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Natives of NW Indiana
The Original People of Northwest Indiana
by Christopher Light
In a time out of mind, this land was covered by vast glaciers, which spread from central Indiana north towards the pole. As the climate changed, the glacier receded northward, exposing vast new lands. The land was void of plants or animals, then lakes formed, seeds began to germinate and animals came to live in this new land, which had been scrapped clean. Slowly humans also came to this land.
These first peoples of the Great Lakes left little evidence of their lives around the lake. None appear to have lived here on the south shore of what is now Lake Michigan. The Paleo period extends from 13,000 BC until 8,000 BC. Here in northern Indiana, Glaciers covered everything. The Archaic period of hunters and gatherers lasted from 8000 BC until 1000 BC. It was this period that the glaciers retreated northward. Some 5,000 years ago vast lakes extended southward into Indiana covering the land. Glacial Lake Chicago and its successors would ebb south to Valparaiso or recede northward exposing the lake bottom. It was at this time that the first human occupation extended into Indiana.
Evidence of the early occupation is found far to the north in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan or south in the valley of the Ohio River. The middle realm was a place of seasonal occupation with no permanent residents. The northern people are called the Copper Culture from the copper artifacts left behind. The southern people are the Indian Knoll Culture. The Indian Knoll is the earliest evidence of the peoples, who would be known as the Moundbuilders of the Ohio Valley. Between the Copper Culture and the Indian Knoll Culture there was the Algonquian hunting and fishing culture. Were these Algonquian tribes here in Northern Indiana? We don't know. The basis of the Algonquian lifestyle was the fisheries at the lake narrows. The narrows are Detroit and Mackinac. Changes in the landscape caused by the melting glaciers may have created narrows across the Saginaw low lands of central Michigan (Bay City to Muskegon) and the Chicago Portage. Only the Chicago Portage would place the Northwest Indiana in the hunting grounds of these early fishing communities.
The Woodland period extends from 1000 BC to 800 AD and saw the Indian Knoll Culture slowly become the Adena Moundbuilders and then reached a peak as the Hopewell Moundbuilders. Best known in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, the mounds were the work of the Siouian people. The Moundbuilders were a bridge from a worship of animal spirits to the worship of the Sun as the giver of life. In the Mississippian Period (AD 800 1500 AD) the Siouian peoples would spread east and west from the mounds of Newark (Ohio) and Cahokia (Illinois). To the southeast their descendent become the Catawba, Yuchi and Tutelo of North Carolina. The dhegiha Siouians moved west to become the Osage, Kansa, Missouri, Iowa, and Omaha tribes. The effigy Moundbuilders on the Mississippi River moved north and west to the Great Plains, leaving the Winnebago in Wisconsin. The descendants of these plains Indians settled on the Missouri River as the Mandan and Hidatsa. The Crow and the Dakota (Sioux proper) diverged along the route from this growing family of Siouian nations.
The mound influence reached to the tip of Lake Michigan. The sites in Michiana have been classified as Goodall Culture. Goodall sites varied from Hopewell sites by the lack of grave goods relating to the sun worship and includes Red Ocher artifacts. The Red Ocher is an Iroquois cultural trait. The Iroquois nation began in the Niagara Peninsula and spread west to the Illinois River. The Goodall sites of Southwest Michigan and Northern Indiana appear to be the adoption of mound building ideas by the Glacial Kame Iroquois, who lived around Detroit. Distinct differences separate the Siouian Hopewell from the Iroquois Goodall, yet common mound building features do exist. At one time, mound valley existed just west of SR 49 in what is now the Dunes Forest Community of the Town of Porter. It has never been classified as Goodall or Hopewell as all the mounds have been destroyed in the construction of roads and homes. Other mound sites have been identified around Boone Grove and along the northern boundary of the Grand Kankakee Marsh, all have been destroyed or excavated.
Sometime in the Mississippian Period of 800-1500 AD, the mound building of southern Lake Michigan gave way to the Algonquian tribes. The Algonquian originated along the Atlantic Coast. Migrating first to the St. Lawrence Valley and then westward to the Upper Great Lakes, this community of people continued to separate and develop into different tribes. Moving south from Michilimackinac, they occupied the lands of the Goodall people. Tribal histories tell of fighting between the Iroquois Goodall and the Algonquian. By the late 1200's, the Fisher and Huber cultures were along the Kankakee River and north of the Grand Kankakee Marsh in Lake County. By 1450, their descendants, the Miami and Illini, were living around the shore of Lake Michigan and south into the Illinois River valley. It was at this time that the Iroquois people around the Niagara Peninsula began to expand northward, eastward, and westward. Their expansion ran directly into Algonquian tribes to the west and north.
