Chief Little Turtle, known to his people as Meshekinnoquah, was one of the most feared and respected leaders of the frontier wars of the 1780s and 1790s when Fort Wayne was born. Thought to have been born in 1752 in a village along the Eel River a few miles northeast of Columbia City, he rose to prominence as a warrior in 1780. As war chief of the Miami nation, he led the defeat of the united States irregulars of Colonel LaBalme after their attack on the Miami town of Kekionga, present-day Fort Wayne. In 1790, when President Washington sent the U.S. Army under General Josiah Harmar to destroy the Indian towns at the Three Rivers, he assembled warriors from the region and defeated Harmar's troops at the Battle of Kekionga on October 22, 1790. In 1791, at the present-day site of Fort Recovery, Ohio, Indians under his leadership again defeated U.S. Army troops, this time under territorial governor General Arthur St. Clair, in the Army's worst defeat ever at the hands of native peoples. When General Anthony Wayne defeated the Indians at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794, Little Turtle fought with the Indian confederacy but not as its leader. After his military career, he became a diplomat for his people, serving as a principal negotiator at the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, making four trips to the nation's capital, and meeting Presidents George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson twice. He also sought help from the Society of Friends, or Quakers, to bring new farming methods to the Indians and sought federal assistance to end the illegal liquor traffic. He died on July 14, 1812, and was buried with full U.S. military honors in the Miami burial grounds.