Unwanted Miami Indians For Dinner in Frontier Indiana
History of Dekalb County, Indiana 1885
“ At that time there was a large Indian village where -Denmark now is, and some traders came among there with whisky and made them .drunk, so they came to rob us. We had worked hard all day until nearly sundown, when we went to the house to eat supper. The Indians came yelling and soon filled the house. They then drew their knives, bows and arrows and tomahawks, stuck their hands into our supper pot, and our supper was gone in a trice. Samuel Houlton drew a large poker and was about to strike, when Avery exclaimed, ‘Don’t strike, Sam, or they will kill us all!’ Hughes also told him not to strike, but let them take what they wanted, and he would go to the Indian Agent at Fort Wayne and make them pay for it. They then acted as true lords of the soil. “They poured out the whisky into their camp kettles, knocked in the head of a flour barrel and also of a pork barrel, and in fif teen minutes flour, pork and whisky were gone. They crossed the creek about twelve rods off and camped for the night. While they were making their fires and drinking the whisky, we rolled out our last barrel of flour and hid it in a' brush heap. We had also about thirty pounds of pork up in the chamber that they did not get, and that was all that saved us from starvation. The 200 Indians fought and screamed all night. A better sample of the infernal regions never could be gotten up in this world.
“ As soon as we had secured our barrel of flour, we next re solved that when they had generally got drunk we would alight on them with a vengeance and kill the last one of them. So we loaded our four guns with slugs and then got two tomahawks and two hand axes, and waited until they would become more drunk. In this, however, we were disappointed. They did not seem to get more intoxicated. After drinking twenty gallons of whisky, eating 230 pounds of pork, and using up 250 pounds of flour. With several bushels of potatoes, they started off about eight in the morning well satisfied with what they had done.
“ We made application to the Indian Agent, at Ft.Wayne, but never got any compensation for the articles taken. Every time I think of the Indian tragedy I feel thankful that we were prevented from imbruing our hands in their life blood. It was the traders, with their whisky, that made all this trouble.
