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William Wells: Frontier Scout and Indian Agent

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William Wells: Frontier Scout and Indian Agent William Wells: Frontier Scout and Indian Agent Paul A. Hutton” William Wells occupies an important place in the history of Indian-white relations in the Old Northwest. First as a Miami warrior and then as an army scout he participated in many of the northwestern frontier’s great battles; later as an Indian agent he held a critical position in the implementation of the United States’ early Indian policy. He was what was known along the frontier as a “white Indian,” a unique type often found along the ever-changing border that marked the bound- ary of the Indian country. As such, he was the product of two very different cultures, and throughout his forty-two years of life he swayed back and forth between them-never sure to which he truly belonged. Such indecision doomed him, for he could never be fully accepted by either society. When at last he perished in battle, it would be in defense of whites, but he would be dressed and painted as an Indian. Such was the strange paradox of his life. Born near Jacob’s Creek, Pennsylvania, in 1770, Wells was only nine when his family migrated down the Ohio River on flatboats in company with the families of William Pope and William Oldham to settle on the Beargrass, near what is now Louisville, Kentucky. His older brothers, Samuel and Hayden, had explored the region in 1775 and reported its richness to their father, Captain Samuel Wells, Sr., late of the Revolution- my army. No sooner had the old soldier settled his family in a fortified enclosure called Wells Station (three and one half miles north of present Shelbyville, Kentucky) than he was killed in the ambush of Colonel John Floyd’s militiamen near Louisville in 1781. His mother having died earlier, the or- * Paul A. Hutton is assistant editor of The Western Historical Quarterly, Utah State University, Logan. 184 Indiana Magazine of History phaned William Wells was taken into the home of his father’s comrade-in-arms, Colonel P0pe.l While hunting near Pope’s homestead in March, 1784, William and three other boys were surprised by a party of Miami Indians and carried north to the White River Indian villages. Although the other boys managed to make their es- cape, William was sent farther north to the Wea villages along the Eel River where he was adopted into the household of a village chief, Gaviahatte (the Porcupine). The fourteen-year-old captive evidently found the life of a Miami warrior much to his liking because he quickly adapted to tribal ways. Named Apekonit (wild carrot, on account of his red hair) by the In- dians, he accompanied them on raids against the white set- tlements. He proved particularly adept at luring river travelers to their doom along the Ohio. By acting as if he were lost, he would get them to move to shore where his comrades would slay them.2 This auburn-haired, freckle-faced warrior came to the atten- tion of Little Turtle, war chief of the Miami confederacy, and Samuel Wells, Sr., was a Virginian who had fought in both the French and Indian and Revolutionary wars, as well as Lord Dunmore’s 1774 campaign against the Shawnee, before moving to Kentucky. He had five sons and a daughter, of whom William was the youngest. “William Wells Genealogy,” William Wells Collection (Chicago Historical Society); Wells Family File (Fil- son Club, Louisville); especially valuable is Lyman C. Draper’s interview with Darius Heald in Lyman C. Draper Collection 23858-62 (The State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison); and Lewis Collins, History of Kentucky (2 vols., Louisville, 1924), 11, 239, 550. The only reliable accounts of Wells’ capture are in the Heald interview, Draper Collection 23862-65; and Mann Butler, “An Outline of the Origin and Settlement of Louisville, in Kentucky,” The Louisville Directory, for the Year 1832 (Louisville, 1832), 104. Almost all popular accounts of Wells’ life claim that he was adopted by Little Turtle, but there is no evidence to support this contention. In 1792 Wells told John Heckewelder that his adopted father was Gaviahatte. See “Narrative of John Heckewelder’s Journey to the Wabash in 1792,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, XI1 (no. 1, 1888), 45; and Edward Rondthaler, Life of John Heckewelder (Philadelphia, 1847), 112. There are no dependable accounts of Wells’ early life. Sketches of him appear in the following works, but they must be used with caution: Calvin M. Young, Little Turtle: The Great Chief of the Miami Indian Nation (Greenville, Ohio, 19171, 179; Otho Winger, Last of the Miamis-Little Turtle (North Manchester, Ind., 19681, 17; Bessie Keeran Roberts, “William Wells: A Legend in the Councils of Two Nations,” Old Fort News, XVIII (September-December, 1954), 7; Wallace A. Brice, History of Fort