Glorious Gate

[ChiefObie]

The primary waterway between Lake Erie and the Mississippi River is through what has been called the “Glorious Gate.” The Maumee-Wabash sluiceway connected the most direct waterways from Quebec and Montreal to French settlements in the lower Wabash, Illinois and Mississippi areas. This route opened up new areas, rich in game, and being further south the route was more temperate than the four or five portages farther north in Canada and Wisconsin. Except for a nine mile portage at present day Fort Wayne, travelers, explorers, trappers, tradesmen and armies could traverse the entire distance by water. The portage was a “toll road” defended by the Miami Indians. Along present day Indiana’s southern border is another great waterway, the Ohio River. For about 200 years, these water routes were militarily and economically very strategic. During the French and Indian War, Pontiac’s Rebellion, American Revolution, Northwest Indian War and War of 1812, Indiana was continually contested by French, British, Colonial, Native and to a lesser degree, Spanish forces.