1st Nations People and Early Settlers

Since the final days of the last ice age that created our wonderful lakes and streams, people have settled and lived here. First were the Miami, Potawatomi and then came the European settlers. This page will guide you thru some of the information that we have about these people groups.

  The Demise of the Lakes Area’s First Nations People

Indians Haunt County Lands, Hiding Clues

Part 1

by Jo Ann Merkle Vrabel, Feature Writer, Warsaw Times Union July 1-7  Spotlight

Source: www.clunette.com; YesterYear in Print; Parts 1-3 of Kosciusko County Indian History by Jo Ann Merkle Vrabel, Feature Writer, Warsaw Times Union Spotlight June 24-30; July 1-7 & July 8-14, 1974

The first Indians who lived in Kosciusko County were Miamis. They moved here in approximately 1750 and built villages along the Tippecanoe River. Between 1765 and 1795 some Potawatomi Indians came to this county too. By the late 1700’s, the Potawatomies were a stronger band of Indians than the Miamis, so they seized the Miami Indian villages that were located along the Tippecanoe River.

Kosciusko County was one of the last regions to be settled by the Indians of the past three centuries because it was so wet and dappled with humid swamps and lakes. But there was plenty of wild game here during the Indian occupation of this county from approximately 1750 to 1832.

Deer, turkey, quail and duck dwelled in these lands. And large numbers of wolves stalked the woods, meadows and wet prairies, according to Coplen. Approximately two-thirds of Kosciusko County was originally filled with many different kinds of trees including burr oak, beech, walnut, sassafras, dogwood, tamarack, willow, hazelnut, paw-paw, elder and huckleberry. The other one-third of this county was equally divided between wet and dry prairies, says Coplen.

In 1832, the first white settlements for farming were established in Kosciusko County. By this time there were villages of both Pottawatomies and Miamis with a total population of 500 Indians, according to Royse (L. W. Royse, History of Kosciusko County Indiana). However, more Miami Indian summer campsites were discovered in the southern part of Kosciusko County, according to Adams (Waldo Adams, of Leesburg, 1st VP of the Kosciusko County Historical Society). These new finds are causing speculation there were 500 more Indians here in 1832 than is traditionally believed. The Kosciusko County Indians of 1832 were not the same as they had been in earlier days. They had been forced to sign treaties and to renig most of their hunting grounds. In 1832 the Kosciusko county Indians and their cultures were suffering. Their chiefs were getting old; most of the Indian leaders were between 52 and 67 years old, according to Royse. Only one-tenth as many Indians were living here as there had been in the late 1700’s. Alcoholism, disease and hunger plagued them. The Indians were introduced to alcohol by bootleggers who followed the English fur traders into Indiana. Every time there was a large meeting between the Indians and whites to negotiate a treaty, the bootleggers came and brought whiskey to sell. By approximately 1795, at the time of the treaty of Greenville, the Indians were well-acquainted with alcohol. The Indians were fascinated with whiskey because it could relieve pain. Before the whites came, the Indians had no pain killers; no aspirin, no alcohol, says Adams. Diseases of the white men also weakened the Indians here. Traders and bootleggers, and after 1832 the settler-farmers, carried tuberculosis, smallpox and venereal disease. And these illnesses spread among the Indians, who had no immunities to them.

One of the saddest conditions of the Kosciusko county Indians of 1832 was that they were forced to live on reservations. Often the Indians went hungry on these reservations because they depended on hunting game for food and the reserves were too small to supply enough wild animals to eat. So, the Indians were forced to go off the reservation and steal. Bounding the Pottawatomi and Miami bread-winners on the reservations and giving them government pensions encouraged the Indian men to do nothing and to feel useless and worthless, says Adams. In 1832, approximately 500 Indians lived in the northern part of this county and at least eight chiefs were known by the early settlers. Of these eight known chieftains, six were Pottawatomies and two were Miamis.

The Pottawatomi chiefs were Monoquet, Musquawbuck, Benack, Checose, Mota and Topash.
The Miami chiefs were Flat-belly and his brother Wawasee.

The most powerful Indian leaders in 1832 were: Monoquet, whose village consisted of approximately 150 persons; Musquawbuck, who ruled 125; Flat-belly, whose village population was approximately 75; and Wawasee who headed 75 Indians. Chiefs Moto, Checose, Topash and Benack ruled small villages of Indians with a total population of 75, according to Royse. These population figures are not certain.

To read more about the Lakes 1st Nations People, click HERE