Francis Godfroy

Francis Godfroy (Palaanswa, 1788–1840) was a chief of the Miami people. He negotiated treaties with between his tribe and the United States

Francis (or François) Godfroy was born near Kiihkayonki (now Fort Wayne, Indiana) in 1788, the son of Gabriel Godfroy, a French trader, and a Miami woman. His Miami name, Palaanswa, was the Miami approximation of the name François. The Miamis were involved in comparatively few frontier grievances in the period leading up to the War of 1812, but their resistance to further land cessions in Indiana Territory after 1809 led to American attacks on their villages along the lower Mississinewa River near today's Peru, Indiana. Francis Godfroy was one of the leaders in a Miami counterattack on an American army led by Lieutenant Colonel John Campbell in the Battle of the Mississinewa on December 17-18, 1812.

After the War of 1812, Godfroy turned increasingly to trade, in partnership with the Miamis' principal chief, Jean Baptiste Richardville. In 1823 he had a two-story trading post built at the mouth of the Mississinewa, which was kept well stocked with merchandise. Until 1827 he alternated residences between the post, known as Mount Pleasant, and his treaty reserve in today's Blackford County, Indiana. As a mixed-blood trader well aware of the value of land and merchandise, he became influential with Richardville in brokering the sale of tribal land at treaty councils held in 1826, 1834 at the Treaty at the Forks of the Wabash, and 1838. From 1818 to 1838, Godfroy was given a total of seventeen sections of land (10,880 acres) and $17,612 in payment for services as chief and for the debts of tribespeople to his trading post, as well as a house and other gifts.

Though Godfroy was well rewarded for his services as an intermediary between the Miami tribe and American officials, he was no mere pawn of American interests. Along with Richardville, he was able to frustrate the efforts of General John Tipton, Governor Lewis Cass, and various Indian agents to bring about rapid land cessions and Miami removal. In conjunction with traders such as the Ewing brothers, Godfroy and Richardville were able to wrest much larger payments for land ceded by treaty and to postpone the Miamis' removal longer than that of most other midwestern tribes. Godfroy, Richardville, and another Miami chief named Meshingomesia were able to get exemption from removal for their families. These small family groups of Miamis became the core population of today's Indiana Miami tribe.

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