Old Tobacco was the English name given to a Piankeshaw

Piankeshaw

The Piankeshaw Indians were Native Americans, and members of the Miami Indians who lived apart from the rest of the Miami nation. They lived in an area that now includes western Indiana and Ohio, and were closely allied with the Wea Indians...

 chief who lived near Post Vincennes

Vincennes, Indiana

Vincennes is a city in and the county seat of Knox County, Indiana, United States. It is located on the Wabash River in the southwestern part of the state. The population was 18,701 at the 2000 census...

 during the American Revolution

American Revolution

The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...

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Old Tobacco may have been the father of an influential chief known as Young Tobacco

Young Tobacco

Young Tobacco was the English name given to a Piankeshaw chief who lived near Post Vincennes during the American Revolution. His influence seems to have extended beyond his own village to all those along the Wabash River....

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When Captain Leonard Helm

Leonard Helm

Leonard Helm was an early pioneer of Kentucky, and a Virginia officer during the American Revolutionary War. Born around 1720 probably in Fauquier County, Virginia, he died in poverty while fighting Native American allies of British troops during one of the last engagements of the Revolutionary...

 came to Vincennes representing Colonel George Rogers Clark

George Rogers Clark

George Rogers Clark was a soldier from Virginia and the highest ranking American military officer on the northwestern frontier during the American Revolutionary War. He served as leader of the Kentucky militia throughout much of the war...

, he imitated Clark's presentation in Cahokia

Cahokia

Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site is the area of an ancient indigenous city located in the American Bottom floodplain, between East Saint Louis and Collinsville in south-western Illinois, across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, Missouri. The site included 120 human-built earthwork mounds...

 by presenting two belts for the Piankeshaw to choose from: a red belt representing war and a green one representing peace. Old Tobacco was upset with the presentation of good and evil together, and he kicked the belts from Helm's hands.

At some point, Old Tobacco sold land farther north on the Wabash River

Wabash River

The Wabash River is a river in the Midwestern United States that flows southwest from northwest Ohio near Fort Recovery across northern Indiana to southern Illinois, where it forms the Illinois-Indiana border before draining into the Ohio River, of which it is the largest northern tributary...

, where Wea

Wea

The Wea were a Miami-Illinois-speaking tribe originally located in western Indiana, closely related to the Miami. The name Wea is used today as the a shortened version of their many recorded names...

 villages were located. When Lt-Governor Henry Hamilton led an expedition to Vincennes in 1778, he received several complaints from native villages about Old Tobacco.

Other natives informed Hamilton that both Old Tobacco and Young Tobacco favored the Americans against the British. If Old Tobacco committed any acts of resistance to the British crown, Hamilton did not record it in his journal.

External links

• Indiana State Library offers online transcriptions of Hamilton's Journal.