Indiana

Through most of the eighteenth century Indiana was part of what the historian Richard White has labeled "the Middle Ground," the territory under Indian control, though claimed by European nations, where many cultures met, fought, and traded. Until 1763 it was known to Europeans as "Illinois country," an area of overlap between French Canada and French Louisiana. Vincennes remained for many years under control of French and Spanish authorities in New Orleans even after all the Illinois country east of the Mississippi became British (1763). The only major action in modern Indiana during the Revolution was George Rogers Clark's remarkable victory at Vincennes. But this was critical in winning for the United States a useful claim to the whole vast region between the Ohio and the upper Mississippi. "Indiana Territory" as created in 1800 comprised virtually all of the Old Northwest except what is now Ohio. "Illinois Territory" was not revived as a geographical designation until 1809, when it was used for the country west of the Wabash and the longitude of Vincennes. In 1816 the present boundaries of Indiana were fixed when it was admitted as a state.

Tourist information is available from the Indiana Department of Tourism, 1 North Capitol, Suite 700, Indianapolis, Ind. 46204. Phone: (317) 232-8860. In the latter city also are the Indiana Historical Bureau, State Library, and Historical Building, 140 North Senate Avenue. Phone: (317) 232-2535. The Indiana Historical Society is located at 450 West Ohio Street. Phone: (317) 232-1882.

Fort Miami

Fort Miami, the present city of Fort Wayne, near confluence of Maumee, St. Joseph of Maumee, and St. Marys Rivers, Allen County. A map showing the network of river and portage routes between the Great Lakes and the Ohio-Mississippi waterways make the strategic importance of this place apparent. From here it was possible to travel northeast down the Maumee to Lake Erie, north and west to Lake Michigan and the Chicago Portage, southwest to the Wabash, or southeast and then south on the Miami to the Ohio (see Scribner's Atlas of American History, plates 40 and 41).

When the French had established their forts on the Great Lakes and started linking these with the Mississippi Valley, Fort Miami was built first, sometime before 1712. It was among those posts taken over by the British in 1761, occupied first by a detachment of Robert Rogers's Rangers. In October of that year it was permanently garrisoned by fifteen British troops under Ensign Robert Holmes. On 27 May 1763 Fort Miami became the third fort to fall in Pontiac's Rebellion (after Sandusky, near the present town of that name in Ohio, and Fort St. Joseph, Michigan). Ensign Holmes was aware that Indian trouble of some sort was brewing. The local Miami Indians realized they could not follow the plan, so successful elsewhere, of surprising the garrison after being invited inside the fort. But they discovered that Holmes's Indian mistress was willing to betray him. This unnamed heroine asked the British officer to visit a cabin about 300 yards outside the fort where another woman needed medical attention. Holmes walked innocently into the ambush, was immediately shot twice and killed, and his sergeant was seized when he ran out to investigate. Unknown to Holmes and the garrison, three soldiers from the fort had been captured two days earlier. The remaining eleven soldiers prepared to defend themselves but quickly agreed to accept the offer that their lives would be spared if they surrendered. Four were taken to Pontiac (who was besieging Detroit); the fate of the others is not known.

The large modern city of Fort Wayne grew up around the fort of the same name built here in 1794 during General "Mad Anthony" Wayne's final conquest of the tribes of the Old Northwest. The site of Fort Miami has been preserved. A good source for historical information on the eighteenth century in this region is the Allen County-Fort Wayne Historical Society. It maintains a museum called the History Center in which a prized exhibit is kept: a camp bed used by General Wayne. It is located at 302 East Berry Street, Fort Wayne, Ind. 46802. Phone: (260) 426-2882.

