USA > Ohio > Clark County > The history of Clark County, Ohio, containing a history of the county; its cities, towns, etc.; general and local statistics; portraits of early settlers and prominent men, V. 1 > Part 23
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61
!
222
HISTORY OF CLARK COUNTY.
" We find, then, about 1640, the Eries ranged in Ohio from near the east end of Lake Erie, to near the west, and held the country back (to) and part of the Ohio River. That everywhere west were Algonquins, probably the Miamis and Ottawas pressing upon them. That below them on the Ohio were the Shaw- nees, and southeast of them their kindred the Andastes, were the Algonquins again. * *
" The early history of the Shawnees is scantily traced, their positions did not bring them within the early acquaintance of the whites, or the knowledge of history. When they applied to LaSalle for French protection, he replied they were too remote. * ** * * Within the period of history, they pushed into Ohio from Kentucky, and the Cumberland River is called, in the early French maps. the rivers of the ancient Shawnees. That was not the first time they had been upon the Ohio. After the destruction of the Eries, they seem to have been next south upon that river, and I cannot but believe that while the Eries were at peace with the Shawnees lived next south, probably in Southern Ohio and Kentucky. * * * * In the historical map of Ohio, appearing in 1872 in Walling & Gray's atlas, and prepared by Col. Charles Whittlesey, the Indian occupation of Ohio appears as follows: The Iroquois and tribes adopted by them, in Northeastern Ohio, including the valley of the Cuy- ahoga, the Tuscarawas and Wheeling Creek. The Wyandots and Ottawas occu- pied the valleys of the streams flowing into Lake Erie, west of the Cuyahoga, but no farther up the Maumee than Fulton and Henry Counties. The Dela- wares the valley of the Muskingum; the Shawnees the Scioto and its tributaries. and as far east as to include Raccoon Creek, and west including parts of Brown and Highland Counties.
" The Miamis were in the western part of the State, including the valleys of the Great and Little Miami, and the upper part of the Maumee.
" These were, in a general way, the limits of the tribes in Ohio from 1754 to 1780.
" There were also Mohawks, Tuscarawas, Mingos and (other) descendants, not named in a tribal way of the ancient Eries and Neutrals. These named tribes were all intrusive within the period of history.
" The Ottawas and Wyandots, although of different generic stock, lived much together, perhaps partly through sympathy in a similar downfall. They had been allies against the Iroquois, and in succession overcame.
" The Shawnees and Cherokees seem to have been the foremost in the great Indian migrations which met the Mound-Builders. It is thought singular that there are no traditions of that move.
"But when we think how faithless are the traditions among the whites of one hundred years ago, almost sure to be very wrong, even of one's great-grand- father, and that the Mound-Builders apparently left Ohio several hundred years ago, at least, the want of memory of that event does seem singular (?).
" Indians were always moving and warring. But the same careful linguis- tic study in America, that has told so much in the old world, will tell us some- thing of the new."
Those who have attempted to glean the facts of the dim unrecorded past, for historcial use, will appreciate Mr. Baldwin's remarks in regard to the unre- iability of even the latest traditions.
Many writers are inclined to the opinion that the Wyandots were among the earliest tribes on this soil, but, from the latest investigations, the conclusion seems to be that they were only a sub-tribe of the Eries and Iroquois.
The following letter is here inserted as being pertinent to this subject. though taken from the proceedings of the late Clark-Shawnee celebration .
223
HISTORY OF CLARK COUNTY.
THE SHAWNEE INDIANS.
The following paper, prepared by Mr. C. C. Royce, attache of the Interior Department at Washington, D. C., which preparation was by request of Gen. Keifer, gives in complete form, but condensed, a history of the Shawnees, from the earliest days of the country to the present, taken from ancient records pre- served at Washington. It formed a portion of the papers introduced at the celebration and can be read at leisure with interest and profit:
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY, } WASHINGTON, D. C., August 4, 1880.
HON. J. WARREN KEIFER, SPRINGFIELD, OHIO:
My dear General: Our conversation of Friday last has troubled me a little. Your suggestion that I prepare an article on the history of the Shawnee tribe of Indians to be read at the approaching centennial anniverasry of the victory of Gen. George Rogers Clark over that unfortunate people, was one in which it would under favorable circumstances have been especially gratifying to me to comply. There are two reasons, however, why it would be next to impossible for me now to give such a full and satisfactory account of the Shawnees as would stand the test of reasonable criticism:
First-The time between now and the occurrence of the anniversary is too brief, and, second -- My investigations of the subject-matter of such an article are as yet by no means complete.
