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Attached to " Baron La Hontan's Voyages and Adven- tures in North America between 1683 and 1694," is a map, upon which, near the source and mouth of the Sandusky River, are indices of " savage villages destroyed by ye Iro- quese." The latter would be the site of Sandusky, or the vicinity near the outlet of the Bay and River. Parallel with the southern shore of " Errie or Conti Lake," and apparently at an average distance of thirty miles, is a line drawn con- necting the Mississippi with Western New York, which, according to the map, "represents ye way that ye Illinese march through a vast tract of ground to make War against ye Iroquese : The same being ye Passage of ye Iroquese in their incursions upon ye other Savages, as far as the river Missisipi." Upon the Maumee River a tribe of " Errie- ronons " are put down, and in the country south of the source of the Sandusky river, "Andastognerons " are mentioned, probably remnants of the Eries and Andastes.5
the Eries, remarks, that " there can be no question, from the early accounts of the French missionaries, that they were at the head of that singular eon- federation of tribes called the Neutral Nation, which extended from the extreme west to the extreme eastern shores of Lake Erie, including the Niagara."
5) The outline of Lake Erie on La Hontan's map is curious enough. It
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
This incidental reference to detachments of the Eries and Andastes, which we presume that La Hontan here makes, confirms the belief that they were not exterminated by the war of 1655. Like the conquered Hurons, they were fugi- tives from their villages on the borders of the lake, but it is quite likely that they became the allies of the formidable Miamis or Twahtwahs, whose residence was on the Miami of the Lakes and the Miami of the Ohio. According to the French missionary authors, cited by Schoolcraft, the Iro- quois fell on the Miamis and Chictaghicks or Illinois (en- raged, we may suppose, at their friendly reception of the vanquished Indians) who were encamped together on the banks of the Maumee River in the year 1680, being twenty- five years after the final defeat of the Eries. In this attack they killed thirty and took three hundred prisoners. But the Illinois and Miamis rallied, and by a dexterous move- ment, got ahead of the retreating Iroquois, waylaid their path, and recovered their prisoners, killing many of the enemy.
The future fate of the Eries is involved in obscurity. General Lewis Cass has expressed the opinion that the Kickapoos and Shawanese are remnants of the Eries, and adds that the Canadians, to this day, term the Shawanese the Nation of the Cat or Raccoon, which is well known to be the
is made broader at the eastern extremity than elsewhere, the shore running due south from the mouth of Niagara River to the southeast corner, where is the mouth of a " Conde River "- as if the line from Buffalo to Erie was duc south. Thence at right angles, but slightly indented now and then, wc have the southern shore, without any streams until the Sandusky and Mau- mec Rivers are noted with a fair degree of accuracy, except that Sandusky Bay is not put down otherwise than as the mouth of the river. There is a liberal allowance of islands opposite, and the river itself is represented as rising at a distance of 100 miles (according to the scale given) in a circular lake of at least 15 miles in diameter.
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FATE OF THE ANCIENT ERIES.
origin of the word Erie. On the other hand, some traditions of the Catawbas of the South, render it not improbable that they are the survivors of the vanquished Eries.6
6) For further details of these traditionary tribes, see Appendix No. I.
CHAPTER II. THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF IROQUOIS CONQUEST IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY.
THE extent of Iroquois conquest in the seventeenth cen- tury was the subject of much controversy between the French and English, while Canada was under the dominion of the former. The French title, by discovery of the Lakes and the Mississippi, was sought to be overcome by a grant of sovereignty from the Five Nations. This sovereignty was claimed to result from a conquest of the entire country east of the Mississippi. Colden in 1727, and Clinton in 1811, are the prominent champions of the Iroquois pretension-the former advancing it as a matter of vital importance to the English colonies, and the latter reiterating it with the interest of an antiquarian and the pride of a New Yorker. It is interesting to observe how closely recent writers have pur- sued the authority, almost the text, of Gov. Clinton. The following extract discloses the partisan tenor of his discourse :
"The conquests of the Iroquois, previous to the discovery of America, are only known to us through the imperfect channels of tradition ; but it is well authenticated, that since that memorable era, they exterminated the nation of the Eries or Erigas, on the south side of Lake Erie, which has given a name to that Lake. They nearly extirpated the Andastes and the Chouanons ; they conquered the Hurons, and drove them and their allies, the Ottawas, among the Sioux, on the head waters of the Mississippi. They also
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DEWITT CLINTON'S DISCOURSE.