Fort Ouiatenon

Fort Ouiatenon, Wabash River below Lafayette, Tippecanoe County. The second military post established in Indiana (after Fort Miami) was at the bend in the Wabash 4 miles below today's city of Lafayette. The name derives from that of the Wea tribe, which came in turn from wawiiatanong, "where the current goes round." The French started building a fort here about 1719. This was taken over by the British in 1761 and garrisoned by twenty troops under Lieutenant Edward Jenkins. Arrival of a war belt in this vicinity was the prearranged signal for the start of Pontiac's Rebellion in 1763. On 1 June of that year the Indians invited Jenkins to a meeting outside the fort, seized him and several soldiers, and told him unless he surrendered the garrison all the British would be killed. Jenkins did the reasonable thing and lived to tell about it; he and his twenty men were held captive a month, then sent to Fort de Chartres (see under illinois), whence the lieutenant eventually made his way via New Orleans to New York.

Ouiatenon was on the border of the Louisiana territory surrendered by France to Britain in 1763, and English control was slow in moving farther down the Wabash to Vincennes. Fort Ouiatenon did not figure in the Revolution except as the principal center of Indian population in the region. According to the British commander at Vincennes, Ouiatenon and the Kickapoo town on the opposite side of the river contained one thousand fighting men between them in 1778. It was destroyed in 1791 by United States troops, and the famous battle of 1811 is commemorated 11 miles to the north (7 miles north of Lafayette) by the Tippecanoe Battlefield State Memorial.

The site of Fort Ouiatenon is preserved on the south bank of the Wabash on South River Road about 3 miles southwest of West Lafayette. The latter is on Ind. 25 about 4 miles southwest of Lafayette. Both sites are maintained by the Tippecanoe County Historical Association located at 1001 South Street, Lafayette, Ind. 47901. Phone: (765) 476-8411.

Kankakee River

Kankakee River, northwest corner of state. An important route of canoe and portage travel between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi Valley, this river starts in one corner of modern Michigan (see fort st. joseph) and cuts through a corner of Indiana into Illinois (see kankakee river state park). Portions of the historic passage preserved in Indiana are the LaSalle State Fish and Game Area in Lake County, and the Kankakee State Fish and Wildlife Area on the Laporte-Starke county line.

Spring Mill State Park

Spring Mill State Park, near Mitchell, Lawrence County. About 100 acres of primeval forest survive in this 1,300-acre park. This tract of land, Donaldson's Woods, features a hiking trail through trees more than three hundred years old. The park is of historical importance in providing a view of the woodland so familiar to American frontier settlers and an isolated settlement of the type that disappeared rapidly in the westward expansion that followed the Revolutionary era. A frontier trading post dating from about 1815 has been discovered and is partially restored. Phone: (812) 849-4129.

Vincennes

Vincennes, Wabash River, Knox County. To constitute another link in their chain of forts between the Great Lakes and the Louisiana territory, the French built a military post here in 1731, and a permanent settlement grew up in the next few years. It was named for the builder and first commander, the Sieur de Vincennes. When Britain acquired a claim to this region from France in 1763, Vincennes was a village of about eighty-five French families. Not until 1777 did the British assert their sovereignty in Vincennes, sending a garrison and renaming the place Fort Sackville.

But the British had withdrawn their troops to Detroit when the expedition under George Rogers Clark started taking over the Illinois country, where the French habitants looked on American control as slightly preferable to British and were easily won over by Clark's little show of force.

Frenchmen from the Kaskaskia region who visited Vincennes reported that the inhabitants had shifted their allegiance to Virginia, and Captain Leonard Helm of Clark's expedition promptly moved in to take command of the militia. Lieutenant Colonel Henry Hamilton in Detroit responded by rounding up about 175 white troops, mostly Frenchmen, and 60 Indians for the long march in midwinter to regain control of Vincennes. Leaving Detroit in early October (1778) and picking up Indian allies until his force finally numbered about 500, Hamilton made an extremely arduous advance to enter Vincennes seventy-one days later (17 December). Captain Helm's security patrols were captured, and the French militia refused to fight, so Hamilton's bag of prisoners totaled two Americans: Helm and one soldier who stood by him.

