Clark County, Ohio

History and Genealogy



The Shawnee Indians


From The History of Clark County, Ohio
Chicago: W.H. Beers & Co., 1881 - Page 223


In 1669 we find La Salle who was at that time among the Iroquois at the head of Lake Ontario, projecting a voyage of discovery down hte Ohio, acknowledging the welcome present from the Iroquois of a Shawanee prisoner, who told him that the Ohio could be reached in six weeks, and that he would guide him to it. This would indicate that the Shawnees or a portion of them, at that date, were familiar with the Ohio country and probably residents of it.

Marquette, who was at La Pointe on Lake Superior in 1670, writes that the Illinois have given him information of a nation called "Chaouanous" living thirty days' journey to the southeast of their country.

In the Jesuit relations of 1671-72, the name of "Chaouanong" appears as another name for "Ontouagannha," which is said in the relation of 1661-62 to mean "where they do not know how to speak," but their location is not given. De l'Isle's map of 1700, however, places the "Ontouagannha" on the headwaters of the Santee and Great Pedee Rivers in South Carolina, and the same location is marked on Senex's map of ten years later as occupied by the villages of "Chaouanous."

In 1672, Father Marquette in passing down the Mississippi River remarks upon reaching the mouth of the Ohio, that "This river comes from the country on the east inhabited by the people called Chaouanons, in such numbers that they reckon as many as twenty-three villages in one district, and fifteen in another, lying quite near each other; they are by no means war-like, and are the people the Iropuois go far to seek in order to wage an unprovoked war upon them."

In 1680, as related by Father Membre in his account of the adventures of La Salle's party at Fort Crevecoeur, the "Illinois" who were allies of the "Chaouanous," were warned by one of the latter tribe who was returning home from a trip to the "Illinois" country, but turned back to advise them of the discovery of an Iroquois army who had already entered their territory. During the same year a "Chaouenou" chief who had 150 warriors and lived on a great river emptying into the Ohio, sent to La Salle to form an alliance.

On the map accompanying Marquette's journal published in 1681, the "Chaouanous" are placed on the Ohio River near the Mississippi, while on his original manuscript map — a fac-simile of which will be found in French's Historical Collections of Louisiana — they are located in a blank, unexplored region, a long distance to the east of the Mississippi, probably meant to be in the neighborhood of the Ohio River, though that river is not laid down upon the map, and its course was not definitely known to Marquette.

In 1682, M. De La Salle, after exploring the Mississippi River to the gulf, formally took possession of the country from the mouth of the river to the Ohio, on the eastern side with the consent of the "Chaouanous," "Chichachas" and other people dwelling therein.

At page 502 of the third volume of Margry it is recorded that "Joutel, the companion of La Salle, in his last voyage says, in speadking of the Shawanoes in Illinois: They have been there only since they were drawn thither by M. de La Salle; formerly they lived on the borders of Virginia and the English colonies.

Father Gravier led an expedition down the Mississippi to its mouth in the year 1700. He speaks of the Ohio River as having three branches; one coming from the northeast called the St. Joseph, or Ouabachie; the second from the country of the Iroquois called the Ohio; the third on which the "Chaouanoua" live, comes from the south southwest. The latter was evidently the Tennessee.

On De l'Isles' map of 1700 previously alluded to, the "Outonigauha" are placed on the head-waters of the great rivers of South Carolina, and the "Chiononons" on the Tennessee River near its mouth. It appears however, from the report of an investigating committee of the Pennsylvania Assembly, made in 1755, that at least a portion of this band of the Shawnees or "Outonigauha" living in South Carolina, who had been made uneasy by their neighbors, came with about sixty families to Conestoga about the year 1698, by leave of the Susquehanna Indians who then lived there. A few of the band had about four years previously, at the solicitation of the "Minsis" been allowed to settle on the Delaware River among the latter. Other straggling parties continued from time to time for a number of years, to join their brethren in Pennsylvania, until they finally became among the most numerous and powerful tribes in the States.

In 1700, William Penn visited the chiefs of the band at Conestoga, and in the same year the Council of Maryland resolved, "that the friendship of the Susquehannock and Shawnee Indians be secured by making a treaty with them, they seeming to be of considerable moment and not to be slighted."

