A HARMAR SESQUICENTENNIAL SYMPOSIUM
By Louis A. WARREN
The program this evening has been
arranged in the form
of a symposium in memory of the 150th
anniversary of General
Joseph Harmar's expedition against the
Miami Indians here at
Fort Wayne in 1790.
We are pleased indeed to have three able
speakers who can
speak with authority on the various
phases of the expedition.
You will observe on your program that
the subjects to be dis-
cussed will approach the general subject
from different points
of view: "Captain Thomas Morris, a
Forerunner of Harmar"
by Dr. Howard H. Peckham, William L.
Clements Library, Ann
Arbor; "The Indians Who Opposed
Harmar" by President Otho
Winger, Manchester College; "The
Harmar Expedition of 1790"
(Illustrated), by Dr. Randolph G. Adams,
director, William L.
Clements Library, Ann Arbor.
The symposium is not just as we had
planned it, and we
are disappointed that one phase of the
Harmar story will have
to be omitted, although the Program
Committee made an earnest
attempt to complete the symposium as
originally outlined.
We do not have with us a prominent
Kentucky historian
whom we had hoped would speak on behalf
of the Kentucky
settlers who were primarily responsible
for the Harmar expedi-
tion. Rather than allow this phase of
the story to be entirely
overlooked, it seems obligatory for me
to make some very brief
references to the Indian massacres in
Kentucky and the reaction
toward these massacres which found
expression in the expedition
against the Indians by General Joseph
Harmar.
The Miami Indians, or the Indians of the
upper Wabash
as they were often called, were the most
aggressive tribe which
confronted the pioneers moving into
Kentucky, and they were
continually sending out marauding bands
which kept the Ken-
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