The Iroquois Wars are the years of fighting between the Iroquois Nation and their neighbors. Before 1500, the Huron tribe of southern Ontario, an Iroquois people, were at war with the Shawnee in the Maumee Valley and the Hopewell in southern Ohio. These opening raids lasted 60 years when the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Mohawk, and Oneida joined together in 1570 to form the Iroquois League in upstate New York. These five nations are the famous Iroquois Tribe.
Until 1541, our story predates written history and is called prehistoric, a time when our knowledge comes from the oral histories of the tribes and from archeological research. After 1541 and DeSoto's exploration of the southern United States, we get to add the written journals of European traders and explorers to our knowledge. The period is not historic because the written record is scanty. These European reports tell of great feats of war in far off places. The writers never see the places in their reports. Taken together, the tribal histories, archeology and written reports, tell us much of what was happening along the shores of Lake Michigan.
Beginning in 1545, the Iroquois League begins to raid their Iroquois brother the Huron in Southern Ontario. In the early 1600's, the Iroquois Neutrals of Ontario and the Algonquian Ottawa from the Ottawa River valley join together to drive the Illini and Nation du Feu (Potawatomi) from the lower peninsula of Michigan. In 1630, Lac du Illinois no longer has any Illini living near its shores and the maps slowly begin to call the lake, Lake Michigan. By 1648 the Iroquois League has destroyed the Huron, a neighbor of the Neutrals. Remnants of Huron move west, seeking asylum among the Algonquian tribes. This leaves the Iroquois League free to move to the southern Shores of Lake Erie and into the Ohio Valley. With their extermination of the Iroquois Tribe of Erie in 1657, the Iroquois League moves against the Fort Ancient Culture of the Ohio Valley. The Fort Ancient Culture is the descendent of the Siouian Hopewell with influences from the lower Mississippi River valley. As the Iroquois League drive into the Ohio Valley, the great Sioux migration west begins. By 1650, the Iroquois League has begun its destruction of its brother Iroquois the Neutrals and is raiding west to Lake Michigan. The Iroquois War is also known as the Beaver War. Whether it was the Huron, Neutrals or the Iroquois League these wars of extermination were an attempt to develop fur hunting grounds and to destroy their fur trading competitors. The Iroquois League was simply the best-trained and disciplined army in the Great Lakes. Every European who met them has recorded their skill and ferocity.
The 1660's saw northern Indiana denuded of human habitation. Annually the trails and shoreline, were crossed by war parties of the Iroquois League heading westward into the Illinois valley to strike at the Illini or north toward Wisconsin to raid the remnant Miami, Potawatomi and Wyandot (the refugees of the Huron and Neutrals). Survival along the lakeshore was only possible if you hid from the war parties of Iroquois. The Illini attempted to return to the upper Illinois River at Starved Rock when Sieur de LaSalle promised French protection in 1679. Their return failed in 1681, when the Seneca of the Iroquois League marched to the village of Kaskaskia and destroyed it while the French watched. In 1687 that the French began to arm the Great Lakes tribes with muskets. Now that the tribes of the western Great Lakes could defend themselves, the Iroquois League began its retreat to their home in the Finger Lakes of New York.
With the threat of the Iroquois League diminishing, the Algonquian tribes in Wisconsin began to move back to the south tip of Lake Michigan. First the Miami settled in the St. Joseph River valley and the northern tributaries of the Wabash River. In 1689, the French Jesuits established a mission at St. Joseph (Niles, Michigan). Here, the Potawatomi of the Woods also settled. The year 1695 brought a formal peace with the Iroquois League. Now the communities of southern Lake Michigan could grow. The dunes, wetlands and grand Kankakee marshes limited where the towns around the tip of Lake Michigan would be built. Most were seasonal except along the high ground of the Illinois and the lower Kankakee Rivers, along the Valparaiso Moraine and in the valley of the St. Joseph River from Lake Michigan to beyond the great south bend. The historic Potawatomi villages were numerous with a dozen in central Lake County and a half dozen in central Porter County. Chiqua's Town on US 2 just east of Valparaiso and Tassinong north of Kouts are among the best known.
