Wabash, sixty miles above Vincennes; and another under the Turtle, on
Eel river, a branch of the Wabash, twenty miles north west of Fort
Wayne. By an artifice of the Little Turtle, these three bands were
passed on General Wayne as distinct tribes, and an annuity was granted
to each. The Eel river and Weas however to this day call themselves
Miamies, and are recognized as such by the Mississineway band. The
Miamies, Maumees, or Tewicktovies are the undoubted proprietors of all
that beautiful country which is watered by the Wabash and its branches;
and there is as little doubt, that their claim extended as far east as
the Sciota. They have no tradition of removing from any other quarter of
the country; whereas all the neighboring tribes, the Piankeshaws
excepted, who are a branch of the Miamies, are either intruders upon
them, or have been permitted to settle in their country. The Wyandots
emigrated first from Lake Ontario and subsequently from lake Huron, the
Delawares from Pennsylvania and Maryland, the Shawanies from Georgia,
the Kickapoos and Pottawatamies from the country between lake Michigan
and the Mississippi, and the Ottawas and Chippeways, from the peninsula
formed by lakes Michigan, Huron and St. Clair, and the strait connecting
the latter with Erie. The claims of the Miamies were bounded on the
north and west by those of the Illinois confederacy, consisting
originally of five tribes, called Kaskaskias, Cahokias, Peorians,
Michiganians, and Temorias speaking the Miami language, and no doubt
branches of that nation.

"When I was first appointed governor of Indiana Territory, these once
powerful tribes were reduced to about thirty warriors, of whom twenty
five were Kaskaskias, four Peorians, and a single Michiganian. There was
an individual lately alive at St. Louis, who saw the enumeration of them
made by the Jesuits in 1745, making the number of their warriors four
thousand. A furious war between them and the Sacs and Kickapoos reduced