glances backward toward the loved scenes that were fading in the distance, tears fell from the cheeks of the downcast warriors, old men trembled, matrons wept, the swarthy maiden's cheek turned pale, and sighs and half-suppressed sobs escaped from the motley groups as they passed along, some on foot, some on horseback and others in wagons— sad as a funeral procession. I saw several of the aged warriors casting glances toward the sky, as if they were imploring aid from the spirits of their departed heroes who were looking down upon them from the clouds, or from the Great Spirit who would ultimately redress the wrongs of the red man, whose broken bow had fallen from his hand and whose sad heart was bleeding within him.
"Ever and anon one of the party would start out into the brush and break back to his old encampments on the Tippecanoe, declaring he would rather die than be banished from his country. Thus scores of discontented emigrants returned from different points on their journey and it was several years before they could be induced to join their countrymen west of the Mississippi."