subdued the Illinois, the Miamis, the Algonkins, the Dela- wares, the Shawanese, and several tribes of the Abenagins. The Illinois fled to the westward, after being attacked by the Confederates, and did not return until a general peace ; and were permitted in 1760, by the Confed- erates, to settle in the country between the Wabash and the Scioto rivers. The banks of Lake Superior were lined with Algonkins, who sought an asylum from the Five Nations. They also harassed all the Northern Indians, as far as Hudson's Bay, and they even attacked the nations on the Missouri. When La Salle was among the Natchez, in 1683, he saw a party of that people who had been on an expedition against the Iroquois. Smith, the founder of Virginia, in an expedition up the Bay of Chesapeake, in 1608, met a war party of the Confederates then going to attack their enemies. They were at peace with the Cowetas or Creeks, but they warred against the Catawbas, the Cherokees, and almost all the Southern Indians. The two former sent deputies to Albany, where they effected a peace through the mediation of the English. In a word, the Confederates were, with a few exceptions, the conquerors and masters of all the Indian nations east of the Mississippi. *
"In consequence of their sovereignty over the other na- tions, the Confederates exercised a proprietary right in their lands. In 1742 they granted to the province of Pennsyl- vania certain lands on the west side of the Susquehannah, having formerly done so on the east side. In 1744 they released to Maryland and Virginia certain lands claimed by them in those colonies ; and they declared at this treaty, that they had conquered the several nations living on the Sus- quehannah and Potomac rivers, and on the back of the Great Mountains in Virginia. In 1754, a number of the
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
inhabitants of Connecticut purchased of them a large tract of land west of the Delaware River, and from thence spreading over the east and west branches of the Susque- hannah River. In 1768 they gave a deed to William Trent and others, for land between the Ohio and Monongahela. They claimed and sold the land on the north side of the Kentucky River."
This is a skillful statement of the grounds for the Iroquois claim, and was doubtless compiled by the learned writer from the archives of the colonies, and whatever of the diplomatic correspondence between the English and French governments had then transpired. The provincial authorities took early measures to obtain a transfer of whatever rights the New York confederates had obtained. As early as 1684, Lord Howard, governor of Virginia, held a treaty with the Six Nations, at Albany, when, at the request of Colonel Dungan, the Governor of New York, they placed themselves under the protection of the mother country. This was again done in 1701; and, upon the 14th of September, 1726, a formal deed was drawn up, and signed by the chiefs, by which their lands were conveyed to England, in trust, " to be protected and defended by his majesty to and for the use of the grantors and their heirs." 1
Without repeating the French argument in the premises, it may be mentioned as an interesting coincidence, that Gen. William H. Harrison, as recently as 1837, responded with intelligent zeal to the exaggerated narrative of Clinton, and vindicated the warlike qualities of the Western Indians, by a denial that the Miami Confederacy of Illinois and Ohio could have been conquered by the Iroquois. He cites nu-
1) Writings of James H. Perkins, Vol. II, p. 186. Pownall's Administra- tion of the Colonies, 4th Ed., London, 1768, p. 269.
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EXTENT OF IROQUOIS CONQUEST.
merous evidences that in 1700 the Miami nation was very numerous ; and, even within the memory of those living in 1837, that the Illinois tribes could bring into the field four thousand warriors. "In the year 1734," he adds, "M. de Vincennes, a captain in the French army, found them in possession of the whole of the Wabash, and their principal town occupying the place of Fort Wayne, which was actually the key of the country below. This officer was the first Frenchman who followed the route of the Miami of the Lake and the Wabash, in passing from Canada to their western settlements. Long before this period, the French must have known of the shorter and easier route, and no reason can be assigned for their never having used it, but from its being formerly the seat of war on some portion of it between the Wyandots and Iroquois. De Vincennes found the Miamis in the possession of the entire Wabash."
