Landmarks of Detroit by Robert B. Ross George B. Catlin

Author:Robert B. Ross, George B. Catlin [Robert B. Ross, George B. Catlin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Geschichte
Publisher: Jazzybee Verlag
Published: 2017-11-22T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XL.

When Hull was made governor of the Territory he was also made Indian agent, an office which was then connected with that of the executive. The last-named office was very important, as there were then only 4,860 white persons in the Territory, of whom about four-fifths were French, and the remainder Americans, with a few British. The Indian settlements comprised those of the Potawatomies, Miamis, Wyandottes, Chippewas, Winnebagoes, Ottawas and others. These were the tribes which afterward united with Tecumseh and the Prophet, and were allies of England against the United States in the war of 1812, as they had formerly been united under Pontiac against the English as allies of France. The Indians felt that the people of the United States were their natural enemies, because they were perpetually being encroached upon by them. In 1806, in an official communication to Secretary of War Dearborn, Hull stated that his main objects were to extinguish gradually the Indian title, and to instruct the red men in agriculture and the mechanic arts.

In 1806, the Indians became restless under the teachings of Tecumseh, chief of the Shawnees, and his brother, the Prophet. The tide of American immigration was beginning to flow westward, and the Indians resented the settling of the white men on what they considered their hunting grounds. The Americans were farmers and proposed to permanently occupy the land, but the British who came west were either traders or hunters like themselves. These causes had already begun to produce the Indian confederation of which Tecumseh and his brother were the principal heads. The two went everywhere and held innumerable councils, and belts of wampum rapidly circulated between all the tribes. In this movement, the hand of Great Britain was sometimes discernible. At this time, the Indian title had only been extinguished in Michigan at the post of Detroit and the district adjacent, bounded north by Lake St. Clair and south by the River Raisin; also at Mackinac Island, at the adjacent island of Bois Blanc and six miles of the adjacent mainland. Except these small strips of land, all of Michigan was, legally, still in the possession of the Indians. In pursuance with this plan, Hull executed treaties at Detroit in 1807 with the Ottawa, Potawatomie and Wyandotte tribes, by which they ceded to the United States the territory in southeast Michigan bounded south by the river and bay of Miami; west by a line running north and south through the middle of the territory as far north as Saginaw Bay, and north by a line running from this point to White Rock on Lake Huron.

In recompense for this land annuities were paid. Much confusion arose in regard to land titles, owing to the numerous grants made by the Indians during the French and English regimes, and to the conflicting terms of the treaties of Fort McIntosh, Fort Harmar and Greenville. The Indians were cajoled by the British officials and Indian agents at Malden (Amherstburg) into the belief that they

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