The years leading to 1718 saw the St. Joseph Potawatomi become the center of a Potawatomi nation. The First Fox War (1712-1716) saw the old alliance of the Three Fires partially restored as the Potawatomi and the Ottawa joined together to raid the Mascouten in Wisconsin. By 1718, the Miami of the St. Joseph Valley had moved eastward and south to the Wabash. They established Kekionga (Fort Wayne) as the center of their nation. The Second Fox War (1728-37) saw Fox raiding parties passing the lakeshore heading to Detroit. For a short time, this region was again unsafe unless you lived in a fortified village.
The French and Indian War (1755-1763) on the East Coast had little impact in this area. The Miami moved from the western Wabash to Piqua, Ohio. Smallpox devastated all the tribes in 1750 and 1757. It was not until the French left at the end of the war and the British arrived that war again threatened this area. The British moved quickly into the Old French posts at Mackinac and Detroit. Here, they were in close contact with the Ottawa. The British rules and changes in trading methods lead to a disruption of trade. Pontiac a leader among the Ottawa created a confederacy of tribes to drive the British out and to invite the French back. In 1763, a series of attacks were made against the British posts, including Fort St. Joseph (Niles, Michigan) and Fort Miami (Fort Wayne). Here the Potawatomi from the southern shore joined with the Ottawa and other tribes to destroy the British garrison at St. Joseph. Initially successful, the war collapsed when the French made no attempt to return. A Peoria Indian killed Pontiac in 1769. The St. Joseph Potawatomi joined with the Ojibwa, Fox, Sauk, Kickapoo, Winnebago and Ottawa to destroy the murderer of Pontiac. Together they exterminated the last of the Illini.
The frontier wars of 1774 and American Revolution (1776-1783) saw little activity in Northern Indiana. It was not until December 5, 1780 that the war reached northern Indiana. An American raid was planned against the St. Joseph Post and the Potawatomi village there. The troops had come from Cahokia (Illinois) on the Mississippi. Arriving in the village while the warriors were on a winter hunt, the Americans burned everything. Their return route took them along the lakeshore. Meanwhile, the British Lieutenant assigned to the post discovered the disaster and quickly organized a Potawatomi raiding party. Following the American raiders, they over took them near Fort Creek the abandoned site of the Old French Petit Fort (1750-79). Here in Indiana Dunes State Park, they killed three of the sixteen soldiers and captured the rest. In one raid the American Revolution came to an end in Northern Illinois in one day.
For the next decade, northern Indian and southwest Michigan were quiet. Groups of warriors or whole villages would join with the Miami and other eastern tribes to raid the American Frontier, but their homes remained in peace. The Treaty of Fort Harmar (9 Jan. 1789) ended the raids in the Ohio and Kentucky country. The Miami wars (1790-94) saw the defeat of General Harmar (1790) at Kekionga (Fort Wayne) and the defeat of General St. Clair at Ft. Recovery (1791). When Gen. Charles Scott advanced up the Wabash, it looked like the Miami war would spill into the Lake Michigan country. But the Wabash tribes (Wea, Piankashaw, and Kickapoo) quickly made peace.
The Battle of Fallen Timbers (Ohio) in August 1794 brought an end to the Miami wars. Because some of the Potawatomi villages had supported the Miami, Chief Topenebe of St. Joseph participated in the Treaty of Greenville, 3 Aug 1795 as head of the Potawatomi Nation. Here, all the tribes ceded the area around of Chicago to the United States. Soon a trading post was built in Chicago with resident trader, Pierre LeMai (1796-1804). In 1803, Fort Dearborn was constructed. Northern Indiana now had two growing communities, St. Joseph (Niles, Michigan) and Fort Dearborn (Chicago, Illinois). . It was during this time of turmoil that Joseph Bailly entered the Fur Trade at Mackinac and began trading along the Eastern Shore of Lake Michigan far to the north of modern Indiana.
The quiet did not last as the turmoil of the frontier began to spill towards northern Indiana. In 1808 Chief Main Poche of the Prairie Potawatomi invited the Tecumseh and Lahwasika, his half-brother the Prophet, of the Shawnee to live in his town on the Tippecanoe at the Wabash. Many of the Potawatomi from the St. Joseph valley moved to live among the confederated Indian Nations at Prophet's Town. The growing distrust of the Great Lakes Nations for the Americans was fed by their British contacts at Fort Drummond and Fort Malden. Governor William Henry Harrison fearing an all out frontier war, marched north to the Prophet's Town. Here on 6 November 1811 in the Battle of Tippecanoe, he broke the Indian Confederacy.