Briefly, Gen. Harrison admits the subjection of the Dela- wares, in Pennsylvania, the dispersion of the Hurons, Eries and Andastes, and that the Iroquois advanced as far west as Sandusky ; but denies that there is any tradition among the Miamis of their ever having been conquered by the Iro- quois. He remarks that, at the treaty of Greenville, there was no allusion to a claim, on the part of the Five Nations, to any right of property in the soil, or jurisdiction over the territory of the Miamis.2
Upon a careful review of all the evidence, we think the hypothesis of Gen. Harrison deserves to be adopted in pref- erence to that of Colden and Clinton ; and for the following reasons, in addition to those already adduced :
1. The distance from their homes to which war parties
2) Harrison's Discourse before the Ohio Historical Society. See Trans- actions, Vol. I, p. 257. 2
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
were accustomed to march, has little significance when we consider that, within the immense area eastward of the Mis- sissippi, the entire Indian population, two hundred years ago, is estimated by Bancroft at only one hundred and eighty thousand ; and that skill in eluding a foe, until the moment chosen for a blow, has always been a favorite portion of In- dian tactics.
2. So far as the Lake region is concerned, the map of La Hontan, above described, indicates that the "Illinese " were as ready to make inroads upon the "Irroquese " as the latter were to make westward incursions.
3. We have already shown that the Iroquois were repulsed by the Chippewas from the pursuit of the Hurons (a cir- cumstance unnoticed by Clinton); and Schoolcraft's narra- tive of the successful reprisal, in 1680, by the Illinois and Miamis, on the banks of the Maumee River, should not be forgotten.
4. In this connection, we should not overlook the relations of the New York Indians, and their Canadian neighbors, the French. Prior to 1663, their intercourse had been very precarious, but in that year a deputation from the Iroquois cantons, who proposed an errand of pacification to Montreal, were surprised, and most of them killed by a party of Algon- quins, allies of the French. Of course, all prospects of peace vanished, and a furious war raged along the Canadian frontier. At the first outbreak, these hostilities were most disastrous to the French; but the Canadian Governors, at the head of disciplined troops, more than retaliated on their savage enemies during the thirty years' war which followed. Courcelles, Tracy, De la Barre, and De Nonville, invaded by turns, with various success, the country of the Confede- rates; and at length, in the year 1696, the veteran Count
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EXTENT OF IROQUOIS CONQUEST.
Frontenac, who was then, for the second time, Governor of Canada, marched upon their cantons with all the force of the province.3 He burned their deserted villages, and devasta- ted their maize fields. Even the fierce courage of the Iro- quois began to quail before these repeated attacks, while the gradual growth of the colony, and the arrival of troops from France, at length convinced them that they could not destroy Canada. In 1700 a pacification was effected, and the nume- rous prisoners on both sides were allowed to return. In the year 1726, the French succeeded in erecting a permanent military post at the important pass of Niagara, within the limits of the Confederacy. On the 14th of September, in the same year, the Six Nations made the well known cession of their lands to England, in "trust to be protected and defended by his Majesty, to and for the use of the grantors and their heirs." The fact that the haughty Iroquois sub- mitted to such a measure, is a proof that their power was on the wane, and that they had ceased to occupy the arrogant position of conquering tribes.
It will be remembered that the conquest of the Eries was in 1655, only eight years before the commencement of the war between the French and the Iroquois ; and the resistance of the Andastes was prolonged until 1672, seven years after the massacre of the Indian deputation to Montreal. Our inference is, that before the removal of the Eries and Andas- tes from the path to the Mississippi, Iroquois excursions against the Miamis and Illinois were of course impracticable ; and afterwards, all the energies of the New York tribes were summoned to resist the French, by whom their country was frequently invaded and their villages destroyed. It is evident, therefore, that they could have no leisure or force
3) Parkman's Pontiac, 61, 63.
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
for western expeditions while these desperate hostilities were in progress at home ; and after the peace of 1700, and es- pecially after the French occupation of Niagara, in 1726, the denizens of Ohio had no ground to apprehend any dis- turbance in their possession.
Upon the whole, we are willing to compromise between the positions respectively assumed by Clinton and Harrison. We admit that the Indians of Pennsylvania and New England were tributary to the Five Nations, made so by conquest, and that the country on both sides of Lake Erie-the seats of the Hurons and Neutrals in Canada, and the Eries, An- dastes and Shawanese in Ohio-were swept of their aborigi- nal occupants by their merciless enemies, but beyond the Potomac, the Ohio and the Miamis, it seems to us that there was a drawn battle, constantly renewing, and variable in results. It may be that the Miamis and their Illinois con- federates were more frequently repulsed, but they cannot be said to have been subjugated, nor even conquered. Very likely, on the conclusion of peace with Western and Southern tribes, there may have been stipulations in the nature of quit claim, but these did not necessarily imply the previous rela- tion of victor and vanquished, no more than a bill to quiet title recognizes that alleged by a claimant to be paramount.
