Page:Messages and Letters of William Henry Harrison Vol. 1.djvu/116

78 The assertion of Wells in his letter to you of the 7th Dec. that for upwards of 20 years which he had known the Indians in this Quarter nothing of importance had ever been transacted by the Piankeshaws and Kaskaskias without the consent of the Miamis is a notorious falsehood. A treaty was made at this place in the year 1792 by Genl. Putnam with the Piankeshaws and Weas and peace established between those Tribes and the United States—the Miamis were not parties to his treaty and continued their hostilities against us until they were compelled to sue for peace in the year 1795. Mr. Wells was present at Putnam's Treaty and I believe was employed as an interpreter. Although the language customs and manners of the Kaskaskias make it sufficiently certain that they derive their origin from the same source as the Miamis the connection had been dissolved even before the French had penetrated from Canada to the Mississippi. At that time a confederacy of five tribes existed in the Illinois Country composed of the Tribes called the Peorias, Kaskaskias, Mitchegams, Cahokias, and Tamaroes. There are persons now alive who remember when these confederates could bring into the field upwards of 2000 warriors. A long and unsuccessful war with the Sacs (in which they received no assistance from the Miamis) has reduced them to the contemptable band which follows Ducoign and a remnant of Peorias who procure a miserable subsistance by begging and stealing from the inhabitants of St. Genevieve, and since these wretched beings have been proscribed by these very Potawatomies who according to Mr. Wells have been and still are so closely united with the Miamis with which they are said to form one nation. The fear of extirpation by the Potawatomies was one of the principal inducements with the Kaskaskias to commit themselves entirely to the protection of the United States.