With the outbreak of the War of 1812 (1812-14) the Great Lake nations now turned to support the British in driving the Americans from the lakes. The Prairie Potawatomi lead by Main Poche with Black Partridge and Shabbona's Potawatomi of the Illinois supported the British. Lead by a British officer the Potawatomi gave the garrison at Fort Dearborn and their families the opportunity to leave (August 1812). When the Americans were a mile from the fort, the Indians attacked, killing 55 of the party. Those, few who escaped with the help of some of the Potawatomi chiefs, fled across the lake or through the sand dunes to the St. Joseph and Huron Potawatomi villages in Michigan. The Woodland Potawatomi returned the refugees to the American posts at Detroit and Mackinac.
Peace would not come. The Peoria War of 1813 saw Potawatomi raiding parties from the villages of Black Partridge, Sanatuwa, Iatapucky and Gomo along the Kankakee and Illinois River moving south and west to the Kickapoo and Illini villages along the tributaries of the Illinois River. It was not until the Treaty of Greenville (22 July 1814) that peace was restored around the shores of Lake Michigan. It was not until 1815 and three additional treaties that all the tribes made peace along the shores of Lake Michigan.
From 1816 until 1837, a series of treaties limited the Indian communities around Lake Michigan. Native lands were taken by treaty in Illinois and Ohio, then along the Wabash and the Vermillion Rivers of Indiana. In 1818 the Miami moved onto the Big Miami Reserve near where Plymouth, Indiana now stands. Then the Treaty of Chicago (28 August 1821) took lands in northern Illinois and the Ten Mile Purchase. The best known part of the Ten Mile Purchase is Indian Boundary Road. The Americans wanted the shoreline of Indiana and took a strip 10 miles wide running north of the southern most tip of Lake Michigan, making the dunelands non-Indian lands. The northern boundary of the Indian lands is Indian Boundary Road. The treaty also provided lands for many of the mixed blood families of the Traders and a school at St. Joseph. The school would be the McCoy Mission. Shortly after this treaty, Joseph Bailly took up residence along our shore.
In 1826, the Americans pressed for and got the lands south of the Eel River and a right-of-way to the lake. The Michigan Road as it was known pierced the native communities opening travel along the route, which is now US 421 to Michigan City. The Huron Potawatomi moved to a Michigan Reservation in 1827. In 1828, the Reverend McCoy of the St. Joseph Mission went to Kansas with a group of Potawatomi and Ottawa Chiefs. Their visit was to see if Kansas would be a place the Great Lakes nations would find acceptable and out of the way of American settlers. The trip was timely as many of the last tribal rights to northern Indiana and southwest Michigan were ceded to the United States on September 20, 1828 at the Treaty of Carey Mission. The next year, the Delaware nation that lived along the White River moved west and the last remnants of the Indian titles to Indiana were ceded at Prairie du Chien (29 July 1829).
Congress dispossessed the natives of their ancestral homelands with the Removal Act of 1830. The treaties ceded more rights to northern Indiana and finally, the Treaty of Chicago (26 September 1833) traded five million acres of Potawatomi lands in Illinois for land in Missouri. The following year, the Prairie Potawatomi left their Illinois and Kankakee lands for Council Bluffs, Iowa. The Potawatomi of the Woods were next with the Treaty of Washington (February 1837). Many local chiefs refused to sign, but it did not matter to the States of Indiana and Michigan. Chief Menominee never signed and Chief Nottawaseepe was poisoned for refusing to sign. Some villages fled to Ontario and northern Michigan to avoid transportation west. Finally, on September 4 1838, Governor David Wallace ordered the forced removal of the Potawatomi from Indiana. The `Trail of Death' threads its way across Indiana, Illinois and Missouri to Kansas. It is lined with the unmarked graves of those who died each day. The Huron and Pokagon Potawatomi evaded capture and returned to the valley of the St. Joseph River.
With the deportation of the Potawatomi, northern Indiana was fully open for settlement. Joseph Bailly established his home along the Calumet River in 1822 and several taverns had developed along the trails and roads leading through this region. Settlement began only in 1833 in the southern part of Porter County and in 1838 in southern Lake County. Like the original people, the wetlands and sand dunes of the Lake Michigan shoreline were a place on the way to elsewhere or the woodlands behind their homes. It is another people's story that changed the landscape.