In spite of these serious drawbacks, however, I am willing to give a brief outline of my investigations and deductions, with the full understanding that it is to be considered as merely tentative and subject to such corrections-either of a minor or radical character-as the results of more elaborate inquiries may seem to justify.
The Shawnees were the Bedouins, and I may almost say the Ishmaelites of the North American tribes. As wanderers they were without rivals among their race, and as fomentors of discord and war between themselves and their neigh- bors their genius was marked. Their original home is not, with any great meas ure of certainty, known. It is altogether improbable that it ever will be. Many theories on the subject have been already advanced, each with a greater or less degree of plausibility. More doubtless will, from time to time, be offered, but after all, the general public will be restricted to a choice of probabilities and each must accept for himself that which to his mind shall seem most satisfactory and convincing.
First-In the year 1608, Capt. John Smith, of the Jamestown colony, in Virginia, proceeded upon an exploring expedition up the Chesapeake Bay. In the course of this expedition, he 'encountered and held communication with numerous nations or tribes of Indians then occupying the shores of the bay and its immediate vicinity. All these Indians lived in continual dread of a tribe known to them by the name of "Massawomekes." In the language of Smith: "Beyond the mountains whence is the head of the river Patawomeke (Potomac) the savages report, inhabit their most mortal enemies. the Massawo- mekes, upon a great salt water, which by all likelihood is either some part of Canada; some great lake or some inlet of some sea that falleth into the South Sea. These Massawamekes are a great nation and very populous." Smith further relates that the other tribes, especially the Pottawomekes, the Patuxents. the Sasquesahannocks and the Tockwoughes, were continually tormented by them, complained bitterly of their cruelty and were very importunate with him that he should free them from their assaults. This Smith determined to do. and, had not his project been vetoed by the Colonial Council, the history and
224
HISTORY OF CLARK COUNTY.
identity of this people would not now, in all likelihood, be enshrouded in such a mantle of doubt.
He did, in fact, encounter seven canoes full of them at the head of Chesa- peake Bay, with whom he had a conference by signs, and remarks that their implements of war and other utensils showed them to be greatly superior to the Virginia Indians, as also their dexterity in their small boats made of the bark of trees, sewed with bark and well "luted " with gum, gave evidence that they lived upon some great water. When they departed for their homes, the Massawo- mekes went by the way of what Smith denominates Willoughby's River, and which his map and description show to be the modern "Bush River," which is on the west side of the bay and trends in a northwest direction.
The map accompanying the London edition of 1629, of Smith's Travels, located the Massawomekes on the south shore of a supposed large body of water in a northwest direction, and distant from the head-waters of the Patawomeke (Potomac) River some twenty-five leagues. This, making reasonable allowances for the discrepancies in topography, places them without doubt along the south shore of Lake Erie, with an eastern limit not remote from the present city of Erie, Penn., and extending thence westward.
I am aware that at least two eminent authorities (Gallatin and Bancroft), whom it would almost seem the height of presumption for me to dispute, have assumed that the Massawomekes and the five nations were identical. The more closely I have examined the evidence, the more thoroughly am I convinced of their error in this assumption.
At that date the most westerly of the five nations-the Seneca-was not in possession of the country west of the Genesee River. Extending from that neighborhood westward to and beyond the Niagara River and along the south- east shore of Lake Erie, the country was occupied by a numerous nation known to history as the Attiwandaronk or Neutral Nation, whose power was broken and the tribes destroyed or dispersed by the Five Nations, but not until 1651, more than forty years subsequent to Smith's observations. To reach the country of the Five Nations from Chesapeake Bay, an almost due north course, or that of the Susquehanna River, would have been the natural and most convenient route to pursue. A route leading beyond the mountains, in which the Potomac River had its sources, would have been neither a natural nor convenient one for reaching the shores of Lake Ontario and vicinity, then the country of the Five Nations.
It is highly improbable that war parties of this great Iroquois confederacy should have followed such a route in the face of the fact that the only tribes living along the line of the more direct route held them in great fear, and would gladly have allowed them to pass without molestation.