Wayne (Fort Wayne, 18681, 147. Somewhat more reliable, although brief, sketches are in Walter Havighurst, The Heart- land: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois (New York, 1956), 78-85; Jacob Piatt Dunn, True Indian Stories (Indianapolis, 19091, 117; Bert J. Griswold, The Pictorial History of Fort Wayne, Indiana (2 vols., Chicago, 19171, I, 136; and Bert J. Griswold, ed., Fort Wayne: Gateway of the West, 1802-1813 (Indianapolis, 1927), 30-32. For Wells’ activities along the Ohio River see John Johnston to William Eustis, November 6, 1810, Letters Received by the Secretary of War, registered series, Record Group 107 (National Archives, Washington). William Wells 185 CAPTAINWILLIAM WELLS Courtesy Indiana State Library, Indianapolis. 186 Indiana Magazine of History they soon became close friends. In time Wells married Little Turtle’s daughter, Sweet Breeze (Manwangopath), and over the years they had three daughters and two sons. Wells could not have been more fortunate than to gain the protection of this chief. Born in 1751, Little Turtle had first battled the white man in 1780 when he wiped out a detachment commanded by Augustine de La Balme, a French soldier-of-fortune with his heart set on capturing Detroit from the British. From that time on Little Turtle led the Miamis in their conflicts with the whites to the east and south.3 As a member of the Miami tribe, Wells was free to come and go as he pleased, but he made no effort to return to Kentucky. He did, however, make contact with the American post at Vincennes, probably in the capacity of an interpreter, and was instrumental in securing the freedom of at least one white child held prisoner by the Indian~.~The commandant at Vincennes, Major John Francis Hamtramck, was acquainted with Carty Wells, William’s older brother, and informed him of William’s whereabouts. Carty made a dangerous but futile visit to the Eel River village but could not convince William that they were indeed brother^.^ Samuel Wells, who had already reached manhood when William was captured, also journeyed to Eel River to visit his Indian brother. This time the youth recognized his relative and agreed to return to Kentucky with him to visit the family homestead. Samuel had reached a position of wealth and im- portance in Kentucky society, and he attempted to impress William with the comforts and amenities of the white way of life. The youth was apparently not influenced, and, much to his family’s surprise, after a few days visit he returned to his life with the Indians.6 3The Chicago Historical Society has a color miniature of Wells in its collections, and Thomas Hunt, who knew Wells at Fort Wayne, left a physical description. Draper Collection 21857. Little Turtle’s early career is covered in Bert Anson, The Miami Indians (Norman, 1970), 91, 104-105. *Wells arranged the ransoming of Oliver Spencer. See Milo Milton Quaife, ed., The Indian Captivity of0.M. Spencer (New York, 19681, 58, 114. Wells is also mentioned in another famous captivity narrative-that of Frances Slocum. See Otho Winger, The Lost Sister Among the Miamis (Elgin, Ill., 19361, 91-92. Carty Wells, who lived at Coxe’s Fort near Bardstown, Kentucky, often carried dispatches for Major John Hamtramck. See Gayle Thornbrough, ed., Outpost on the Wabash, 1787-1791 (Indianapolis, 1957), 22, 40, 145, 160. For Hamtramcks part in reuniting Wells with his family see John Hamtramck to Secretary of War, November 1, 1801, enclosed in William Wells to William Eustis, June 25, 1809, Letters Received by the Secretary of War, registered series, Record Group 107. The Wells family passed down this story, and Darius Heald, the grandson of Samuel Wells, Jr., told it to Draper in 1868 and again to Joseph Kirkland in 1892. See Draper Collection 23362-65; and Joseph Kirkland, The Chicago Mas- sacre of 1812 (Chicago, 1893), 174-75. William Wells 187 Wells did not contact his Kentucky relatives again for several years, as the intermittent raids that had characterized Indian-white relations along the Ohio River for a decade erupted into full-scale war. To the government of the United States the question of who owned the land north of the Ohio River had been settled with the American victory over the British. The northwestern Indians had sided with the British in the Revolution and had thus been conquered. American officials were not swayed by Joseph Brant, the cultured Mohawk chief who led part of the Indian confederacy, when he declared that “nine-tenths of the Indians” had never heard of the Revolution, much less been participants in it. To chastise the recalcitrants the government sent General Josiah Harmar at the head of 1,133 Kentucky militiamen and 320 regulars to destroy the Miami villages at Kekionga (present Fort Wayne, Indiana), but Harmar’s much-vaunted Kentucky frontiersmen collapsed in panic when they came into contact with Miami warriors.
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