Born 1752 (Whitley County, Indiana)

Died July 14, 1812 (Fort Wayne, Indiana)

Miami tribal leader

Little Turtle was a distinguished war chief of the Miami tribe of Native Americans in the Great Lakes region in the late eighteenth century. He was one of the most successful woodland military commanders of his time and led an intertribal force to victory against two American frontier armies in 1790 and 1791. The battle known as St. Clair's Defeat marked the largest defeat of a U.S. Army force during a single battle in all of the U.S.–Native American wars. The loss exceeded any inflicted on the United States by the British in a single battle during the American Revolution (1775–83).

Little Turtle enjoyed this leading role in Native American resistance against American settlement of tribal lands until the superior forces of General Anthony Wayne (1745–1796; see entry in volume 2) triumphed in the Battle of...