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Miami leader and trader · Palaanswa
On the record
Francis Godfroy — Palaanswa — was born about 1788 near Kekionga, the son of a French trader and a Miami woman, and grew into one of the Miami leaders of the counterattack at the Battle of the Mississinewa on 17–18 December 1812. After the war he traded in partnership with Richardville and in 1823 built a two-story trading post, called Mount Pleasant, at the mouth of the Mississinewa River. As a treaty broker at the councils of 1826, 1834, and 1838 he worked the same strategy as Richardville, stalling rapid cession and removal and winning larger payments: his own treaty grants totaled seventeen sections (10,880 acres) and $17,612. He was elected war chief in 1830, by then a largely honorary dignity. Contemporary descriptions make him over six feet tall and about 350 pounds. He died 1 May 1840 at Mount Pleasant; his family — twenty-eight people — was exempted from the 1846 removal, and the Francis Godfroy Cemetery near his home was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. His reserve became a refuge for Miami families who returned from Kansas after the removal.
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- § 06 — people of the record
Sources: Myaamia Center, Miami University (teachmyaamiahistory.org); Wikipedia, "Francis Godfroy"; Anson, The Miami Indians.