La Balme's Defeat

On November 6, 1780, in the midst of the American Revolutionary War, a clash took place between Canadien settlers commanded by the French officer Augustin de La Balme and Miami warriors allied with the British under chief Little Turtle. This confrontation became known as LaBalme's Defeat. La Balme's aim had been to strike at British-held Fort Detroit, and to that end he had gathered a makeshift band of irregulars. Along the way, however, his men plundered the Miami town of Kekionga, and it was after this raid that Little Turtle's warriors caught them by surprise and overwhelmed them. Thanks to this triumph, Little Turtle earned lasting recognition across the American frontier, a standing that would only grow more pronounced during the Northwest Indian War.

Battle

Word of the advancing expedition reached the Miami, who wiped out the twenty men guarding Kekionga, leaving none alive. Little Turtle, a resident of a village on the Eel River, sought and received the blessing of the Kekionga Miami to organize a counterstrike. Rallying whatever warriors he could find, he fell upon La Balme's encampment just before sunrise on November 5, striking while the French were still short of the Eel River trading post and a mere three miles from his own home village.

The first man to die that morning was Antoine Rembault, a French soldier posted to watch for danger on La Balme's behalf. The moment he cried out to warn his comrades of the approaching Miami, Little Turtle brought a tomahawk down on his skull with such force that the weapon lodged itself in Rembault's brain. La Balme's party tried to dig in along the riverbank, but they managed only a single volley before being swamped entirely. What followed was a slaughter with almost no resistance offered back; only a handful of men slipped away alive. Witnesses later described French soldiers pleading for mercy even as Little Turtle's warriors scalped them while they still breathed.

La Balme himself did not survive the encounter, and the clash would come to be remembered as La Balme's Defeat. Little Turtle made a point of sparing a cluster of French officers, taking them prisoner rather than killing them outright. Of these captives, three were burned alive, and a fourth was mutilated, his hands and feet severed before his face was crushed with a tomahawk blow that ended his life. The four who remained were released, meant to serve as a grim message to other French forces in the region. When allied French scouts tried to approach the site days afterward, they found their way barred by the severed heads of French soldiers mounted on pikes, a sight that sent them retreating without further investigation.

The scene of this violence lies near what is today Columbia City, within Whitley County, Indiana. In a separate and later action tied to La Balme's earlier command, Miami warriors also overcame a small detachment at Petit Fort, Indiana, on December 5, 1780.

Aftermath

This engagement proved a launching point for Little Turtle, whose conduct here built him a name that carried into a triumphant run as a war leader during the Northwest Indian War. Almost eleven years afterward, on nearly the same date, he commanded an assault that stands among the most severe losses the U.S. Army has ever suffered.

La Balme's campaign, despite ending in ruin, rattled British officials more than the outcome alone might suggest. In response, Major de Peyster sent a company of Butler's Rangers to guard Kekionga. Among the Miami, there had been those inclined toward the American cause or hoping to stay out of the conflict altogether, but the assault on their village turned that sentiment to fury, and they instead threw their support behind the British. British authority over Fort Detroit persisted until the Jay Treaty went into effect in 1796. The fort would change hands once more during the War of 1812, falling to British forces before being handed back once that conflict ended.

Writing in his journal on November 13, Major Arent DePeyster, who held command of Detroit's garrison, described the episode this way: a body of Canadians from Illinois and Post Vincennes had reached Kekionga roughly ten days prior, entered the settlement, seized the horses, slaughtered the cattle, and ransacked a trading post he had permitted for the benefit of the Indians there. Soon afterward the Miami gathered and struck back at the Canadians, who were under the command of a French colonel. Though five of their own fell under the enemy's fire, the Miami showed a determination beyond what DePeyster expected of "savages," driving off their attackers, killing thirty of them, and capturing La Balme along with his documents. DePeyster noted he anticipated the colonel's arrival at any moment.

From St. Louis, the Spanish governor Francisco Cruzat offered his own reaction, expressing regret over what had befallen La Balme and suggesting that the man had rashly pursued a venture demanding far greater time, resources, and more favorable conditions than he had allowed himself.