Great Leader: Jean-Baptiste Richardville of the Miami, 1761-1841

Native leaders were usually noted for their roles as diplomats, war leaders and orators but they played another, more crucial role for their people, that of caretaker.  A leader could be judged, not only on how well he performed in battle, but how he provided for the aged, women and children, and other vulnerable members of his society.  Judged by that standard, Jean-Baptiste Richardville, 1761-1841, known to Americans as John Richardville and to his mother's Miami people as Pinsiwa, or Wildcat, stacks up among the best. 

Wildcat came from an illustrious heritage.  His uncle was the Miami war leader Pacanne, and his mother was Tecumwah, a noted tribal leader in her own right.  Tecumwah had married Joseph Drouet de Richeville, a fur trader from Quebec.  Their son, Jean-Baptiste, was born at Kekionga, the main village of the Miami.  He would grow up with a foot in both worlds, being able to speak Miami, French and later English, and to thrive in both cultures.  The family controlled a portage area between the Maumee River to the Little Wabash River.  His mother made a living from this, and from fur trading in her own right.  Though the family lost the rights to the portage in the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, Jean-Baptiste later acquired his own fur trading license and monopoly on carrying services at the portage.  As his mother had done, he invested in land, becoming one of the wealthiest men in Indiana.  He was also influential among his mother's people and with White settlers, being a signatory to several important treaties, beginning with the Treaty of Greenville itself, in 1795.

In 1818, Richardville signed the Treaty of St. Mary's, which forced the Miami to cede large tracts of land as a punitive sanction for not supporting the American side during the War of 1812.  Richardville was able to negotiate the sale of individual tracts of land to several Miami families, enabling them to stay on their ancestral land.  As pressure built on the Miami to move west during the period of Indian Removal, he opened his own private land to settlement by other members of his tribe, keeping over half of the Miami people in Indiana.  He received a settlement from the United States after the Treaty of Mississinwas in 1826, which enabled him to build the Richardville House in Fort Wayne, Indiana, which still stands today.  He would remain both a respected citizen of Fort Wayne and a leader of his people until his death in 1841.  Richardville County, later renamed Howard County, was named for him.  Wildcat Creek, within that County, honors his Miami name, Pinsiwa/Wildcat.