Little Turtle

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Lithograph of Little Turtle, reputedly based upon a lost portrait by Gilbert Stuart, destroyed when the British burned Washington, D.C. in 1814.^[1]

Little Turtle or Mishikinakwa^[2] (c. 1747 – July 14, 1812) was a chief of the Miami tribe in what is presently Indiana, and one of the most successful Native American military leaders of his era. He led his followers in several victories over the United States in the 1790s, but was an advocate for peace with the U.S. in the years leading up to the War of 1812.

[edit] Early life

Because there is very little documentary evidence for most of Little Turtle's life, the exact year and place of his birth are uncertain. He was born just before or just after the period that his parents lived in the Miami village of Pickawillany, which was from 1747 to 1752. Some historians give 1752 as his probable date of birth; others prefer 1747.^[3] He was born in what is now Whitley County, Indiana, at either a small Miami village by Devil's Lake, or at a larger nearby village known as Turtletown.^[4]

Little Turtle was named after his father, a Miami war chief named Mishikinakwa (or "Turtle"), a signer of the 1748 Treaty of Lancaster, which established relations between the Miami and colonial Pennsylvania.^[5] The son was often called "Little Turtle" to distinguish him from the elder Turtle.^[6] Little Turtle's father's name is sometimes given as "Acquenacque", a variant rendering of "Mishikinakwa".^[7] Little Turtle's mother's name is lost to history; according to tradition she was a Mohican.^[8]

Little Turtle, like his father before him, was selected as the war chief of the Atchatchakangouen division of the Miami tribe through demonstration of military prowess. His father gained the position by fighting the Iroquois; Little Turtle won the position during the American Revolutionary War. Although he became the war chief of the leading division of the tribe, Little Turtle was not the head chief of the Miami, which was a hereditary position unavailable to him.^[9]

Little Turtle emerged as a war chief by defeating the French military adventurer Augustin de La Balme. In October 1780, La Balme plundered the principal Miami village of Kekionga (present-day Fort Wayne) as part of his campaign to attack the British in Detroit. On 5 November 1780, Little Turtle led an attack on La Balme's camp along the Eel River, killing La Balme and thirty of his men and bringing an end to the campaign. The victory established Little Turtle's reputation as a war leader, and through the 1780s he led raids against American settlements in Kentucky, fighting on the side of the British. The Miamis were not unified in support of the British, however: the Piankashaw Miamis supported the Americans, while the Wea Miamis vacillated.^[10]

[edit] "Little Turtle's War"

Statue of Little Turtle at Headwaters Park in Fort Wayne, by local sculptor Hector Garcia.

In the Treaty of Paris (1783) which ended the American Revolutionary War, the British abandoned their native allies and signed over the land between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River to the United States. The Americans considered the region to be theirs by right of conquest, and with the creation of the Northwest Territory in 1787 they began to divide the land north of the Ohio River for settlement. Violence escalated and Native Americans formed the Western Confederacy with the goal of keeping the Ohio River as a boundary between Indian lands and the United States. Little Turtle emerged as one of the leaders of this confederacy, which included Shawnees under Blue Jacket and Delawares under Buckongahelas. The war which followed has no generally accepted name, but was once known as "Little Turtle's War".

In 1790, the United States sent an expedition under the command of General Josiah Harmar to bring an end to the border war. Because the United States had mostly disbanded its military after the Revolution, it had few professional soldiers to send into battle, a weakness which Little Turtle and other native leaders fully exploited. In October 1790, Little Turtle and Blue Jacket won two victories against Harmar's men. These successes encouraged previously reluctant leaders among the Ottawas and Wyandots to join the confederacy. In 1791, Little Turtle and Blue Jacket defeated another American expedition, this time led by General Arthur St. Clair. It was the worst defeat the Americans would ever suffer at the hands of American Indians with some 623 American soldiers killed in action. According to the most popular version of the story, Little Turtle was in overall command of the army that defeated St. Clair, although other accounts suggest that Blue Jacket was the preeminent native leader.^[11]

A third expedition under the command of General Anthony Wayne gave Little Turtle pause; U.S. troops were of superior numbers and had just completed rigorous training. After an exploratory attack on Fort Recovery in June 1794, Little Turtle counseled negotiation rather than battle, remarking that Wayne "never sleeps." According to a widely circulated story, he ceded command to Blue Jacket, although retaining leadership of the Miami tribesmen. Little Turtle's son-in-law, William Wells, switched sides and served as a scout for the Legion of the United States. The confederacy, numbering around 1,000 men, was defeated at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. This battle forced the confederacy to sign the Treaty of Greenville.

[edit] Later life

Chief Little Turtle's burial marker, near his grave in Fort Wayne.

Little Turtle continuously advised cooperation with the U.S., refusing an alliance with Tecumseh. He met cordially with George Washington, who presented him with a ceremonial sword. He also met presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. He and Jefferson discussed the need to introduce American agriculture to Miami society^[12], although it was the Quaker society of Baltimore who finally sent Philip Dennis to demonstrate East Coast farming methods.

