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<span class=prefix>Chief</span> Jean Babtiste “Pinšiwa” Richardville

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Chief Jean Babtiste “Pinšiwa” Richardville

Birth
Death
13 Aug 1841 (aged 79–80)
Fort Wayne, Allen County, Indiana, USA
Burial
Fort Wayne, Allen County, Indiana, USA Add to Map
Plot
Sect B Lot #55-56
Memorial ID
View Source
Monument for Jean B Richardville, Chief of the Miami Tribe of Indiana.

Pinšiwa in Miami (meaning Wildcat, also spelled Peshewa)

His original burial site was at the corner of the current Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Fort Wayne, Indiana. Sources do not agree whether his body was left in place during the construction of the cathedral or whether it was moved with the other burials in the original Catholic cemetery (next to the cathedral site) to the second Catholice Cemetery and again when that cemetery was closed and burials were moved to the current Catholic Cemetery in the 1870s.

Jean Baptiste de Richardville was born about 1761 in the Miami (Myaami) village of Kekionga (present-day Fort Wayne, Indiana), son of Tacumwah, sister of the Miami chief Pacanne, and Joseph Drouet de Richerville, a French fur trader from Quebec. The boy was well educated, and learned to speak Miami, an Algonquian language; Iroquois, French, and English. He gained his status in the tribe from his mother's people, as it had a matrilineal system. As an adult, Peshewa later refused to speak white/European languages or wear European-style clothing.
Monument for Jean B Richardville, Chief of the Miami Tribe of Indiana.

Pinšiwa in Miami (meaning Wildcat, also spelled Peshewa)

His original burial site was at the corner of the current Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Fort Wayne, Indiana. Sources do not agree whether his body was left in place during the construction of the cathedral or whether it was moved with the other burials in the original Catholic cemetery (next to the cathedral site) to the second Catholice Cemetery and again when that cemetery was closed and burials were moved to the current Catholic Cemetery in the 1870s.

Jean Baptiste de Richardville was born about 1761 in the Miami (Myaami) village of Kekionga (present-day Fort Wayne, Indiana), son of Tacumwah, sister of the Miami chief Pacanne, and Joseph Drouet de Richerville, a French fur trader from Quebec. The boy was well educated, and learned to speak Miami, an Algonquian language; Iroquois, French, and English. He gained his status in the tribe from his mother's people, as it had a matrilineal system. As an adult, Peshewa later refused to speak white/European languages or wear European-style clothing.


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