be
necessary that they should find a certain support in their villages in
the summer season. That the proposed addition to their annuities would
enable them to purchase the domestic animals necessary to commence
raising them on a large scale. He observed also that they were too apt
to impute their poverty and the scarcity of game to the encroachments of
the white settlers. But this is not the true cause. It is owing to their
own improvidence and to the advice of the British traders by whom they
were stimulated to kill the wild animals for their skins alone, when the
flesh was not wanted. That this was the cause of their scarcity is
evident from their being found in much greater quantity on the south
than on the north shore of the Wabash, where no white men but traders
were ever seen. The remnant of the Weas who inhabit the tract of country
which was wanted, were from their vicinity to the whites, poor and
miserable; all the proceeds of their hunts and the great part of their
annuities expended in whiskey. The Miami Nation would be more
respectable and formidable if its scattered members were assembled in
the center of their country."

The reasoning of the Governor was cogent. The motive that had prompted
the British to hold the frontier posts for so many years after the
revolution, was to secure a monopoly of the fur trade. Their traders
constantly urged the tribes to bring in peltries, and this led to a
merciless slaughter of animals for their hides alone. These measures
involved the ultimate destruction of the food supply of the tribes. It
was also true that the tribes along the Wabash were exhausting the
supply of wild game. The plan of inducing them to accept annuities and
to purchase cattle, hogs and other domestic animals for the purpose of
replenishing their food supply, seemed highly plausible to the minds of
that day. That the Weas on the lower Wabash would be better off if
removed from the immediate neighborhood of the white settlements where
they could purchase fire-water and indulge their vices, did not admit of
doubt. It was possibly the only plan of bringing relief from the
troubles which were daily augmenting between the two races of men.

From the first, however, the appeal of the Governor met with a cold
reception at the hands of the Mississinewa chiefs. That their feelings
in the matter were prompted by their jealousy of the other tribes
present, and their claim to the sole disposal of any of the lan