After 1663, however, when the long war with the Cana- dian colonists broke out, and until the peace of 1700, the dominion of the Five Nations over the territory of Ohio was nominal, never enforced to the exclusion of other Indian tribes, who hastened to occupy the beautiful and vacant realm.
CHAPTER III.
INDIAN OCCUPATION OF OHIO IN 1750.
THIS chapter will be devoted to a brief sketch of the Indian tribes, who, during the interval between the inroads of the Iroquois (vacating forcibly the region between the Ohio and Lake Erie) and the earliest settlement by Euro- peans in 1750, gradually occupied the country. The reader may expect some unavoidable repetition, especially in a sketch of the Wyandots, for the materials of which we are greatly indebted to the ethnological and historical labors of Albert Gallatin.1
Four tribes were prominent within the limits of Ohio a century since-the Wyandots, Delawares, Shawanese and Ottawas.
1. THE WYANDOTS OR HURONS .- When Champlain ar- rived in Canada, the Wyandots were the head and principal support of the Algonquin tribes against the Five Nations. In our first chapter we have given their geographical position, and their relations with the Neutral Nation, or Attiouanda- rons, north, and the Eries and Andastes or Guandastogues (Guyandots,) south of Lake Erie. The extent of their influence and of the consideration in which they were held, may be found in the fact, that even the Delawares, who claimed to be the elder branch of the Lenape Nation, and
1) Gallatin's Synopsis of the Indian Tribes within the United States, east of the Rocky Mountains, and in the British and Russian Possessions of North America; in Transactions of the American Antiquarian Society, II, 68, 72.
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
called themselves the grandfathers of their kindred tribes, recognized the superiority of the Wyandots, whom to this day they call their uncles. And though reduced to a very small number, the right of the Wyandots, derived either from ancient sovereignty, or from the incorporation of the remnants of the three extinct tribes, to the country between Lake Erie and the Ohio, from the Alleghany to the Great Miami, has never been disputed by any other than the Five Nations.
Their real name Yendots, was well known to the French, who gave them the nickname of Hurons. They were called Quatoghee by the Five Nations, and one of their tribes Di- onondadies or Tuinontatek. They were visited in 1615 by Champlain, and in 1624 by Father Sigard ; and the Jesuits, who subsequently established missions among them, have given, in the " Relations of New France," some account of their language, and ample information of their means of subsistence, manners and religious superstitions. They had, probably on account of their wars with the Five Nations, concentrated their settlements in thirty-one villages, not extending more altogether than twenty leagues either way, and situated along or in the vicinity of Lake Huron, about one hundred miles southwardly of the mouth of the French River. They consisted of five confederated tribes, viz: the Ataronch-ronons, four villages ; the Attiquenongnahai, three villages ; the Attignaouentan or "Nation de l'Ours," twelve villages ; the Ahrendah-ronons, the most northeastern tribe, and with which Champlain resided, three villages; and the Tionontate, or "Nation of the Petun," the most southwest- erly, which formerly had been at war with the other tribes, and had entered the confederation recently, nine villages.2
2) Father Lallemand, 1640; Relations, &c.
niets
31
THE WYANDOTS OR HURONS.
The small-pox carried off about twelve hundred souls in the year 1639. The Missionaries, principally with a view of baptizing dying children, visited at that time every village, and, with few exceptions, every cabin; and embraced the opportunity of making a complete enumeration of the whole nation. They give the general result in round numbers, seven hundred cabins, and two thousand families, which they estimate at twelve, but which could not have exceeded ten thousand souls. They were not only more warlike, but, in every respect, more advanced in civilization than the North- ern Algonquins, particularly in agriculture, to which they appear, probably from their concentrated situation, to have been obliged to attend more extensively than any other Northern Indian nation. The Missionaries had at first great hardships to encounter, and found them less tractable than the Algonquins. But, whether owing to the superior talents of Father Brebeuf and his associates, or to the national char- acter, they made ultimately more progress in converting the Hurons, and have left a more permanent impression of their labors in the remnant of that tribe, than appears to have been done by them, in any other nation without the boundaries of the French settlements.
