Complete Content List

1. • Full Citation: Thomas Bodley and John Wade, "Notes on the Wabash in 1795," ed. Dwight L. Smith, Indiana Magazine of History 50, no. 3 (September 1954): 277-290.
   • Home: Allen County (Fort Wayne)
   • Year: 1795
   • Abstract: After Anthony Wayne's victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794, the U.S. Department of War authorized him to consolidate his victory and make sure that his treaty with the Miamis was enforced. To this end, he sent several of his officers to travel on the Wabash from Fort Wayne to Vincennes and back again in May-June 1795. This article reprints John Wade's report to Wayne in full, and supplements Wade's report with observations from Bodley's. Wade writes of the boats on the river, its various tributaries, the distances he traveled, and stopping to meet with various Indian groups. The original documents are in the Anthony Wayne Papers at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
   • Sample Text:
     1. "The Variety of handsome streams which empty themselves into the Wabash, and which are ever ready with their waters to assist your ascension, greatly add to the Beauty of the Country and gives a luxuriance to the Scene, which is only felt by an admirer of the works of nature." (p. 280-281)
     2. "The fourth day after my departure from Fort Knox [Vincennes], I fell in with a Hunting Camp of 8 or 10 Indians, where I Breakfasted, was treated with friendship, and received from them a Caracase of Venison." (p. 285-286)
   • LC Subject Headings:
     1. Wabash River History
   
   
   
2. • Full Citation: Francis Bosseron, "Account Book of Francis Bosseron," ed. Janet P. Shaw, Indiana Magazine of History 25, no. 3 (September 1929): 212-241.
   • Home: Knox County (Vincennes)
   • Year: 1777-1782
   • Abstract: Francis Bosseron, one of the most well-known and equipped traders in Vincennes, kept an account book from September 1777 to January 1782. It consists of 5 parts- a daybook of credits and debts, a memorandum of bills of exchange from Americans, one page of British accounts, two pages of the personal account of Captain Helm [American], and three pages of an itemized bill of Captain Helm for Helm's volunteer garrison. The account book shows that Bosseron traded with the French, British, Americans, and Indians. The account book is in the Lasselle Collection at the Indiana State Library.
   • Sample Text:
     1. "Nov. 23 Paid to St. Marie for 5 ells of red serge for the company flag 9 livres... 45 livres... Paid to M. Dajenett 3 3/4 ells of green serge at 10 livres... 37 livres 10... Paid to Madam Goderre for the making of the flag... 25 livres." (p. 237)
   • LC Subject Headings:
     1. Vincennes (Ind.) History
     2. Vincennes (Ind.) History Revolution, 1775-1783
     3. Vincennes (Ind.) History Sources
   
   
   
3. • Full Citation: John Filson et al., "Danger on Wabash: Vincennes Letters of 1786," ed. Leonard C. Helderman, Indiana Magazine of History 34, no. 4 (December 1938): 455-467.
   • Home: Knox County (Vincennes)
   • Year: 1786
   • Abstract: Between December 1785 and July 1786, explorer John Filson was in Vincennes. At this time, fears in the town were running high about the possibility of Indian attack against Americans, Indians collaborating with the French settlers, the possibility of British re-occupation, and the overall need for more organized government and land office. Filson and other town residents wrote to George Rogers Clark requesting his assistance and protection as Clark prepared to make another move on Vincennes. These 8 letters are in the Lasselle Collection at the Indiana State Library.
   • Sample Text:
     1. "I do not know and cannot understand through what motive the Americans seek only to surprise and even betray those who are peaceful and their allies, which affords a pretext to all nations to band together and form numerous parties to attack entire villages." (Jean Marie Phillipe Le Gras to Clark, July 22, 1786, p. 466)
   • LC Subject Headings:
     1. Vincennes (Ind.) History
     2. Vincennes (Ind.) History Sources
     3. Filson, John, ca. 1747-1788
     4. Clark, George Rogers, 1752-1818
   
   
   