Synopsis: Two prehistoric Middle Mississippian communities were discovered in the 1950's and excavated by Indiana University. The variety of bones found show the dependence of these communities on deer, elk, dog, raccoon, and beaver as food sources. Surprisingly, bison and bear appear in the northern Porter County community along Salt Creek. In the Kankakee Marsh of Lake County many of these same mammals appear with a substantial increase in fish from the open waters throughout the wetlands. Both communities tell us of the animals and people who lived in northern Indiana before the first French explorers arrived.
Fisher and Huber Culture Sites of Northwest Indiana.
Who were the residence of Northwest Indiana before the French arrived? Our earliest reports date from the 1630's. The Iroquois of New York and Huron of Georgian Bay told the French of the St. Lawrence River of native tribes throughout the west. In 1673, Marquette and Joliet entered this area and presented a mosaic of Illini and Miami villages in the Illinois River (Illinois) and the St. Joseph River (Michigan-Indiana) valleys. The Illini and Miami are the descendants of occupied these river valleys and were part of a culture known today as the Mississippian Woodland Indians.
The Mississippian lifestyle developed on the Mississippi River and spread north and south. Here on the border of Lake Michigan was the furthest outpost. Located so far from the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi River, the villages in this area have been called the Fisher and Huber Cultural group. Like the heart of the Mississippian communities, the Fisher and Huber people were farmer, raising corn, beans, and squash. Unlike the central villages of this cultural group, the Fisher and Huber people are thought to be the southern villages of the Illini and Miami tribes. This Algonquian people appear to have learned the farming skills of the their unrelated southern neighbors of the Siouian and Caddoan tribes.
Two village sites of the Fisher cultural group were excavated by Indiana University in the 1950's. These two Indiana sites are of interest in that they provided valuable information on the wild game that lived in northern Indiana. The Griesmer Site is located in the Kankakee Marshland of Lake County, southeast of Schneider and US 41. The Fifield Site is located in the Salt Creek river valley north of US 6. These sites are believed to have been occupied during the middle Mississippian period of 1200-1500 AD.
The Fifield village hunted a wide variety of game, including 46 species. It's not surprising the a village on Salt Creek would be able to hunt in a variety of habitats. Fifield hunters took many deer for subsistence. Elk provided the bulk of their meat during any year. The ability to live beyond the daily hunt came from the bison of the nearby prairie. Few in number, the meat in a single kill was 100 times that of a deer and twice the annual supply of Elk. The few Bears taken added a welcome variety and a substantial quantity of meat. When the game was tallied, dog and raccoon were second in number of animals killed only to that of the deer. Both may have been used to fill the need for protein during the lean winter and early spring months when other game was scarce. Birds made up 2% of the Fifield community diet. While turkeys seemed to be the most common, Swans actually provided three times the meat of turkeys. Many different birds were taken as opportunity allowed. After the turkeys and swans, the number of birds taken varied little, with the larger birds providing more meat when taken. The larger birds taken were Golden Eagles, Bald Eagles, Sandhill Cranes, Canada Geese. The smallest was the Pigeon hawk.
The Griesmer hunters located in the Kankakee Marsh captures a smaller variety of game, only 33 species. Their use of fish was more substantial in that they took eleven species of fish or 5% of their diet compared to three species at Fifield, less than 1/10th of 1% of their diet. Griesmer families used ten times as much fish as those at Fifield. The Bigmouth Buffalo, Channel Cat, Northern Pike and Redhorse Sucker were among the most common. Like Fifield hunters, deer and elk played the dominant roles in feeding the community. And again, dog and raccoon appear in quantities to imply their use as game in lean seasons. Beaver was common at both sites in similar quantities to be a staple in the areas diet.
These archeological sites provide valuable information about the people, animals and plants found in our corner of the state. Disturbance of these sites by construction, farming eliminates our ability to learn from the past and may disturb an unmarked burial ground. Unlike Europeans, the native peoples of the Great Lakes buried there relatives in unmarked graves. It is important that they not be disturbed as we would not appreciate others digging in our cemeteries. More information is available on these Indiana sites in The Late Prehistoric Occupation of Northwestern Indiana; A Study of the Upper Mississippi Cultures of the Kankakee Valley by Charles H. Faulkner, Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis, 1972.
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