Charles Beaubien (8 August 1748 at

Fort Detroit Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit or Fort Detroit (1701–1796) was a fort established on the north bank of the Detroit River by the French officer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac and the Italian Alphonse de Tonty in 1701. In the 18th century, Fre ...

– 4 July 1794 at Fort Wayne) was a French Canadian trader in the 18th century who became British Agent to the Miami Nation.

Biography

Charles Jean Baptiste Cuillerier dit Beaubien was the son of Jean Baptiste Cuillerier dit Beaubien and Marie Anne Lootman dit Barrois. Beaubien was born in

, now

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

. He married Tacumwah, the mother of

Chief Jean Baptiste de Richardville Jean Baptiste de Richardville ( 1761 – 13 August 1841), also known as or in the Miami-Illinois language (meaning 'Wildcat' or ' Lynx') or John Richardville in English, was the last 'civil chief' of the Miami people. He began his career in t ...

, after a bitter divorce in 1774 from her husband, Antoine Joseph Drouet de la Richerville, a trade rival. The cause of the divorce was control of a profitable 8-mile portage between the Maumee and Wabash Rivers that connected the Great Lakes and Canada to the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it fl ...

. The portage belonged to Tacumwah's family, but had recently been taken over by the brothers Alexander and Francis Maisonville, whom Richerville supported. When the arguments turned to physical abuse, Tacumwah moved in with Beaubien, and he sided with her family in the court proceedings at

. Tacumwah not only retained all her property from the divorce, but British oversight of the portage was taken from the Maisonville brothers and given to Beaubien. Charles Beaubien and Tacumwah had one daughter, Josetta Beaubien Roubidoux, but her descendants were struck from the tribal roll in 1867. Beaubien was appointed British Agent to the

Miami tribe The Miami ( Miami-Illinois: ''Myaamiaki'') are a Native American nation originally speaking one of the Algonquian languages. Among the peoples known as the Great Lakes tribes, they occupied territory that is now identified as North-central Indi ...

of Native Americans, and he seems to have been loyal both to the Miami and to the British. He accompanied or led raids against settlements on the

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

and Wabash rivers, and he supplied weapons to Indians allies. In one case, the Miami refused to go on a raid to Kentucky, so Beaubien recruited

Shawnee The Shawnee are an Algonquian-speaking indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. In the 17th century they lived in Pennsylvania, and in the 18th century they were in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, with some bands in Kentucky a ...

under

Chief Blackfish Blackfish (c. 1729–1779) ( sjw, Cot-ta-wa-ma-go or ), was a Native American leader, war chief of the Chillicothe band of the Shawnee tribe. Biography Little is known about him, since he only appears in written historical records during the la ...

, who then captured

Daniel Boone Daniel Boone (September 26, 1820) was an American pioneer and frontiersman whose exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. He became famous for his exploration and settlement of Kentucky, which was then beyond the we ...

in the

Siege of Boonesborough } The siege of Boonesborough was a military engagement which took place in September 1778 during the American Revolutionary War. On September 7, Shawnee chief Blackfish, who was allied to the British, led an attack on the Kentucky settlement of ...

in 1778. Beaubien preceded Lt-Governor Henry Hamilton as a scout for the British trek to recapture

Vincennes Vincennes (, ) is a commune in the Val-de-Marne department in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. It is next to but does not include the Château de Vincennes and Bois de Vincennes, which are attache ...

in 1778. Nevertheless, there is some evidence that Beaubien, while on a trip to

Kaskaskia The Kaskaskia were one of the indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands. They were one of about a dozen cognate tribes that made up the Illiniwek Confederation, also called the Illinois Confederation. Their longstanding homeland was in ...

with the Wea, warned George Rogers Clark of an Ottawa plot to kill him. Clark, after his capture of Vincennes, told Hamilton that Beaubien had provided the Americans with information against the British. Whatever his role with Clark, Beaubien retained his British office and was disliked by the Canadien residents and the new American settlers. When

La Balme La Balme (; frp, La Borma) is a commune in the Savoie department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in south-eastern France. People * Laurent Clerc See also *Communes of the Savoie department The following is a list of the 273 communes of ...

came to the area in 1780 with a plot to take

, he promised to arrest Beaubien and take him to Fort Pitt for trial. When La Balme arrived in

Kekionga Kekionga (meaning "blackberry bush"), also known as KiskakonCharles R. Poinsatte, ''Fort Wayne During the Canal Era 1828-1855,'' Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Bureau, 1969, p. 1 or Pacan's Village, was the capital of the Miami tribe. It was ...

, however, Beaubien and his family were not there, so the band of Canadien residents raided his storehouses for 12 days, long enough for

Little Turtle Little Turtle ( mia, Mihšihkinaahkwa) (1747 July 14, 1812) was a Sagamore (chief) of the Miami people, who became one of the most famous Native American military leaders. Historian Wiley Sword calls him "perhaps the most capable Indian leader ...

to mount a defense that killed nearly every man and restored all stolen goods to Beaubien. Arent De Peyster, commander at Fort Detroit, concluded that the Miami fought La Balme's band of Canadien residents not because of their loyalty to the British, but because of their loyalty to Beaubien.Birzer, p. 9 The British thereafter trusted Beaubien, and when all other traders were ordered to Fort Detroit, he was allowed to stay at Kekionga, reinforced with British rangers. Little is known about Beaubien after the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...

. He was not among the Miami when they were forced to surrender to

Anthony Wayne Anthony Wayne (January 1, 1745 – December 15, 1796) was an American soldier, officer, statesman, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He adopted a military career at the outset of the American Revolutionary War, where his mil ...

in 1795. Beaubien is believed to have died near

Fort Wayne, Indiana Fort Wayne is a city in and the county seat of Allen County, Indiana, United States. Located in northeastern Indiana, the city is west of the Ohio border and south of the Michigan border. The city's population was 263,886 as of the 2020 Censu ...

References

Sources

*Anson, Bert. ''The Miami Indians.'' ©2000. University of Oklahoma Press. . *Birzer, Bradley J
French Imperial remnants on the middle ground: The strange case of August de la Balme and Charles Beaubien
''Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society'', Summer 2000. * Carter, Harvey Lewis. ''The Life and Times of Little Turtle: First Sagamore of the Wabash.'' ©1987, Urbana: University of Illinois Press. . * Magnin, Frédéric. ''Mottin de la Balme, cavalier des deux mondes et de la liberté.'' Paris: L'Harmattan, 2005. . {{DEFAULTSORT:Beaubien, Charles French Canadians in the American Revolution Indiana in the American Revolution People from British Detroit People from Fort Wayne, Indiana Miami tribe 1748 births 1794 deaths