I assume, then, that the villages of the Massawomekes occupied the south and southwest shore of Lake Erie, and that they controlled the intermediate country to the Alleghany Mountains as a hunting range, frequently extending their war and predatory excursions to the territory of tribes east of the mount- ains and along the upper portion of Chesapeake Bay. Second-From the accounts of early French travelers and the relations of the Jesuit missionaries, we are advised for the existence during the first half of the seventeenth century of a nation of Indians who were called by the Hurons, "Eries," by the Five Nations, " Rique," and by the French, the "Chat, or Cat Nation." According to Sagard's History of Canada, published in 1636, the name of Chat, or Cat, is thus accounted for: "There is in this vast region a country which we call the Cat Nation, by reason of their cats, a sort of small wolf or leopard found there, from the skins of which the natives make robes, bordered and ornamented with tails."
1
yaura Respectfully Jo. Christie SPRINGFIELD
225 -226
227
HISTORY OF CLARK COUNTY.
This nation .occupied a tract of country on the south shore of Lake Erie, identical with that to which I have assigned the Massawomekes of Smith. They were visited as early as 1626, according to the Jesuit relations, by two mission- aries, Lagard and d'Allvon, who made an unsuccessful attempt to establish a mission among them; nor did the Jesuits, with the constant zeal and persist- ence so characteristic of them, ever succeed in obtaining a foothold with the tribe.
At this time and for many years thereafter, they are spoken of as very numerous and powerful. A war having broken out between them and the Five Nations, the Eries were utterly overthrown and dispersed about the year 1655. From this date we find no mention of their existence as a nation.
Schoolcraft, in his bulky and ill-assorted work on the "History, Condition and Prospects of the Indian Tribes," adopts the theory that the Eries and Neu- ters were one and the same people. That he is certainly mistaken, I hardly think there is room for reasonable doubt. The evidence of his error is abundant in the Jesuit relations, but I have only space to cite the testimony of Father Bre- boeuf, who visited the Neutral Nation in 1640, and remarked that only four towns of the latter nation lay east of the Niagara River, ranging from east to west, toward the Erielhonous or Chats. Also in speaking of Niagara River he says: "It falls first into Lake Erie or of the Cat tribe, and then it enters the Neutral grounds." Bressani. who spent some years in the country, also in his Breve Relatione, as is remarked by Shea, places the Neuters north of Lake Eric, and the Eries, south.
Third-Cadwallader Colden published his History of the Five Nations in London in 1747. He begins with the traditional period of their history. Tra- dition, with Indians as with white people, is often utterly unreliable and not unfrequently totally incredible. The traditions of the events immediately pre- ceding European settlement, from the recentness of their occurrence and their consequent freshness in the Indian mind, notwithstanding the average tendency to exaggeration and boastfulness, may, however, be esteemed as not wholly unworthy of confidence in the general facts related, regardless of their highly colored details. These traditions all concur in the assertion that the Five Nations, a short time previous to the period of French settlement in Canada. lived near the present site of Montreal; that, as a result of a war with the Adirondacks, they were forced to leave their own country and fly to the banks of the lakes on which they subsequently lived, where the war was at intervals re- newed and was still in progress at the time of the French occupation of Canada. Here they applied themselves to increasing their proficiency in the use of arms, and in order to raise the spirits of their people to the Sachems. "turned then? against the Satanas, a less warlike nation who then lived on the banks of the lakes, and who, in the course of a few years, were subdued and driven out of their country."
Colden doubtless borrows this relation from the account of Bacqueville de la Potherie, who was in Canada for several years anterior to 1700. and whose history of America was published about 1720. Charlevoix also bas a similar relation. Both these authors, doubtless. as Judge Force has remarked, borrowed from the narrative of Nicholas Perot, who lived among the Indians for more than thirty years subseqent to 1665, and who enjoyed their confidence in an unusual degree. He relates that the Iroquois had their original home about Montreal and Three Rivers; that they fled from the Algonquins to Lake Erie, where lived the Chaonanous, who waged war against them and drove them to the shores of Lake Ontario. That after many years of war against the Chaouanous, and their allies, they withdrew to Carolina, where they now are. That the Iroquois (Five Nations) after being obliged to quit Lake Erie, withdrew to Lake Ontario.
B
228
HISTORY OF CLARK COUNTY.
and that after having chased the Chaouanous and their allies toward Carolina, they have ever since remained there in that vicinity.
Here, then, we have in the earliest history of the country the names of three tribes or nations, who, by the accounts of different and widely-separated travel- ers, occupied the same region of the territory, viz. :
First --- The "Massawomekes" of Smith, who lived upon some great lake beyond the mountains in which the Potomac River has its sources, and which Smith's map shows to be in the location of Lake Erie.
