Introduction
The Clarke
Historical Library recently acquired eight letters relating to the removal of
the Potawatomis to reserves west of the Mississippi River in the year 1840. Six
of the letters are addressed to Gen. Hugh Brady, who was responsible for
arranging and overseeing the removal. Two are letters Brady himself wrote. A
ninth letter, which the Secretary of War addressed to General Samuel Milroy,
was written a year earlier and concerns the removal of the Miami Indians from
the state of Indiana. The letters reflect the progress of events leading up to
the forced removal of the Potawatomis that took place in the fall of 1840.
 |
| Black Hawk |
Other Native American leaders found
themselves in difficult circumstances. Many sought neutrality while feeling
sympathetic to Black Hawk's cause and providing Black Hawk and his followers
clandestine assistance. The Sauk and Fox themselves were divided. Keokuk and
the majority split with Black Hawk. They feared the superior force of the
United States and the consequences of what would follow if they took up arms
against the Long Knives. On the other hand, the Sioux and the Menominees saw
the war as an opportunity to avenge earlier deaths and to strike a blow at
their traditional enemies.
 |
| Keokuk |
During the decade of removal (1830s), the
Potawatomis employed various strategies to keep from being expelled from their
homelands. If they could not avert removal altogether, their aim was to hold
onto what they could. The Potawatomis of southwestern Michigan were especially
set against removal, and more than one attempt at their removal took place.
Removal was a chaotic affair, characterized by delays, misdirection,
governmental changes of plans, desertions and returns, sickness and disease. A
forced removal in 1838 led to the “Trail of Death,” where food supplies spoiled
and a third of the 850 men, women, and children en route caught typhoid fever,
forty-two souls dying along the way.[4]
Letter #1: Poinsett
to Milroy, April 17, 1839
 |
| Joel Poinsett |
In the
first letter, the U.S. Secretary of War, Joel Poinsett[5],
writes to Samuel Milroy of Indiana[6]. Poinsett is anxious that the removal agreed
to in a treaty with Miami[7]
signed the previous fall get underway[8]. In the letter Poinsett announces Milroy’s
appointment as subagent to the Miami.
Milroy was given charge of the new subagency
that had taken the place of the Indiana agency at Logansport. Milroy’s formal commission arrived on May 13. 1839. Four months later, in September,
Milroy replaced Abel C. Pepper as emigration superintendent, and that fall he
attempted but failed to organize a deportation of the Potawatomis living both
along the Kankakee River and in southern Michigan at Nottawasippi near
Coldwater. At some point a decision was made to have Milroy focus his attention
on the Miamis, who had informed him that they were ready to surrender their
remaining lands in Indiana.[9]
Gen. Hugh Brady was made Superintendent of Emigration instead and Alexis
Coquillard was then enlisted as the removal agent for the Potawatomis. (See the letter and transcription that follows.)
War Department
April 17th 1839
Sir,
The
very important duty of removing the Miami Indians from the State of Indiana,
according to the provisions of the Treaty, has to be performed in the course of
this year, and, at the suggestion of the President[10],
I am induced to ask you to take charge of that operation. In order to prepare
the Indians for removal, it is necessary that the emigrating agent should act
as Indian Agent for some time previous, and your first appointment would be of
that character, to be followed by that of Emigrating Agent, as soon as you may
notify the Department they are disposed to fulfill the treaty.
If
it should not be convenient for you to accept this appointment, you will confer
an obligation on the Department by informing it of the residence of Genl. Wm.
Marshall[11]
who is believed to be well qualified for the discharge of its duties.
Very respectfully
Your mo. obt. servt.
(signed) J.R. Poinsett,
secretary
Genl.
Samuel Milroy
Delphi,
Carrol Co.,
Indiana
[1]
R. David Edmunds, The Potawatomis: Keepers of the Fire (Norman: University of
Oklahoma Press, 1978) remains one of the best accounts of the Potawatomis. See also, James Clifton, The Prairie People: Continuity and Change in Potawatomi Indian Culture
1665-1965 (Lawrence: The Regents Press of Kansas).