The only communication of the Hurons, with the infant colony of Canada, was by the river Ottawa, of a difficult navigation, interrupted by portages. The Five Nations directed their attacks to that quarter, cut off the several trading parties, which were in the habit of descending and ascending the river once a year, and intercepted the commu- nication so effectually, that, about the year 1646, the Mis- sionaries on Lake Huron were three years without receiving any supplies from Quebec. The Hurons, who had lost sev- eral hundred warriors in those engagements, became dispirited
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
and careless. They indeed abandoned the smaller villages and fortified the larger. This only accelerated their ruin. In the year 1649, the Five Nations invaded the country with all their forces, attacked and carried the most consider- able of those places of refuge, and massacred all the inhabi- tants. The destruction was completed in the course of the ensuing year. A part of the Hurons fled down the Ottawa River and sought an asylum in Canada, where they were pursued by their implacable enemies even under the walls of Quebec. The greater part of the Ahrendas and several detached bands surrendered, and were incorporated into the Five Nations. The remnant of the Tionontates took refuge among the Chippewas of Lake Superior. Others were dis- persed towards Michillimacinac, or in some more remote quarters. This event was immediately followed by the dis- persion of the Algonquin nations of the Ottawa River.
In 1671, the Tionontates, after an unsuccessful war with the Sioux, left Lake Superior for Michillimacinac, where they rallied around them the dispersed remnants of the other tribes of their nation, and probably of the Andastes and other kindred tribes, which had been likewise nearly exterminated by the Five Nations. Some years later they removed to Detroit, in the vicinity of their ancient seats. And, though reduced to two villages, they resumed their ascendancy over the Algonquin tribes, and acted a conspicuous part with great sagacity in the ensuing conflicts between the French and the Five Nations. Charlevoix, in 1721, writes, that they were still the soul of the councils of all the Western Indians. They claimed the sovereignty over the country between Lake Erie and the Ohio River, which was exer- cised by frequent grants and cessions hereafter to be men- tioned. Col. John Johnston, of Piqua, the well known Indian
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THE DELAWARES.
agent, says that their actual settlements extended from De- troit along the south shore of Lake Erie, as far east as San- dusky Bay.
2. THE DELAWARES .- This interesting tribe has been awarded a higher rank in the page of Cooper, the American novelist, and in the Memoirs of the Moravian Missionaries, than Indian tradition seems to warrant. John Heckewelder, as their annalist, and David Zeisberger, as their philologist, have contributed largely to this favorable impression. The former has preserved a Delaware tradition, that many hun- dred years ago, the Lenni Lenape resided in the western part of the American continent; thence by a slow emigra- tion, they at length reached the Alleghany River, so called from a nation of giants, the Allegewi, against whom the Del- awares and Iroquois (the latter also emigrants from the west- ward) carried on successful war ; and, still proceeding east- ward, settled on the Delaware, Hudson, Susquehannah and Potomac rivers, making the Delaware the center of their possessions. The Delawares, thus seated on the Atlantic, divided themselves into three tribes, distinguished by the names of the Turtle, the Turkey and the Wolf; or the Unamis, Unalachtgo and Minsi. The latter, also called Mon seys or Muncies, were considered the most warlike and active branch of the Lenape. We shall see hereafter that the latter designation was revived, with important consequences, in Ohio.
Heckewelder seeks unsuccessfully to explain the subjection of the Delawares to the Five Nations, whom they called Mengwe, as a stratagem by the latter ; but there is no doubt that a tribe who, more readily than any other, accepted Christianity, found themselves unable to cope with their more warlike neighbors on the war path.3
3) Loskiel's History of the Moravian Missions in North America; Part 1, 130. Heckewelder's History Indian Nations.
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
About 1740-50, a party of Delawares, who had been dis- turbed in Pennsylvania by European emigration, determined to remove west of the Alleghany Mountains, and obtained from their ancient allies and uncles, the Wyandots, the grant of a derelict tract of land lying principally on the Muskingum. Here they flourished and became a very powerful tribe. From 1765 to 1795, they were at the height of their influ- ence, but the treaty of Greenville, and the disasters sustained by the Delawares in Wayne's campaign, were a death blow to their ascendancy.
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