Early years Little Turtle was selected as the
war chief of the
Atchatchakangouen division of the Myaamiaki (
Miami people)
La Balme's Defeat Little Turtle earned this designation during the
American Revolutionary War in action against a French force allied with the
American patriots, led by French military adventurer
Augustin de La Balme. After raising a force of forty-to-fifty men at
Vincennes, Indiana and a similar number along the
Kaskaskia–Cahokia Trail, in October 1780 La Balme plundered
Miamitown at
Kekionga (present-day
Fort Wayne), as part of his campaign to attack the British in Detroit. When La Balme stopped to camp along the
Eel River just three miles south of Little Turtle's village, Little Turtle received permission to lead an attack. On November 5, 1780, Little Turtle attacked La Balme, killing La Balme and forty of his men and taking the rest prisoner. The battle was a complete rout, and Little Turtle's army suffered almost no casualties. Many French soldiers were heard begging to surrender while they were scalped alive. Several French officers were taken alive, three of whom were burnt at the stake, one of whom had his hands and feet cut off before being killed by having his face struck with a tomahawk, and four of whom were let go as a warning to the rest of the French. These events occurred in and around what is today
Columbia City, Indiana in
Whitley County, Indiana. The victory ended the campaign and established Little Turtle's reputation as a war leader. Through the 1780s, Little Turtle continued to lead raids against colonial American settlements in
Kentucky, fighting on the side of the British. However, the Miami bands did not uniformly support the British. The
Piankashaw Miami supported the rebel Americans, while the
Wea Miami vacillated between the British and Americans.
Little Turtle's War Under the terms of the
Treaty of Paris (1783), which ended the American Revolutionary War, the British abandoned their native allies and ceded the land between the
Appalachian Mountains and the
Mississippi River to the U.S. government. (The United States considered this region to be theirs by right of conquest.) Through the
Land Ordinance of 1784 and the
Northwest Ordinance of 1787, the U.S. government established
Northwest Territory in 1787. Native Americans living in the territory resisted the encroaching American settlements, and violence escalated in the area. Native tribes formed the
Northwestern Confederacy to keep the Ohio River as a boundary between Indian lands and the United States. Little Turtle emerged as one of the war leaders of the Confederacy, which also included the
Shawnee under
Blue Jacket and the
Delaware under
Buckongahelas. The war with the United States that followed became known as the
Northwest Indian War, also called "Little Turtle's War". Little Turtle helped to lead Native Americans against federal forces led by General
Josiah Harmar in late 1790. (Because the United States had mostly disbanded its military after the
American Revolution, it had few professional soldiers to send into battle, a weakness that Little Turtle and other native leaders fully exploited.) In October 1790, Little Turtle and Blue Jacket won two victories against Harmar's men. These successes encouraged further resistance. In addition, previously reluctant leaders among the
Ottawa and
Wyandot joined the confederacy. In August 1791, Little Turtle's daughter was among the women and children who were captured in a
raid of a Miami village along the Eel River led by
James Wilkinson. By September 1791, a force of 1,400 to nearly 2,000 American soldiers under the command of
Arthur St. Clair was moving north from
Fort Washington (present-day
Cincinnati, Ohio), headed toward the Maumee-Wabash portage.
St. Clair's defeat Little Turtle is generally credited with leading a coalition force of about 1,000 warriors that
routed the U.S. forces near the headwaters of the
Wabash River on November 4, 1791. The battle remains the U.S. Army's worst defeat by American Indians, with 623 federal soldiers killed and another 258 wounded. The Indian confederacy lost an estimated 100 men. Both Little Turtle and Blue Jacket claimed overall command of the combined native forces in the victory, causing tension within the Confederacy. In November 1792, following the decision of a grand council of tribal leaders at the mouth of the
Auglaize River, Little Turtle led a force of 200 Miami and Shawnee past the U.S. outposts of
Fort Jefferson and
Fort St. Clair, reaching Fort Hamilton on November 3. The warriors intended to attack the U.S. settlements on the anniversary of St. Clair's Defeat. The warriors captured two prisoners and learned that a large convoy of packhorses had left for Fort Jefferson and was due back in the area within days. Little Turtle moved north and found the convoy of nearly 100 horses and 100 Kentucky militia under the command of Major
John Adair encamped outside Fort St. Clair. Little Turtle and his warriors attacked at dawn on November 4, just as Adair recalled his sentries. The militia fled into the fort, suffering six killed and four missing, while another five were wounded. Little Turtle's force lost two warriors but captured Adair's camp and its provisions. All the horses were killed, wounded, or driven off; only 23 were later recovered. Adair considered the battle to be a "triumph" for Little Turtle; James Wilkinson, at that time a lieutenant colonel in command of the U.S. Army at Fort Washington, believed that the loss of the horses made these advanced forts indefensible. Between 1792 and 1794, General
Anthony Wayne commanded the
Legion of the United States in a third expedition in the Northwest Territory against the Indian Confederacy. To avoid another defeat, Wayne rigorously trained 3,500 U.S. troops and carefully planned his campaign. Afterwards, Little Turtle counseled his tribesmen to pursue negotiations and peace rather than suffering a defeat in battle, remarking that Wayne was " the chief that never sleeps." When Little Turtle was unable to persuade the leaders of the tribal Confederacy to negotiate peace, he stepped down as the intertribal war chief. Little Turtle's son-in-law,
William Wells, a white man who was born in Kentucky and lived among the Miami for eight years after his capture in 1784, also sensed the defeat of the Indian alliance and switched his alliance to the Americans. Wells served as a scout for General Wayne's troops and later as an Indian Agent for the U.S. government.
Battle of Fallen Timbers The Indian Confederacy, numbering around 1,000 warriors, was defeated at the
Battle of Fallen Timbers in August 1794 near the Maumee River. After the battle, the Miamis abandoned Kekionga and relocated to other villages along the Eel,
Mississinewa, and
Wabash Rivers. Following the Indian Confederacy's defeat at Fallen Timbers, their leaders signed the
Treaty of Greenville (1795), a turning point in their resistance to American expansion. Little Turtle traveled with his wife to
Greenville and gave a speech before signing the treaty. He encouraged his people "to adopt American ways" and hoped the treaty would improve relations between the Americans and Native Americans. His wife died in camp the next day. Her funeral and burial included American soldiers as
pallbearers, American music, and a three-gun salute. Although Indian resistance to the Americans diminished after the Treaty of Greenville was signed, Indian raids continued to threaten settlements along the frontier until 1815. For the remainder of his life, Little Turtle was a committed peacekeeper, causing some to consider him an "accommodationist" who believed that his people would have to adapt to the Americans' way of life if they hoped to endure. == Later years ==