The obverse side of the medal, illustrated, required no explana tion from Gen. Putnam; it interpreted its own story to the Indian clearer than any words could do. The Indian has thrown his tomahawk, the emblem of war, at the foot of the tree, under whose roots. it was to be typically buried. The extended pipe is the universal token of peace, which Washington, representing the United States, with outstretched hands was about to receive and smoke, as the Indian had already done. These friendly acts assured protection to the pioneer plowman and his cabin in the background. All this is plain to the merest novice in picture reading.

Turning to the minutes of the great treaty held at Greenville, in 1795, we take the following extracts from two speeches of Kesis, or the Sun, a prominent Pottawatomie chief, who took an active part in both of the treaties at Vincennes and Greenville.

"Elder Brother:* If my old chiefs were living, I should not presume to speak in this assembly; but as they are dead, I now address you in the name of the Pottawatomies, as Massas has spoken in the name of the three fires, of which we are one. I have to express my concurrence in sentiment with him. It is two years since I assisted at the treaty of Vincennes. My voice there represented the three fires. I then said it will take three years to accomplish a general peace.

With the

When I

In another speech (made in order of time before the one quoted), Kesis says: "Brother, the Master of Life had pity on me when he permitted me to come and take you first by the hand. same hand and heart I then possessed I now salute you. gave you my hand you said I thank you, and am glad to take your hand, Pottawatomie; and you thanked the other Indians, also, and told them you had opened a road for them to come and see you."§

* Referring to Gen. Wayne.

Massass was a Chippewa, and the expression, of the three fires being one, is intended by Kesis to refer to the fact that the Ottawas, Chippeways and Pottawatomies were one nation.

Meaning the United States.

་

66

"Opening a road" has the peculiar signification that the parties who have given and received a "road belt are at liberty to go to and from, and visit each other freely, as friends, without danger of molestation. It seems that Kesis was the custodian of several of these belts or records, for at Greenville he displayed a road belt which he said he had received from the United States, to which the eagle was suspended holding an olive branch which, he said, had been explained as a leaf of that great tree under whose shade we and all our posperity should repose in prosperity and happiness." He also displayed a war belt which, he said, "was presented to us by the British, and has involved us for four years past in misery and misfortune." This war belt he gave to Gen. Wayne, saying: "You may burn it if you please, or transform it into a necklace for some handsome squaw, and thus change its original design and appearance, and prevent forever its future recognition. It has caused us much misery, and I am happy in parting with it." Kesis, as stated in another speech made by him at the same treaty, and quoted in foot-note on page 147, said his village was a

1

The British medal was struck with a die. It is of pure silver, or silver containing very little alloy, nearly a quarter of an inch thick, and weighing nearly four ounces, troy weight. On the reverse side (not illustrated) is the coat-of-arms of Great Britain. The hole. through which the string was passed, unlike the Washington medal, is badly worn, while the finer lines of the bust of the British king are also worn away, showing that that side of the medal had been worn against the breast or clothing of its owner. All the delicate lines on the coat-of-arms side are as perfect as when the medal was struck.

It is without date.

A correspondence with the custodian of medals in the British Museum in London, England, has resulted in disclosing that a duplicate is among the collections of that institution, and that the die with which they were struck was made either in the year 1786 or 1787, and that many like them had been presented to the Indians.*

day's walk below Ouiatanon, referring, as is believed, to the mixed Kickapoo and Pottawatomie village at the mouth of the Vermilion River. Now, the same people occupied a village called the Old Kickapoo Town, within a short distance of the old burying ground we have described, and this last was not abandoned as a permanent village until the year 1819, as the writer is informed by early settlers who were cognizant of the fact. It is probable that Kesis was buried there, and the medals with him, where they were afterward found in the manner narrated.

*This circumstance makes the medal illustrated another witness of the fact that subsequent to the treaty of peace in 1783 British subjects continued distributing

Resuming the notice of the treaty at Vincennes, peace being now proclaimed, Gen. Putnam informed the Indians that he should have a piece of artillery fired on the occasion; that he would fire the first gun, and that each of those chiefs who had received belts should follow the example.

we

After the conclusion of this ceremony, all of the Indians here quote from Heckwelder's journal, which states that eight cannon were fired, the first by Gen. Putnam himself, the rest by the chiefs who had received the belts"all the Indians performed a dance in the council house, to express their rejoicings at the peace. Each nation was painted in a different style, and all took the utmost pains to make themselves appear as fierce and terrific as possible. They commenced by proceeding, with drums and singing, through all the streets of the town; they then adjourned to the council house, where they sung and related their warlike deeds. The figures and grimaces which they made during this dance, the disfigured and ferocious countenances, the instruments of war they whirled about, with which they dealt blows upon the posts and benches, the rattling of deer's claws about their legs, the green garlands about their necks and waists, and their naked bodies, presented a scene which I am unable to describe. All, however, passed off in an orderly manner, at least in their way."