The map of North America by John Senex in 1710, indicates villages of "Chaouanous" on the head-waters of South Carolina, but apparently places the main body along the upper waters of Tennessee River, a short distance west of the Appalachian Mountains. This would make them very close neighbors of the Cherokees and probably places them too high up the river. Ten years later (1720) a map of the north parts of America, by H. Moll, does not indicate the presence of any "Chaouanous" on the Tennessee River, but shows their former territory to be occupied by the "Charakeys." This corresponds with the statement in Ramsey's Annals of Tennessee, page 45, that M. Charleville, a French trader near New Orleans, came among the Shawnees, then (1714) inhabiting the country upon the Cumberland River and traded with them, and that about this period the Cherokees and Chickasaws expelled them from their numerous villages upon the lower Cumberland (there denominated the Sault) River, the designation of "Savannah Old Settlement," indicating the probable abandonment at least several years previously of the last Shawnee village in the Cumberland and Tennessee Valleys, in their gradual withdrawal to the north side of the Ohio River. As late as 1764, however, according to Ramsey, a straggling band of them moved from Green River in Kentucky, where they had been residing (though as I surmise, only temporarily), to the Wabash country.

It seems also, that at some period anterior to 1740, a band of "Chaouanous," wanderers in all likelihood from the Cumberland and Tennessee country, had lived for a long time within two leagues from the fort at Mobile, Ala., for in that year M. de Bienville, the commandant assigned the place, which had been abandoned by them, to the use of some fugitive "Tænsas."

Another band, probably an offshoot from those who had wandered to South Carolina, found a home at the place now known as Oldtown, Alleghany County, Md., a few miles below the Cumberland, on the Potomac River, and, in 1738, we find by reference to Volume I, Page 63 of the Virginia State Papers, that "the king of the Shawanese living at Alleghany sends friendly messages to Gov. Gooch * * * desires peace," etc. This is likely the same band who, in 1701, concluded a treaty with William Penn at Philadelphia, and is referred to in the preamble to the treaty, as inhabiting in and about the northern parts of the River Potomac. The nucleus for the Shawnee village which long occupied the neighborhood of Winchester, Va., is likely traceable to this band.

But I have already far exceeded the proper limts of such an article, and am yet more than a century behind in my story. I can give but the merest outline of their subsequent history. I shall be unable to consider and discuss the probabilities of their identity with the "Savannah" Indians and their former residence on the Savannah River in Georgia; the story of their chief, Black Hoof, relative to their home on the Suwanee River in Florida; their asserted consanguinity with the Sacs and Foxes, or any other of the numerous suggestions and theories concerning their origin and primal abode.

Between the date of the ejection of the western portion of the Shawnees from the valleys of the Cumberland and the Tennessee Rivers, and the middle of the eighteenth century, their appearance in history is rare. They were doubtless scattered in several bands along the Ohio River and in the interior of what is now the States of Ohio and Indiana. The oldest map on which I have noticed the location of the Shawnees within the limits of Ohio, is that of Emanuel Bowen, published in London in 1752, which places a "village d'Chouanon" on the north side of the Ohio River about midway between the mouths of the Kanawha and Scioto.

That branch of the tribe living in Pennsylvania had in the meantime become decidedly the most numerous and important portion of the Shawnee people.

Their history is a part of that of the State in which they lived, and need not here be recited. It is sufficient to state the fact that owing to the aggressiveness and encroachments of the increasing white population, they were gradually crowded from their lands and homes until about the year 1750, when they began their migrations to the west of the Ohio River, and within a few years had united with their western brethren and were quite numerous in the Muskingum and Scioto Valleys. They sided actively with the French in the war of 1755; aided materially in the defeat of Braddock and were a terror to the border settlements of Pennsylvania and Virginia.

In 1756, an expedition under Maj. Lewis, against their upper town on the Ohio River, three miles above the mouth of the Kanawha, was a failure. In 1764, Col. Boquet's expedition to the Muskingum resulted in securing temporary peace with them. In 1774, Col. McDonald destroyed their town of Wappatomica, a few miles above Zanesville.

In the same year they received a severe blow in the defeat at Point Pleasant. In 1779, Col. Bowman's expedition destroyed the Shawnee village of Chillicothe on the Little Miami River, three miles north of Xenia.

In 1780, Gen. George Rogers Clark burnt the Piqua town on Mad River, the centennial anniversary of which is responsible for this lengthy disquisition. In 1782, Gen. Clark repeated his expedition and destroyed the Upper and Lower Piqua towns on the Great Miami within the present limits of Miami County. In 1786, Col. Logan destroyed the Mack-a-cheek towns in Logan County.

