What is the history of Fort Wayne, Indiana?
See also Forts of Fort Wayne, Indiana The Miami tribeMiami nation established the first settlement at the Maumee, St. Joseph and St. Mary’s Rivers in the mid 17th Century. Called Kekionga, the village was the traditional capital of the Miami nation and related Algonquian tribes. Historians believe that around 1676, FranceFrench priests and missionaries visited the Miami on their way back from a mission at Lake Michigan. In 1680, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle sent a letter to the Governor-General of Canada stating he also stopped there. In the 1680s French traders established a post at the location because it was the main portage between the Great Lakes (North America)Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. The Maumee River is approximately ten miles away from the Little River branch of the Wabash River, which flows, in turn, into the Ohio River. In 1696, Comte de Frontenac appointed Jean Baptiste Bissot, Sieur de Vincennes as commander of the French outpost in Miami country.