Clark left Kaskaskia on 6 February 1779 with about 200 men for a heroic attempt to retake Vincennes. "I know the case is desperate," he wrote to Governor Patrick Henry a few days earlier, "but, Sir, we must either quit the cuntrey or attact mr. Hamilton." Weather was Clark's main enemy, as it had been Hamilton's; the winter of 1778 to 1779 was exceptionally severe, a fact which made Hamilton's march remarkable, but the early thaw was Clark's problem. The first 100 miles were relatively easy. Within 10 miles of Vincennes, however, the Americans found the country flooded, so they had to wade through icy water, up to their shoulders in places. Game, on which they depended, had been driven off by the waters. The famished troops struggled on for five days before collapsing on reaching high ground within sight of their objective, but they had succeeded in achieving surprise.

Much of Clark's success in the Illinois country had come from his skill in winning over the habitants. Hamilton (known as "the Hair Buyer" for his bounty on scalps), on the other hand, could not conceal his contempt for the French settlers. The young American commander planned his strategy accordingly.

Having learned that about a third of the British garrison was temporarily detached on a supply mission up the Wabash, Clark realized that his only chance was to capture Fort Sackville in a quick operation. He lacked the strength to assault it, and he could not spend more than a few days besieging the fort because the British detachment would assemble Indian support and launch a counter-attack with which the Americans could not cope. So Clark sent a captured Frenchman back to Vincennes with a message telling the settlers that he planned to attack and expected friends of the Americans to stay out of the way while "those in the British interest … repair to the fort and fight for their King."

Concealing from the prisoner the small size of his force, Clark let him return to Vincennes. But Clark timed things so that the released habitant would spread his message just as the invaders put on a well-managed show of force. In the failing light the Americans displayed flags and marched around in such a manner as to appear to number about one thousand troops. When Clark's force reached the village they found that most of the townspeople had taken the advice to stay out of the fight and that recently arrived Indian allies of Hamilton had deserted.

During the night of 23 to 24 February the Americans sniped at the apertures of Fort Sackville. About 9 a.m. Hamilton refused the first surrender summons, but three hours later he sent Captain Helm out with an offer to surrender with the honors of war. Clark refused, but offered to parley. That evening the British commander signed the capitulation, and the next day, 25 February, he surrendered Fort Sackville with its eighty defenders. Captain Helm marked his return to American military service by leading a detachment out to capture the forty-man detachment up the river.

Vincennes remained in American hands—the fort renamed for Patrick Henry—and was capital of the Indiana Territory from 1800 to 1813. It is the oldest city in Indiana. The site of the fort was marked in 1905 by a granite shaft. In 1931 to 1932 the federal government erected the George Rogers Clark Memorial, which is now part of the 26-acre George Rogers Clark National Historical Park. Seven large murals (created on 16-foot by 28-foot Belgium linen) in this Doric temple depict the life of Clark and the winning of the Old Northwest. A bronze statue of Clark is in the rotunda. The visitors center offers a movie on the life of Clark. During the summer there are historical recreations of camp life on the eighteenth-century frontier and firearms demonstrations. On Memorial Day there is a "rendezvous" recreating the annual meetings essential to trade in the Middle Ground. The park is open daily, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and can be reached from the Sixth Street or Willow Street Exits on I-50. The entrance is on Second Street. Phone: (812) 882-1776.

Also preserved in Vincennes are the first capitol (c. 1800), Old Cathedral (1826) on the site of the first log church, and the William Henry Harrison Mansion (1804). Harrison was the youngest son of Virginia's Benjamin Harrison of Berkeley Plantation; the house in Vincennes, "Grouseland," now at 3 West Scott Street at Park and Scott Streets, was his home as first governor of the Indiana Territory. Website: www.grouselandfoundation.org; phone: (812) 882-2096. William Henry Harrison went on to become ninth president of the United States, and his grandson, Benjamin, was the twenty-third president (1889–1893).