In 1790, the Shawnees suffered from the expedition of Gen. Harmar, but had a share with the Miamis in his final defeat.

In 1791, they glutted their vengeance at the cruel defeat of St. Clair, and, in 1794, were among those who were made to feel the power of the Federal troops at Fallen Timbers, under Gen. Wayne, which brought the peace of 1795.

In the meantime, the Shawnees had been parties to a treaty of peace with the United States in 1786, at the mouth of the Great Miami, but it failed of its object.

As the result of Wayne's victory, came the treaty of Greenville in 1795, participated in by the Shawnees and eleven other tribes, whereby all the territory south and east of a line beginning at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River; thence up the same to the portage leading to the Tuscarawas River; down the Tuscarawas to the crossing above Fort Laurens; thence westerly to Lorain's store on the Great Miami; thence to Fort Recovery (the place of St. Clair's defeat), and thence southwesterly to the Ohio River, opposite the mouth of the Kentucky River, was ceded to the United States. This tract comprised about two-thirds of the area of Ohio and a portion of Indiana.

July 4, 1805, the Shawnees were again parties to a treaty wherein was ceded to the United States a large tract of country lying north and west of the Greenville treaty line, and east of a north-and-south line 120 miles west of the Pennsylvania boundary.

By treaty of November 25, 1808, in conjunction with other tribes, they ceded the right of way for two roads; one running from Fort Meigs, on the Maumee, to the Western Reserve, and the other from Fremont, south to the Greenville treaty line.

Prior to the war of 1812, the Shawnees had become hostile to the United States. The great Tecumseh and his scheming brother, the Prophet, with their allies, were defeated by Harrison at Tippecanoe in 1811, and the Indian alliance was finally broken and dissolved, by the death, in 1813, of Tecumseh, at the battle of the Thames.

By the treaty of 1817, the Wyandots, Pottawatomies and other tribes made a cession to the United States (in which the Shawnees concurred) of almost the entire Indian territory within the present limits of Ohio.

Out of this cession the United States in turn granted them sundry small reservations upon which to live. Among these reservations there were for the Shawnees a tract ten miles square, with Wapakoneta as the center; a tract adjoining the above of twenty-five square miles on Hog Creek, as well as a tract of forty-eight square miles surrounding Lewistown for the mixed Senecas and Shawnees. The treaty of 1818 added twenty square miles to the reserve at Wapakoneta, and fourteen square miles to the one at Lewistown.

By the treaty of July 20, 1831, the Lewistown Reserve was ceded to the United States and those at Wapakoneta and Hog Creek were ceded on the 8th of the succeeding month, by which transaction the last vestige of Shawnee right or claims to lands in Ohio became extinguished, and they agreed to move west of the Mississippi River.

With this end in view a tract of 60,000 acres of land was granted to the Lewistown band of mixed Senecas and Shawnees, which was subsequently selected in the northeast corner of Indian Territory, to which they removed, and where, with some subsequent modifications of boundaries, they now reside.

It is necessary here to state that a band of Shwnees some years prior to 1793, becoming dissatisfied with the encroachments of the white settlers, removed west of the Mississippi River, and in that year were, in connection with certain Delawares who accompanied them, granted a tract of land by Baron de Carondelet, the French Governor. The Delawares having in 1815 abandoned this region, the Shawnees, in 1825, ceded the land to the United States and accepted in lieu thereof for the accomodation of themselves and such of their brethren as should remove from Ohio, a tract in the eastern part of the present State of Kansas, 100x25 miles in extent, and removed thereto.

By the treaty of 1854, the Kansas Shawnees ceded to the United States all of their reservation but 200,000 acres, within which, allotments of land in severalty were made to the individiuals of the tribe, who from time to time with the consent of the Secretary of the Interior sold the same, and under the provisions of an agreement entered into in 1869 with the Cherokees, they removed to the country of the latter and merged their tribal existence with them.

A number of the Kansas Shawnees who, just prior to and during the late rebellion, wandered off to Texas and Mexico, returned after the war and were provided with a home in the Indian Territory alongside of the Pottawatomies, and are known as "Absentee Shawnees." These, together with those confederated with the Senecas in the northeastern part of Indian Territory, are all of the once numerous and powerful "Massaowmekes" now left to maintain the tribal name of "Shawnee."

C. C. Royce



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