4. • Full Citation: Henry Hamilton, "Henry Hamilton and West Florida," ed. Robert R. Rea, Indiana Magazine of History 54, no. 1 (March 1958): 49-56.
   • Home: Knox County (Vincennes)
   • Year: 1778
   • Abstract: Henry Hamilton was in Vincennes during the winter of 1778/1779 during the British occupation of the fort. He wrote two letters to British General John Stuart in Florida, suggesting to Stuart that Campbell should organize the Indians between Vincennes and West Florida to conduct a mass attack against American troops. Stuart died a few days after receiving the letters, and due to his death (and that his troops were undersupplied and underfed) he was unable to carry out Hamilton's suggestion.
   • Sample Text:
     1. "I shall be happy to have certain Accounts of the state of the Interests of the People to the southwest of you- How the Navigation of the Mississippi may be most distressed- Whether all is as quiet in the Southern Provinces... as our Papers would have us believe." (Dec. 25, 1778, p. 54)
   • LC Subject Headings:
     1. Vincennes (Ind.) History
     2. Vincennes (Ind.) History Revolution, 1775-1783
     3. Vincennes (Ind.) History Sources
     4. Stuart, John, 1718-1779
   
   
   
5. • Full Citation: John MacPherson, "Detroit Letter of 1785," Indiana Magazine of History 5, no. 2 (June 1909): 78-79.
   • Home: Detroit
   • Year: 1785
   • Abstract: MacPherson, a trader at Fort Detroit, wrote a letter on March 23, 1785, to another trader, David Gray, at Miami-town [later Fort Wayne]. MacPherson asked Gray about the general trade situation in his area, related that measles had hit the area, discussed the possible merger among different trading companies, asked after some other traders, and included a current list of his own prices for goods such as flour, indian corn, oats, venison, and beef. The letter is from the Lasselle Collection at the Indiana State Library.
   • Sample Text:
     1. "Indeed the equipers has reasons to expect but very Indifferent returns from the different posts here abouts, very dull times in the fort, no business of any kind, either with the French or Indians, the only payment that can be expected for Goods is flour & corn this year, and I see no prospect of being able to dispose of it." (p. 78)
   • LC Subject Headings:
     1. Fort Detroit (Detroit, Mich.)
   
   
   
6. • Full Citation: Joseph M.G. de Rayneval, "The Rayneval Memorandum of 1782," ed. and trans. Florence Goold Watts, Indiana Magazine of History 38, no. 2 (June 1942): 167-207.
   • Home: Paris, France
   • Year: 1782
   • Abstract: This document was prepared by the secretary of France's minister of foreign affairs, Joseph M. G. de Rayneval, between August 23 and August 30, 1782 during negotiations between John Jay and the Spanish Ambassador in Paris. The document concerns various claims by the Spanish, French, British, and Americans over North American territories west of the 1763 Paris line, and contains the diplomatic history of these territories back to c. 1700. The Spanish Ambassador claimed water rights on the Mississippi adjacent to Spain's land possessions, and argued that Spain should charge duties on goods coming into or out of the Gulf of Mexico. This document, the original of which is in France's Foreign Affairs Ministry Office, is the only diplomatic mention of George Rogers Clark's exploits in the Northwestern Territory during the Treaty of Paris negotiations.
   • Sample Text:
     1. "We venture to believe that Americans will not cite as proof of conquest and of ownership the emphemeral excursion which a Colonel Clark must have made in 1779 as far as beyond the Mississippi. It is not thus that territory passes from nation to nation." (p. 189)
   • LC Subject Headings:
     1. Rayneval, J.-M. Girard de (Joseph-Mathias Girard), 1736-1812
     2. Treaty of Paris (1783)
        
