Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 10.djvu/318

 MICAH

MICHAEL

isted among the Piankishaw, who had thoir principal village lower down the ^Vabash, ailjoining the present town of \'ineennes, founded in 1702. After the sup- pression of the Jesuits in New France in 1762, the missionaries continued their work, as seculars, as well as was possible, until their deaths, Father Pierre Potier, "the last Jesuit in the west", dying at Detroit in 1781.

Through the influence of English traders a large part of the tribe had become hostile to the French and under tlie head cliief "La Demoiselle" had removed about 1748 from the neighbourhood of the French post at the head of the Maumee (now Fort Wayne, Ind.) to a point on the Miami near the present Piqua, Ohio, and e.-itabiislicd there a town called Pickawilliny, which grew raiiiilly in size and importance and became a centre of Englisli trading influence. After repeated refus;ds to ret'urn, a party of northern Indians, led bv a French trader, Langlade, in June, 1752, attacked and burned the town, killing and eating La Demoi- selle, and carr>-ing the traders to Canada. By this time the whole tribe was settled along the Wabash and the upper Maumee. They generally sided with the French in the French and Indian and Pontiac's wars, and with the English against the Americans in the later wars. Tlieir great chief, Mishikinakwa, or Little Turtle (1752-1812), led the allied Indian forces which defeated Harmar in 1790 and St. Clair in 1791, but was him.self defeated by Wa>nie in 1794, resulting in the famous Treaty of Gfeen\Tlle in the next year, by which the Indians surrendered the greater partr of Ohio. After the close of the war of 1812, in which again they fought on the English side, the Miami began a series of treaty sales culminating in 1840, by which they sold all their territory excepting a small tract of about ten square miles, agreeing to remove west of the Mississippi. The final removal to Kansas was made by the main Miami band under military pres- sure in 184G, the Wea and Piankishaw having preceded them by a number of years. The main emigration in 1846 numbered about 050. The small reserved tract in Indiana was allotted in severalty to its owners in 1872 and their tribal relations were dissolved. In 1854 the united Wea and Piankishaw were officially consolidated with the Peoria and Kaskaskia, the rem- nant of the ancient Illinois, and in 1867 they removed altogether to their present lands imder the Quapaw agency in north-east Oklahoma (Indian Ter.). In 1878 the remnant of the emigrant Miami, having sold their lands in Kansas, followed their kindred to the same agency.

After the withdrawal of the Jesuits various secular priests ministered as best they could to the Indians within reach of the frontier settlements, notably Fr. Gibault about Detroit and Fort Wayne, and Father Rivet at Vincennes (1795-1804), the latter de- voting himself particularly to the Piankishaw, Wea, and Kaskaskia. In 1804 the Friends established an industrial farm on the upper Wabash, where for several years they instructed Miami, Shawnee, and others until forced to withdraw to Ohio by the op- position of the Shawnee prophet, brother of Tecum- tha. In 1818 the Baptist mini.ster. Rev. Isaac McCoy, began a work among the Wea and Miami which con- tinued for four years and was then discontinued. In 1833 another Bapti.st minister, Rev. Jotham Meeker, assisted by Rev. David Lykins, began work among the Wea and Piankishaw, already in Kansas for some years, and built up a flourishing school with corres- ponding good effect upon the tribe. The main body of the Miami in Indiana throughout this period and for .some years after their removal in 1846 were en- tirely neglected ; without either religious or educa- tional work, they sank to the lowest depths through dis.sipation, and were rapidly and constantly dimin- ishing by intemperance and driinken murders. In 1841 their agent reports that "more than half the

adults who die perish by the hands of their fellow Indians." A notable exception was their chief, Richardville, of mixed blood, who died in the same year, a consistent Catholic, whose "stern honesty and strict pimctiiality, as well as dignified bearing, commanded universal respect". In the meantime the restored Jesuits had again taken vin the western mission work in 1824. In 1836 Frs. Criarles F. v.-in (Juickenborne and Hoecken began a series of mission- ary visits among the Kickapoo, Wea, Piankishaw, Potawatomi, and other removed and native tribes in Kansas which resulted in the establishment of n suc- cessful mission among the Potawatomi (St. Mary's) to which the other tribes were contributors. In 1847 a mis^i■lll \\:i^ Ntiirtril :iinong the removed Miami, who had iii.i.lr iilliri:il rci|iicst for Catholic teachers, but it was di.-icoiitiiiucd two years later, probably because of the utter unworthiness of the Indians, who are offi- cially described in the same year as "a miserable race of beings, considering nothing but what contributes to the pernicious indulgence of their depraved ap- petites for whiskey". The picture in 1849 is in even darker colors — "destroying themselves by liquor and extensively murdering one another", the lowest in condition of all the removed tribes, and reduced in three years by more than one half. In 1855 we hear of the first iinprovement, through the temperance efforts of the French half-breeds in the tribe. The Quapaw mission of St. Mary's, Okla., in charge of a secular priest assisted by five Sisters of Divine Provi- dence now cares for 276 Indians of the associated rem- nant tribes, including about 40 of Miami kinship. Of an original 4000 or more there are left now only about 400, namely — Indiana, 243; Miami in Okla., 128; Wea and Piankishaw, with Peoria, in Okla., about 40.

Very little has been recorded of the customs or general ethnology of the Miami. They were organized upon the clan system, with, according to Morgan, ten gentes. One of their dances has been described, the feather dance, in which the performers, carrying feath- ered wands, imitated the movements of birds. They had a cannibal society — or possibly a clan — upon which devolved the obligation of eating the body of a prisoner upon occasion of certain great victories. Such ceremonial cannibalism was almost iniiversal among the northern and eastern tribes. Their chief deities seem to have been the Sun and Thunder. They buried in the ground, under small log structures upon the surface of the ground, or in large logs split and hollowed out for the purpose. Of the language noth- ing of importance has been published beyond a Wea Pruner, by the Baptist mission in 1837, although considerable manuscript exists with the Bureau of American Ethnology. It is still spoken by a large proportion of the survivors.

Margry, Decouvertes. l-\l (Paris. 1879-1886); Sbea. Cath. Ind. Miss. (N. Y., 1854); Jesuit Relations, ed. Thwaites, espe- cially XLIV, LIV. LVIII. LIX, LXII (Cleveland, 1896-1901): Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe (2 vols.. Boston, 1884) : Morgan, Ancient Society (New York, 1877); Combner. of Ind. Atfairs, Annual Repts. (Washington); Director Cath. Ind Miss., Annual Reports (Washington); Kappler, Ind. Affairs: Laws and Trea- ties (2 vols., Washington, 1904) ; Craig, Ouiatanon in Ind. Hist. Soc. Pubs., II (Indianapolis. 1893).

James Mooney. Micah. See Micheas.

Michael, Military Orders of Saint. — (1) A Bavarian order, founded in 1721 by Elector Joseph Clemens of Cologne, Duke of Bavaria, and confirmed by Maximilian Joseph, King of Bavaria, 11 Sept., 1808. Pius VII, 5 February, 1802, granted to priests decorated with this order all the privileges of domestic prelates. Under Louis I it was made an order of merit (1837), and under Otto I was reorganized (1887).

(2) An order founded in 1469 by Louis XI, the chief military order of France until the institution of the Knights of the Holy Ghost, after which the two to- gether formed the ordres du roi, the reception of the