Everything about Fort Ouiatenon totally explained
Fort Ouiatenon was the first fortified European settlement in what is now called
Indiana. It was a French trading post at the joining of the
Tippecanoe River and the
Wabash River located approximately three miles southwest of modern-day
West Lafayette. The name 'Ouiatenon' is a French rendering of the name in the
Wea language,
waayaahtanonki, meaning 'place of the whirlpool'.
French period
Fort Ouiatenon was originally constructed by the
French government as a military outpost to protect against
Great Britain’s western expansion. Its location among the unsettled woodlands of the
Wabash River valley also made it a key center of trade for
fur trappers. French merchants and trappers from
Quebec would arrive at Fort Ouiatenon in search of
beaver pelts and to take advantage of trade relations with the native
Wea Indian tribes.
In 1717, Ensign François Picote de Beletre (related to another Picoté de Bélestre, see
Adam Dollard des Ormeaux) arrived at the mouth of the Tippecanoe and Wabash with four soldiers, three men a blacksmith and supplies to trade with the nearby Wea people, an
Algonquian-speaking nation closely related to the
Miami people. They built a stockade on the Wabash, eighteen miles below the mouth of the Tippecanoe.
François-Marie Bissot, the Sieur de Vincennes assumed command of the fort sometime in the 1720s. The French settled on the north bank, with Wea villages on the south bank.
In order to convince the Wea to trade exclusively with the French, the Governor-General of
New France,
Philippe de Rigaud Vaudreuil, issued permits for trade at Ouiatenon. Traders immediately began to bring a steady flow of goods to the new town. Soon the officials in
Louisiana sent more men to help Vincennes to hold the Wabash River. At its peak level of activity during the mid-18th century Fort Ouiatenon was home to over 2,000 residents.
British period
After the surrender of
New France to the British in September of 1760,
Robert Rogers dispatched troops to occupy Ouiatenon. a contingent of British soldiers led by Lieutenant
Edward Jenkins arrived in 1761, capturing and occupying the fort.
On
June 1 1763, during
Pontiac's War, the Wea,
Kickapoo and
Mascouten peoples captured Ouiatenon. They surprised Lieutenant Jenkins and his men and captured Fort Ouiatenon without firing a shot. Seven similar posts were also captured in the widespread Indian uprising against the British presence.
The British made little use of Fort Ouiatenon after the French and Indian War; it was never garrisoned. In the mid-1770's, the fort was described 70 yards from the Wabash river.
The Ouattanon nation of Indians is on the opposite side, & the Kiccaposses are round the Fort, in both villages about 1000 men able to bear arms.
As late as 1778, Ouiatenon was a staging ground for war parties fighting on behalf of the British government.
Captain Leonard Helm and Lt. Bailey arrived in
1778 to secure the fort for the rebelling Americans. A British Indian agent named Celeron controlled the fort and tried to evacuate, but was captured with a force of 40 men. A British company arrived and hoisted "
St. George's Ensign" in the fort by December of the same year. Shortly after the Americans captured
Vincennes in
1779, Captain I. Shelby arrived in Ouiatenon and received promises of cooperation from the Wea. During the 1780s, however, local Indian tribes used it as a base of operations to stage raids against American settlers pushing westward. Consequently President
George Washington ordered the fort to be destroyed in 1791.
Twentieth century
In 1930, a "replica" of Fort Ouiatenon was built by a local physician named Richard Wetherill. The
Daughters of the American Revolution had placed a small commemorative marker near this spot in 1909. Dr. Wetherill's blockhouse was actually patterned after those more typical of British fortifications (using horizontal logs) and doesn't match the style or type of construction of the original Fort Ouiatenon (with vertical logs). The "replica" blockhouse is now the focal point of a county park. The true site of Fort Ouiatenon, one mile from the replica's site, was discovered and confirmed archaeologically in the late 1960s. In 1970 the site was placed on the
National Register of Historic Places by the U.S.
Department of the Interior. Today, the blockhouse is open to tourists and is the location of the annual
Feast of the Hunters’ Moon. Many rare artifacts from the original Fort Ouiatenon are displayed by the Tippecanoe County Historical Association during the Feast.
Further Information
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