prowess in battle. Although he was war chief of the leading division of the tribe, Little Turtle was never the head chief of the Miami, which was a hereditary position. La Balme's Defeat Little Turtle earned this designation during the American Revolutionary War in action against a French force allied with the American patriots, led by French military adventurer Augustin de La Balme. After raising a force of forty-to-fifty men at Vincennes, Indiana and a similar number along the Kaskaskia–Cahokia Trail, in October 1780 La Balme plundered Miamitown at Kekionga (present-day Fort Wayne), as part of his campaign to attack the British in Detroit. When La Balme stopped to camp along the Eel River just three miles south of Little Turtle's village, Little Turtle received permission to lead an attack. On November 5, 1780, Little Turtle attacked La Balme, killing La Balme and forty of his men, taking the rest prisoner. The battle was a complete rout, and Little Turtle's army suffered almost no casualties. Many French soldiers were heard begging to surrender while they were scalped alive. Several French officers were taken alive, three of whom were burnt at the stake, one of whom had his hands and feet cut off before being killed by having his face struck with a tomahawk, and four of whom were let go as a warning to the rest of the French. When French forces allied to the Americans attempted to scout out the location a few days later, they saw that the path was blocked by the heads of several French soldiers impaled on pikes. After seeing this, they turned back. These events occurred in and around what is today Columbia City, Indiana in Whitley County, Indiana. The victory brought an end to the campaign and established Little Turtle's reputation as a war leader. Through the 1780s, Little Turtle continued to lead raids against colonial American settlements in Kentucky, fighting on the side of the British. However, the Miami bands did not uniformly support the British. The Piankashaw Miami supported the rebel Americans, while the Wea Miami vacillated between the British and Americans. Little Turtle's War Under the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1783), which ended the American Revolutionary War, the British abandoned their native allies and ceded the land between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River to the U.S. government. (The United States considered this region to be theirs