The distribution of presents began on the 3d of September, and continued several days, and on the 5th of October Father Heckwelder, with sixteen of the chiefs and one Indian woman, in charge of Lieut. Prior, two pilots and two soldiers, started overland on pack-horses for Philadelphia, by way of the falls at Louisville. At the latter place they continued the voyage in three canoes, passing up the Ohio by Fort Washington, Gallipolis, Marietta, Wheeling and Pittsburgh, at all of which places they were received with public demonstrations. From Pittsburgh they went, by way of Bethlehem, to Philadelphia. The treaty concluded by Gen. Putnam was laid before the United States Senate in February, 1793, where it lingered until January, 1794, the senate refusing to ratify it because the fourth article recognized the right of the Indians "to their lands, as being theirs and theirs only."+

"Most of the principal chiefs of the Wabash Indians," says the

medals bearing the coat-of-arms and bust of their king among the Indians within the ceded territory, thus keeping up the old relation of the latter as children of their British father."

Life of Heckwelder. by Rondthaler, p. 117.

+ Gen. Putnam had only carried out his orders, and the objectionable clause was almost literally in the words of his instructions from the Secretary of War.

BRITISH INVASION ON THE MAUMEE.

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Secretary of War to the President, in a letter of the 2d of January, 1794, "who visited Philadelphia, having died of the smallpox, it would have been improper to attempt with the remainder any explanation of the fourth article of the treaty," and therefore the senate refused, by a vote of twenty-one to four, to give it effect. While the senate was engaged in deliberating over that, which at best might be called a technicality when compared with the benefit that would have resulted from a ratification of the treaty of Vincennes, the Indians were increasing in their feelings of hostility, and gathering in numbers, and concentrating their forces against the government. Still the latter renewed its efforts to secure a peace. In March, 1793, the President appointed Messrs. Randolph, of Virginia, Lincoln, of Massachusetts, and Pickering, of Pennsylvania, to treat with the northwestern tribes, who proceeded to the Niagara River, intending to go from there to Sandusky. On their way they met Red Jacket and some other chiefs of the Seneca nation, who advised them that the western Indians, to whom the President had sent a speech, inviting them to a treaty, would not attend because the British had not been invited to be present, "and that it was necessary they should attend, because they originally called the Indians to war against the United States.* Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe, "commanding the king's forces in Upper Canada, anticipating the coming of the commissioners, had in April "come from Niagara through the woods to Detroit, and had gone from thence to the foot of the Rapids, and three companies of Col. England's regiment had followed him, to assist in building a fort there."+ Having thus invaded the territory of the United States, Gov. Simcoe now intimated that he would be pleased to assist in attempting a reconciliation between the United States and the Indians. The commissioners, unhappily, were not in a position to decline his friendly aid, and accordingly the preliminary courtesies between the Governor of Canada and the commissioners were opened at Navy Hall, the house of the former, opposite Fort Niagara, on the 17th of May. Here the latter were detained by delays they could not foresee or prevent. In the meantime large delegations of the several westward tribes already named, together with representatives of the Five Nations and Cherokees, were assembled in a grand council about Gov. Simcoe's rising fort at the Rapids of the Maumee, and were engaged in settling their minor differences, and agreeing upon a united plan of action preliminary to, and to be insisted upon, at the

*A. S. Papers on Indian Affairs, p. 342.

† Letter from Detroit, dated April 17, 1794, idem p. 480.

treaty proposed to be held with the United States commissioners at Sandusky. Several messages, as a basis of peace, passed between the two parties, the views of each being widely apart. In August the commissioners went up the lake to the mouth of the Detroit River, so that less time would be consumed by the bearers of dispatches between themselves and the Indian council at the Rapids. The Indians would not recede from their sine qua non, which was no less than the Ohio River as the boundary between themselves and the United States. This could not be conceded, for the reason that by the treaties of Fort McIntosh and Fort Harmar the government had acquired a large tract on the north and west side of that stream, portions of which had been purchased by citizens of the United States, who were then actually living upon the same. The commissioners agreed to purchase the lands over again from any tribes having claims to any part thereof who had not been present or represented at the treaties by which the United States had acquired its title. Brothers, replied the Indians, money to us is of no value, and to most of us unknown, and as no consideration whatever can induce us to sell the lands on which we get sustenance for our women and children, we hope we may be allowed to point out a mode by which your settlers may be recompensed and peace thereby obtained. We know these settlers are poor, or they never would have ventured to live in a country which has been in continual trouble ever since they crossed the Ohio. Divide, therefore, this large sum of money which you have offered to us among these people; give to each, also, a portion of what you said you would give to us annually over and above this very large sum of money, and we are persuaded they would most readily accept of it in lieu of the lands you sold them. If you add the great sums you must expend in raising and paying armies, with a view to force us to yield our country, you will certainly have more than sufficient for the purpose of repaying these settlers for all their labor and improvements. You have talked to us about concessions. It appears strange that you should expect any from us, who have only been defending our just rights against your invasions. We want peace; restore us our country, and we will be enemies no longer. We shall be persuaded that you mean to do us justice if you agree that the Ohio shall remain the boundary line between us. If you will not consent thereto, our meeting will be altogether unnecessary."*

* Extracts from the joint answer of the Pottawatomies, Chippeways, Ottawas Miamis, Shawnees, Delawares, Wyandots, Muncies, the Seven Nations of Canada, the Senecas of the Au Glaize, Mohegans and other tribes, dated at Miami Rapids, August 13, 1793.