Great Leader: Pacanne (P'Koumkwa) of the Miami, c 1737-1818

Little Turtle wasn't the only Miami leader with an outstanding military record.  He would have to share those laurels with P'Koum-Kwa, or as the French said the name, Pacanne.  We've already run across another member of Pacanne's family, his sister Tecumwah, who was his partner in politics and war.

Pacanne's family controlled the area of the Long Portage, an 8-mile passage between the Maumee and Wabash Rivers.  These rivers were important connections in the system of waterways leading from Canada to Louisiana and thus vital to Natives, fur traders, and even armies.  All of them would have to deal with Pacanne's family and his band of the Miami for permission to use the portage.  No record exists of Pacanne's early life except that he might have been a nephew of Cold Foot, and succeeded his uncle in the Miami's matrilineal inheritance system when Cold Foot died of a smallpox epidemic in 1752.  Pacanne was still a young man when he encountered Captain Thomas Morris, an English officer sent to secure the Native villages of Kekionga, Ouiatenon, Vincennes and Kaskaskia after Pontiac's Rebellion (1764).  Morris was captured by the Miami and on his way to a ritual burning when Pacanne ordered his release from the stake and, when that failed, released Morris himself.

Pacanne was a shrewd dealer in the fur trade and traveled between Kekionga, Vincennes, Detroit and Quebec both in his own business interests and representing his people.  While he travelled, Tecumwah, aided by Little Turtle and Le Gris, kept order in Kekionga and the other Miami villages.  Because of his frequent visits to Fort Detroit, Pacanne became well-known to the British officials there, including Lieutenant-Governor Henry Hamilton.  Hamilton was keenly interested in Native culture and often sketched the Native leaders he met.  We're indebted to him for Pacanne's likeness, the only one known of him.  When the American Revolution broke out in 1778, Pacanne was instrumental in weaning the Piankeshaw away from their alliance with George Rogers Clark and back to the British side.  La Balme's raid on Vincennes in 1780 cemented Pacanne's determination to support the British.  American Loyalist and British office Arent De Peyster singled out Pacanne for his bravery and loyalty. 

After the war, Pacanne accepted the inevitable and tried to keep peace with the Americans, becoming a guide to both Josiah Harmer and Jean-Francois Hamtramck, another transplanted French officer who had remained in America, more on him in another post.  In 1788, disaster struck when settlers attacked a Piankeshaw village.  Pacanne withdrew from cooperation with the Americans and returned to Kekionga to protect his people.  Little Turtle emerged as the war leader in most of the battles of the Northwest Indian War (1785-1795), with Pacanne in charge of the home guard.  He refused to sign the Treaty of Greenville of 1795, instead sending his nephew and successor, Jean-Baptiste Richardville.  He was wary of Tecumseh's Revolt and urged his people to remain neutral.  American retaliation after the attack on Fort Dearborn drove him once again to seek British protection, but it was short-lived when the War of 1812 ended with an American victory.  Pacanne lived out his days in Kekionga and died, succeeded by his nephew.