Delawares, Shawanees, and other northwestern Indians who were parties to the treaty of Greenville. In the mean time a considerable traffic was carried on with the Indians, by fur traders, at Fort Wayne, and Vincennes, and at different smalk trading-posts which were established on the borders of the Wabash river and its tributaries. The furs and peltries which were obtained from the Indians, were generally transported to Detroit. The skins were dried, compressed, and secured in packs. Each pack weighed about one hundred pounds. A pirogue, or boat, that was sufficiently large to carry forty packs, required the labor of four men to manage it on its voyage. In favorable stages of the Wabash river, such a vessel, under the management of skillful boatmnen, was propelled fifteen or twenty miles a day, against the current. After ascending the river Wabash and the Little River to the portage near Fort Wayne, the traders carried their packs over the portage, to the head of the river Maumee, where they were again placed in pirogues, or in keel-boats, to be transported to Detroit. At this place the furs and skins were exchanged for blankets, guns, knives, powder, bullets,* intoxicating liquors, etc., with which the traders returned to their several posts. According to the records of the customhouse at Quebec, the value of the furs and peltries exported from Canada, in the year 1786, was estimated at the sum of two hundred and twenty-five thousand nine hunded and seventy-seven pounds sterling. After the death of General Wayne, which occurred in 1796, the command of the United States military forces in the west devolved upon General James Wilkinson. Of these forces, a small detachment was stationed at Fort Wayne, and a garrison was maintained in Fort Knox, at Vincennes. The small garrison at this place remained under the command of Captain Thomas Pasteur, of the first United States regiment, till September, 1798, when, on the removal of this officer to Fort Massac, the garrison of Fort Knox was placed under the command of Captain Robert Buntin. In the year 1795, a few families settled on the large tract of bottom land which lies on the banks of the river Ohio, where The bullets which were made to fit the guns in use among the Indians, were valued at four dollars per hundred. Powder, at one dollar per pint. the town of Lawrenceburg now stands, in Dearborn county; and, in the course of the same year, a small settlement was founded at "Armstrong's Station," on the Ohio river, within the present limits of Clark county. In the summer of the year 1796, Mr. Volney, a distinguished French traveler, visited Vincennes. At that time the town contained about fifty dwelling houses, "whose cheerful white relieved the eye, after the tedious dusk and green of the woods."* Each house was surrounded by a garden fenced with poles. Peach trees, and inferior kinds of apple trees grew in many of the inclosures. Many different kinds of garden vegetables were cultivated by the inhabitants; and corn, tobacco, wheat, barley, "and even cotton," grew in the fields around the village. The following passages, relating to the condition of the population of Vincennes, in 1796, are taken from Volney's "View of the Soil and Climate of the United States of America:""Adjoining the village and river is a space, inclosed by a ditch eight feet wide, and by sharp stakes six feet high. This is called the fort, and is a sufficient safeguard against surprises from the Indians. I had letters to a principal man† of the place, by birth a Dutchman, who spoke good French. I was accommodated at his house, in the kindest and most hospitable manner, for ten days. The day after my arrival [August 3d] a court was held, to which I repaired, to make my remarks on the scene. On entering, I was surprised to find the audience divided into races of men, in person and feature wid ly differing from each other. The fair or light brown hair, ruddy complexion, round face, and plump body, indicative of health and ease, of one set, were forcibly contrasted with the emaciated frame and meager, tawny visage of the other. The dress, likewise, of the latter denoted their indigence. I soon discovered that the former were new settlers from the neighboring States, whose lands had been reclaimed five or six years before, while the latter were French of sixty years standing in the district. The latter, three or four excepted, knew nothing of English, while the former were almost as ignorant of French. I had * Volney's View; Philadelphia edition of 1804, p. 332. |