"The Land We Have We Wish to Keep": Miami Autonomy and Resistance to Removal in Indiana, 1812–1826

Abstract

ABSTRACT: The ability of Indiana tribes to resist removal, compel Euro-Americans to their terms, and maintain a land base was best exemplified by the Miamis in the years after the War of 1812 to 1826. Rather than become victims of dispossession, the Miamis reconstructed an identity riven by intratribal divisions that both ignited conflict between Euro-Americans and Indians and brought destruction to the Miami homeland. The Miamis used the memory of their divisions to regain political cohesion under the autonomous leadership of Jean Baptiste Richardville. In the process, they confronted the threat of Indian removal by using strategies based on their cultural customs, while also mixing these ideas with understandings of Euro-American landholding practices, racial constructions of Indians, and devices of Indigenous subjugation. Ultimately, the Miamis' efforts equipped them with resistance strategies that they utilized to conditionally prevent their displacement from their native homeland.