However, it must be remembered that there was a factor, especially important at Fort Wayne, which made the removal of the Indians very desirable. The craze for internal improvements had struck throughout the West in the eighteen-twenties. In Indiana the most-discussed and most-promising project was the proposed Wabash and Erie Canal, for which the portage at Fort Wayne was the focal point. Many of these traders at Fort Wayne had through their astuteness in business with the Indians acquired valuable property along the route of the proposed canal. Nevertheless, the Indians still held the territory north of the Wabash and Maumee, and their removal was necessary for the work to be able to proceed. In the final analysis, it became a question of which interest was more powerful, the Indian traders and fur companies or the larger group of land speculators, town-site promoters, merchants, and settlers of the Wabash and Maumee valleys. It was inevitable that the latter group should win out, but at Fort Wayne the struggle was a bitter one. Here we see some of the traders, such as Hanna, placed in the paradoxical position of agitating for the removal of the Indians, while at the same time eager to retain their trade. Others, in particular the Ewings, opposed their removal. Both groups had acquired valuable property along the proposed canal line, but those who sided with the Ewings had more money invested in their trading operations with the Indians and usually dealt in the fur trade also.[2] Somewhere between both groups stood John Tipton, Indian agent. Tipton never doubted that Indiana was destined to be a white man’s country. He thoroughly agreed with the popular demand for internal improvements and for the removal of the Indians. He himself was one of the major holders of choice land, which he had acquired from the Indians and which he hoped to develop. But as Indian agent he had to account for his acts to the Washington officials as well as to opinion in Indiana. Moreover, he was not callous to the sorry plight of the once powerful Miami and Potawatomie, whose contact with the white traders had reduced them to pitiful tribes. Then, too, Tipton could not openly flaunt the powerful traders, who wanted the Indians to remain. Tipton’s position as Indian agent was recognized as one of the best political appointments in Indiana. His hold on his position depended on his ability to keep in the good graces of the Indiana delegation in Congress, and this in turn necessitated making as few enemies as possible. Moreover, Tipton realized that the traders could prevent the negotiation of any treaty and the cession of land by the Indians by reason of their powerful influence with the chiefs. Failure to secure these cessions periodically would ruin any Indian agent.