Chief Little Turtle: The Man Who Defeated Three Armies
Near Fort Wayne, Indiana
Before this city took its current name, it was home to one of the most brilliant military commanders in the history of North America. His name was Michikinikwa. History knows him as Little Turtle, and he was the war chief of the Miami at Kekionga.
In the seventeen eighties and early nineties, the newly formed United States was pushing aggressively into the Northwest Territory, the lands north of the Ohio River. The Miami and their allies had no intention of yielding without a fight. Little Turtle organized one of the most effective Native American military confederacies the continent had ever seen.
In seventeen ninety, he ambushed and routed the army of General Josiah Harmar. Harmar was supposed to destroy the Miami towns. Instead he lost approximately one hundred eighty men and retreated in disgrace. The following year, Little Turtle led his warriors against General Arthur Saint Clair, the governor of the Northwest Territory. That battle, fought on November fourth, seventeen ninety one near present-day Fort Recovery, Ohio, became the worst defeat the United States Army has ever suffered at the hands of a Native American force. Over six hundred soldiers died. The American loss rate exceeded sixty percent.
Washington then sent his best man, General Anthony Wayne. Little Turtle studied Wayne carefully and reportedly told his council that this was the general who never sleeps. He advised negotiating rather than fighting. The other chiefs overruled him. At the Battle of Fallen Timbers in August of seventeen ninety four, Wayne's disciplined army broke the confederacy.
In the Treaty of Greenville the following year, Little Turtle signed, but he was reportedly the last to put his name to paper. He told the assembled chiefs he had been the last to sign, and would therefore be the last to break the peace.
He returned to Kekionga, now occupied by the American fort named for his conqueror. He lived there, worked for peace, met with three American presidents, and died in eighteen twelve, just as the next war began.