Second -- The "Eries, or Chats," of the Jesuit relations, who occupied almost the entire south shore of Lake Erie; and
Third-The "Satanas," of Colden, (who, in the vocabulary preceding his work, gives the name as the equivalent of Shaonous and) the "Chaouanous," Perot, who lived on Lake Erie, and from the text of the narrative, evidently on the south shore to the west of the Five Nations.
By all the accounts given of these people, they were, comparatively speaking. very numerous and powerful. Each occupied and controlled a large region of territory in the same general locality; each had, so far as history and tradition can throw any light upon the subject, long been the occupant thereof. The fact that neither of these authorities speaks of more than one nation occupying this region of country, and neither seems to have had any knowledge or tradition of any other nation having done so, coupled with the improbability that three numerous and warlike nations should, within the historic period, have occupied so limited a region as the south shore of Lake Erie-and one which by water communication would have been so easily accessible for each to the other -- with- out any account or tradition having survived of their intercourse, conflicts and destruction of one another, to my mind is little less than convincing evidence of the fact that three such distinct nations never had a cotemporaneous existence, and that the Massawomekes, Eries and Satanas, or Chaouauous, were one and the same people.
I am aware that the Chaouanous, or Shawnees as we now denominate them, speak the Algonquin tongue, and that the Eries have ever been linguistically classed as of Iroquois stock; but of the latter fact there seems to be no more convincing proof than a passage in the Jesuit relations of 1648, asserting that the Cat nation have a number of permanent towns, * and they have the same language with our Hurons. The Jesuits never succeeded in establishing a mission among the Fries; their intercourse with them was almost nothing, and they have left us no vocabularies by which their linguistic stock can be deter- mined. I regard, therefore, the single volunteer remark as to their having the same language with the Hurons, as having less weight in the scale of probabil- ities than the accumulated evidence of their identity with the Massawomekes and Chaounous.
Their identity having been assumed, and the Eries having, by all accounts, been conquered and dispersed about 1655, it remains to trace the remnant in their wanderings across the face of the country. This is perhaps the most diffi- cult and most unsatisfactory task that enters into the consideration of the subject. I could not, even were it desirable, in the space allotted to such a communication, give more than a few of the most general facts. To do otherwise would occupy much more time and space than my present object would justify or require.
At this point I may remark that there is a manuscript map still in existence in Holland which accompanied a report made to the States General in 1614 or 1616, of the discoveries in New Netherlands, upon which a nation of Indians called " Sawwoaneu " is marked as living on the east bank of the Delaware River.
De Laet also, in the Leyden edition of his history, published in 1640, enum- erates the "Sawanoos" as one of the tribes then inhabiting the Delaware River.
229
HISTORY OF CLARK COUNTY.
It is of course impossible at this late day, in the absence of further data, to determine whether this tribe which seems to have been known on the Dela- ware for more than a quarter of a century, bears any relationship to the modern Shawnees. It is not impossible that in the course of the conflicts between the "Satanas " and the Five Nations, a body of the former may have become seggre- gated from their friends and have terminated their wanderings by a settlement on the Delaware. The probabilities seem to be unfavorable to this hypothesis.
The solution is more likely to be found in the fact that the word "Saw- anoo " signified southern. The Delaware River was at that date known as South River, and " Sawanoo " or Southern may have been a sort of general term applied to Indians residing on that river.
The Eries after their overthrow do not again appear in the cotemporary relations or maps under that name except as a destroyed nation. Their former location is shown on De l'Isle's maps of 1700 and 1703, Senex's map of 1710 and numerous others. The survivors being driven from their ancient homes; their villages and property destroyed, and deprived of the lake as a principal source of food supply. were forced to resort to the chase more exclusively as a means of subsistence. These things would have a tendency to divide the tribe into small hunting parties and to encourage the wandering propensities so often remarked of the Shawnees.
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 the Ohio, acknowl- edging 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 relations 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 head- waters of the Santee and the 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 Chaonanons, 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 Iroquois 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 this same year a " Chaouenon" 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 His- torical 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 neigh-
230
HISTORY OF CLARK COUNTY.
borhood 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 speaking 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 month 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. This latter was evidently the Tennessee.
On De l'Isles' map of 1700 previously alluded to, the "Outonigaula" are placed on the head-waters of the great rivers of South Carolina, and the "Chi- ononons " 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 "Outonigauba" 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 previ- ously, at the soilcitation of the "Minsis" been allowed to settle on the Dela- ware 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.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.