This paper presents the history of traders in northern Indiana and
their role in United States Indian policies on the early frontier. The
Miami and Potawatomi nations who traded at Fort Wayne relied on these merchants
by 1826 for their livelihood through purchasing their goods on credit.
The traders used the influence they thus gained to control Indian treaties,
land cessions, and removal. These frontier entrepreneurs soon expected,
and even demanded, the expenditures of national monies in their region
until they helped affect the final Miami removal in 1846. The critical
role this civilian population had in shaping relations between the Native
Americans and the young Republic exemplifies the significant connection
between the United States federal government and its citizens on its early
frontier.