Little Turtle - Later Life

Later Life

Little Turtle continuously advised cooperation with the U.S., refusing an alliance with the Shawnee chief Tecumseh. In 1797, he met cordially with George Washington, who presented him with a ceremonial sword. On this trip he also met Comte de Volney. He also met presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. He and Jefferson discussed the need to introduce American agriculture to Miami society, although it was the Quaker society of Baltimore who finally sent Philip Dennis to demonstrate East Coast farming methods.

One story says that on his way to Philadelphia to meet Washington, Little Turtle met General Tadeusz Kościuszko, who presented him with a matching pair of pistols along with instructions to use them on "the first man who ever comes to subjugate you."

In 1809, Little Turtle suffered a break with other Miami leaders when Governor William Henry Harrison came to Fort Wayne to renegotiate treaty terms. Little Turtle admitted Potawatomi representatives to the treaty and cooperated with Harrison, but other chiefs, including his brother Pacanne and his nephew Jean Baptiste Richardville, Owl, and Metocina refused to sell any more land. Harrison was forced to recognize the Mississinewa chiefs as the true representatives of the Miami, and to declare that Little Turtle was not a Miami.

Little Turtle retired to a spot near present-day Columbia City, Indiana. After the Siege of Fort Wayne in the War of 1812, General William Henry Harrison ordered the destruction of all Miami villages within a two-day march of Fort Wayne. This may have been in retaliation for the negotiations in 1809, but his forces also destroyed the village of Little Turtle.

Little Turtle died in 1812, at the home of his son-in-law William Wells (soldier), not far from Kekionga. He had been suffering from gout and rheumatism for some time.