One story says that while on one of his journeys to Philadelphia, Little Turtle met General Tadeusz Kościuszko, who presented him with a matching pair of pistols along with instructions to use them on "the first man who ever comes to subjugate you."^[13]

In 1809, Little Turtle suffered a break with other Miami leaders when Governor William Henry Harrison came to Fort Wayne to renegotiate treaty terms. Little Turtle admitted Potawatomi representatives to the treaty and cooperated with Harrison, but other chiefs, including Pacanne and his nephew Jean Baptiste Richardville, Owl, and Metocina refused to sell any new land. Harrison was forced to recognize the Mississinewa chiefs as the true representatives of the Miami, and to declare that Little Turtle was not a Miami.^[14]

Little Turtle retired to a spot near present-day Columbia City, Indiana, where he lived for almost three years. After the Siege of Fort Wayne in the War of 1812, General William Henry Harrison ordered all Miami villages within a two-day march of Fort Wayne destroyed. This may have been in retaliation for the negotiations in 1809, but the village of Little Turtle was also destroyed.^[15]

He died, in 1812, at the home of his son-in-law, William Wells, not far from Kekionga. He had been suffering from gout and rheumatism for some time. He was honored with a military style funeral at Fort Wayne. He was buried in his ancestral burial ground near Spy Run.^[16]

In 1912 his grave was accidentally discovered during an construction excavation. The sword and other artifacts buried with him were placed in Allen County Fort Wayne Historical Museum in Swinny Park and his remains were reburied.^[17]

[edit] Legacy

In the early 20th century, Little Turtle's granddaughter worked with historian Jacob Piatt Dunn to write a dictionary of the Miami language, the only record left of the tongue as it is no longer a spoken language.

In 1911, a very old grave was accidentally discovered by a homebuilder on Lawton Place in Fort Wayne. Research showed that the tomb was indeed that of Michikinikwa. The sword given to him by George Washington was found in the grave and is now in the Ft. Wayne and Allen County Historical Society Museum. The body was not disinterred, and the plans for the house were altered. A small memorial stone was placed there, which reads:

This site honors the great Chief of the Miamis, Meshekinoqua, "The Little Turtle," son of the great Chief Acquenacque. He is held in the hearts of his people, allies, and foes with the greatest of honor and respect for his courageous valor and peacemaking.

In 1959, the site was purchased by the Smeltzly sisters of Fort Wayne, with the express desire of holding up Little Turtle's peacemaking efforts "as an example to future generations" and donated to the city as a public park "dedicated to the children of America." In 1994, the memorial was improved with additional markers and a trust established for its maintenance.

Several institutions in northeast Indiana have been named for Little Turtle including Camp Chief Little Turtle (a Boy Scout reservation near Angola), the Little Turtle Branch of the Allen County Public Library, and Turtle Island in Lake Erie.

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Carter, Life and Times, 62–3.
2. ^ Little Turtle's native name has been spelled in a variety of ways, including Michikinikwa, Meshekinoquah, Mihsihkinaahkwa, Meshekunnoghquoh, Michikinakoua, Michikiniqua, Me-She-Kin-No-Quah, Meshecunnaquan and Mischecanocquah.
3. ^ Eid, "Little Turtle", gives 1752 as the date of birth, while Carter, Life and Times, 45, argues that 1747 "is fairly definite".
4. ^ Carter, Life and Times, 45–7.
5. ^ Carter, Life and Times, 43; Rafert, "Little Turtle", 342–3.
6. ^ Carter, Life and Times, 43.
7. ^ Carter, Life and Times, 49n12.
8. ^ Carter, Life and Times, 40.
9. ^ Carter, Life and Times, 48.
10. ^ Carter, Life and Times, 72–5.
11. ^ Eid, "Little Turtle", 754; Sugden, Blue Jacket, 118–20. Sugden argues that the notion that Little Turtle commanded the confederacy was a myth perpetuated by Turtle and his son-in-law William Wells and uncritically repeated by historians; Sugden, Blue Jacket, 4–6.
12. ^ See Thomas Jefferson's letter to Chief Little Turtle 21 December 1808. In The Thomas Jefferson Papers Series 1. General Correspondence. 1651-1827. Available at the Library of Congress. page 1 page 2 page 3
13. ^ Carter, Life and Times, 5.
14. ^ Rafert, "Miami Indians of Indiana", 71-72
15. ^ Rafert, "Miami Indians of Indiana", 74
16. ^ Arville Funk Sketchbook of Indiana History Pg 15-16
17. ^ Arville Funk Sketchbook of Indiana History Pg 16

[edit] References

• Carter, Harvey Lewis. The Life and Times of Little Turtle: First Sagamore of the Wabash. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987. ISBN 0-252-01318-2.
• Cayton, Andrew R. L. Frontier Indiana. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996. ISBN 0-253-33048-3.
• Eid, Leroy V. "Little Turtle". American National Biography. 13:753–4. Ed. John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-19-512792-7.
• Goltz, Herbert C. W. "Michikinakoua". Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online. Retrieved on 7 January 2007.
• Rafert, Stewart. "Little Turtle (Mishikinakwa)". Encyclopedia of North American Indians, 342–44. Ed. Frederick E. Hoxie. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996. ISBN 0-395-66921-9.
• Rafert, Stewart The Miami Indians of Indiana: A Persistent People. 1654-1994. ©1996, Indiana Historical Society. ISBN 0-87195-111-8
• Sugden, John. Blue Jacket: Warrior of the Shawnees. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000. ISBN 0-8032-4288-3.

[edit] External links

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