[2]
For the Black Hawk War see Patrick J. Jung, The Black Hawk War of 1832 (Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press, 2007) and John W. Hall, Uncommon Defense: Indian Allies in the Black Hawk War (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 2009).
[3]
See Ann Durkin Keating, Rising Up from Indian Country: The Battle of Fort Dearborn and the
Birth of Chicago (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012).
[4]
Susan Sleeper-Smith, “Silent Tongues, Black
Robes: Potawatomi, Europeans, and Settlers in the Southern Great Lakes,
1640-1850 (PhD diss, University of Michigan, 1994). This is an excellent treatment of the
Potawatomis. See especially chapter V
‘Accommodation Removal.’ For the forced
removal of 1838 see pages 188-90.
[5]
Joel Roberts
Poinsett (1779-1851) had a distinguished political and diplomatic career: He
served as a member of the South Carolina legislature; as a member of the House
of Representatives; as President Madison’s special agent in South America; as
the U.S. minister to Mexico; and, from March 7, 1837 to March 5, 1841, as
Secretary of War, replacing Lewis Cass. See J. Fred Rippy, Joel R. Poinsett
Versatile American (Durham: Duke University Press, 1935); George A.
Hruneni, Jr. “The Public Life and Times of Joel Roberts Poinsett: 1824-1851”
(PhD diss., University of California, Santa Barbara, 1972); http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=p000404
[6]
Samuel Milroy, who spent his childhood and youth
in Pennsylvania, had a colorful ancestor.
His great grandfather, John McElroy, the Earl of Annandale, fled Scotland
at the time of the second Jacobite Revolution, escaping first to Ireland and
then to the colonies. At the time he changed the family name to Milroy. Samuel Milroy left Pennsylvania for Kentucky
in 1809, married Martha Huston there, and moved with her to Washington County,
Indiana. In the War of 1812, he rose to the rank of general in the Indiana
militia. After the war he moved his family to northern Indiana where he named
and platted the town of Delphi.
[7]
The Miamis spoke an Algonquian dialect. Prior to the deportations that took place in
this period, they lived in present-day Indiana, southwest Michigan, and western
Ohio. See Stewart Rafert, The Miami Indians of Indiana: A Persistent People
1654-1994 (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1996); Bert Anson, The
Miami Indians (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1970); http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_people.
[8]
Poinsett was referring to the 1838 treaty, which
the former commissioner, Abel C. Pepper, had signed with the Miami. Poinsett
probably wanted the emigration to occur “in the course of this year” so that it
was completed before the next Congress met in session, i.e., before December 2,
1839. Article 12 of the treaty stipulated that the treaty had to be ratified in
the next session of Congress otherwise it would have been considered “null and
void.” Poinsett may not have wanted to risk losing the chance for removal
should Congress fail to ratify the treaty.
[9]
The Miami surrender of land took place on the
28th of November 1840. What was left of
the Big Miami Reserve, where village ownership had prevailed, was ceded in the
treaty, requiring the emigration of half the tribe. The Miamis agreed to emigrate within five
years. The treaty was signed by twenty
Miami leaders and two representatives of the United State: Allen Hamilton, and
Samuel Milroy. Milroy’s two sons, Henry and Robert, were among the witnesses who
signed the treaty.
[10] Martin Van Buren.
[11] William Marshall (1786-1859) served as the agent at
the Indiana Indian Agency from January 1832 until July 1835 when the agency was
discontinued and the duties of the agent were assigned to Abel C. Pepper, the
Superintendent for Emigration in Indiana. The agency was located on the Wabash
river at Logansport, Indiana. When the Black Hawk War broke out, agent Marshall
gathered many Potawatomis to Logansport to protect them and to pacify settler
fears and anger. In 1834 Marshall was instructed by Secretary of War Lewis Cass
to secure for the United States Potawatomi reserves still in Indian hands.
Marshall treated with the Potawatomis, and by December of 1834 he had purchased
from them 52,800 acres of land. As in this letter, Marshall is often referred
to as General, possibly from service in the militia during the War of 1812.
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