        
7. • Full Citation: "Some Vincennes Documents of 1772," ed. Florence Goold Watts, Indiana Magazine of History 34, no. 2 (June 1938): 199-212.
   • Home: Knox County (Vincennes)
   • Year: 1772
   • Abstract: This article contains 3 original letters from Vincennes settlers to General Thomas Gage from the Gage collection at the University of Michigan Clements Library. Gage was the commander-in-chief of the British forces in North America, and was concerned that Vincennes was attracting French settlers who tended to collaborate with local Indian tribes. In April 1772, Gage writes to these Vincennes dwellers, asking them to move to other British territories; they refuse, stating that they have proper title to their land and will not move, and request British protection.
   • Sample Text:
     1. "May we, indeed, without being wanting in the respect due to His Majesty's justice, to his sacred word, and to his inviolable oaths, give another source to an order... so inhumnan, and which undermines in its principles his right of sovereignty in these regions, since the same act which assures it to him, promises to respect our possessions?" (Sept. 18, 1772, p. 211)
     2. "As to the savages, we would be only too happy if they had for us the care which our state of neglect compels us to have for them, a situation which we cannot enjoy unless we exchange mutual help with a garrison, which we have fruitlessly desired for a long time." (Sept. 18, 1772, p. 212)
   • LC Subject Headings:
     1. Vincennes (Ind.) History
     2. Vincennes (Ind.) History Sources
     3. Gage, Thomas, 1721-1787
   
   
   
8. • Full Citation: Spencer Records, "Spencer Records' Memoir of the Ohio Valley Frontier, 1766-1795," ed. Donald F. Carmony, Indiana Magazine of History 55, no. 4 (December 1959): 323-377.
   • Home: Licking Valley, Ky.
   • Year: 1766-1795
   • Abstract: Spencer Records (1762-1849?) spent his childhood and teenage years (1766-1783) in western Pennsylvania, and his young adult years (1783-1795) at various locations (each about 10-20 miles apart) around the Licking Valley in Kentucky. His memoir details the continuous struggle for survival that American settlers faced in the Ohio Valley, including finding provisions and conflict with various Indian groups, including a number of murders on both sides. The violence in the narrative ends with the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, in which the Miami ceded a vast amount of territory to the U.S. Records later moved to Ohio and then Indiana (Bartholomew County) where he wrote this memoir c. 1842.
   • Sample Text:
     1. "The people there, at that time [Pennsyvania, c. 1767], lived happier, and better contented, than the people do there at this time, with all thei[r] luxuries, fine dress, pomp and show." (p. 329)
     2. "As to my political principles, I am a true whig, the sin of loco-focoism, I have never been guilty of. In my religious principles, I am a Regular Baptist; having believed in that doctrine for more than fifty years." (p. 376)
   • LC Subject Headings:
     1. Ohio River Valley History
     2. Ohio River Valley History To 1795
     3. Ohio River Valley History To 1795 Sources
   
   
   
9. • Full Citation: William Wells, "William Wells and the Indian Council of 1793," ed. Dwight L. Smith, Indiana Magazine of History 56, no. 3 (September 1960): 217-226.
   • Home: Hobson's Choice, OH (near Cincinnati)
   • Year: 1793
   • Abstract: William Wells (d. 1812) was captured as a child by the Miamis and served as an agent and negotiator for them, then briefly served in the American army as a scout under Anthony Wayne, but later returned to serving his tribe. In September 1793, Wells swore a deposition to Wayne giving information about an Indian council on the Maumee River in July 1793 that assisted Wayne in eventually planning and winning the Battle of Fallen Timbers in August 1794. The deposition contained detailed information about different tribes' plans for attacking various American settlements. The original document is in the Anthony Wayne Papers at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
   • Sample Text:
     1. "That it was ul[t]imately determined- that they wou'd all unite in making a General War & distroy the whole of the frontier inhabitants that the Southern and Western armies of Indians shou'd form a junction at the falls of the Ohio & penetrate the Country- that they wou'd never be at a loss for Provision, that the Kentuckians & Long Knife[s] had plenty of cattle & corn & that they cou'd supply themselves." (p. 222)
     2. "That upon the whole he is fully of Opinion that a very General Confed[e]racy is formed and forming among the Indian nations against America except the Wabash and Illinois & Kickapoos. Tribes of Indians who are determined for peace nor did they or any of the Chickasaw or Choctaws attend the Council..." (p. 226)
   • LC Subject Headings:
     1. Wells, William, 1770-1812
     2. Wayne, Anthony, 1745-1796

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Abstracts by Elizabeth Sloan.