|
Chapter VIII: pp. |
|
|
|
|
|
Drs. Erminie Wheeler-Voegelin
Emily J. Blasingham
Dorothy R. Libby:
An Anthropological Report on the
History of the Miamis, Weas, and
Eel River Indians, Vol. 2.
Chapter 8, pp. 325-330.
325 |
Chapter VIII. Use and Occupancy of Royce Area 72
from Earliest Known Date to 1809
Royce Area 72 was one of the three areas ceded to the United States by the Delawares, Potawatomis, Miamis, and Eel River Indians in the treaty held at Fort Wayne, September 30, 1809 (7 Stat. 114). It is described in the first article of the treaty as a 12-mile strip of land west of the line established by the Treaty of Greenville and north of Royce Area 56.
The main waterway in the area is the West Fork of Whitewater River. This river flows south, joins the East Fork of Whitewater River to the east of Royce Area 72, and then flows into the Great Miami River which enters the Ohio River. A small portion of the East Fork of the Whitewater River also flows through some of the eastern parts of Royce Area 72. The West Fork of the White River and the Mississinewa River, with their tributaries, and the headwaters of the Salamanie River flow north and west from the northern third of Royce Area 72 and empty into the Wabash River outside of the Area. Fort Recovery, which forms the northeastern corner of the cession is located on the Wabash River (see Map 9).
There is an extreme paucity of any evidence of Indian use or occupancy of Royce Area 72 in historic times. No permanent Indian towns were located in Whitewater River valley in historic times, nor do traders or government officials mention Indians as being from this region. It appears, thus, that the Whitewater River valley which comprises most of Royce Area 72 was not occupied continuously in historic times by Indians.
One reason for a lack of evidence of even sporadic use by Indians of Royce Area 71 may lie in the fact that the White-
Drs. Erminie Wheeler-Voegelin
Emily J. Blasingham
Dorothy R. Libby:
An Anthropological Report on the
History of the Miamis, Weas, and
Eel River Indians, Vol. 2.
Chapter 8, pp. 325-330.
326 |
water River valley was not a usual route for travel from the Great lakes region to the Ohio. Few, if any, White travelers went through it until the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The more usual routes followed by officials and traders from the Great Lakes to the Ohio River lay along the Miami, Maumee, Auglaize, St. Mary's, St. Joseph, and Wabash rivers (see Map 7).
In a claim which in its western extension derived at least in part from the Piankashaws (see pp. 251-253, this Report) and which included Royce Area 72, the Delawares in 1779 claimed as their property
all the Lands they have long Inhabited and Hunted on. . .From the mouth of the Alegany River at Fort Pitt to Venango & from thence up French Creek & by Labeuf along the old Road to Presque' isle on the East The Ohio River Including all the Islands in it from Fort Pitt to the Wabachee on the South. Thence up the River Wabache to that Branch call 'd Opecomeecah [White] and up the same to the Head of it, & from thence to the Head Waters & Springs of the Great Miami or Rocky River, thence across to the Head Waters & Springs of the most Northwestern Springs of Sandusky River, Thence down the said River Including the Islands in it and in the Little Lake to Lake Erie, on the West & North West and Lake Erie on the North. These Boundaries contain the Cessions of Lands made to the Deleware Nation by the Wyondots and other Nations, & the Country we have seated our Grandchildren the Shawnese upon in our Laps.1
This is the first explicit claim made by any Indian group to the lands of Royce Area 72. The territory claimed in 1779
1. Collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, vol. 23, pp. 320-321; Dft. Ex. 64.
Drs. Erminie Wheeler-Voegelin
Emily J. Blasingham
Dorothy R. Libby:
An Anthropological Report on the
History of the Miamis, Weas, and
Eel River Indians, Vol. 2.
Chapter 8, pp. 325-330.
327 |
was much greater than that claimed by the Delawares in 1775, when the Delaware chief, Captain White Eyes, claimed the Muskingum River of Ohio as the Delawares' western boundary (see Map 8).2 The Delawares' claim to the lands on the White River was derived perhaps from the "invitation" to the Delawares mentioned by Sir William Johnston in 1773 (see pp. 260-261, this Report).3 The Treaty of August 18, 1804 (7 Stat. 82) states that the Delawares had demonstrated sufficient proof to the treaty commissioner of their rights to the lands between the White River and the Ohio, as far east as Kentucky River. The Piankashaws refused to recognize that they had given the Delawares title to this region, and the United States had to make a separate treaty with the Piankashaws for lands previously ceded by the Delaware in the August 18, 1804 Treaty (i.e., Royce Area 49). In the treaty made with the Potawatomi, Miami, Eel River, and Wea Indians on August 21, 1805 (7 Stat. 91), it was stated that the Piankashaws about 37 years before (i.e., ca. 1768) had given the Delawares the lands that the Delawares ceded to the United States on August 18, 1804 (7 Stat. 91:92). In the same treaty, however, the Delawares were forced to give up their claim to the White River-Ohio River country, including the lands on the upper White River, because of the refusal of "the Miami tribes" to recognize that the Miamis had ever given the Delawares "the right of the soil" (7 Stat. 91).
2. Thwaites and Kellogg, Revolution of the Upper Ohio, pp. 85-87; Dft. Ex. 137.
3. Documents Relating to the Colonial History of New York, vol. 8, p. 396; Dft. Ex. 83.
Drs. Erminie Wheeler-Voegelin
Emily J. Blasingham
Dorothy R. Libby:
An Anthropological Report on the
History of the Miamis, Weas, and
Eel River Indians, Vol. 2.
Chapter 8, pp. 325-330.
328 |
In view of the above claims and statements, it is possible that by 1779 the Delawares and Shawnees were using the Whitewater River area as hunting grounds, or that they may have used it as a route to reach the Wabash River or the upper part of White River, from the Ohio River. But of this we have no certain proof in the way of primary documentation.
The Secretary of War in July of 1787 mentioned that the Shawnees,
who were expelled from the Scioto last autumn, have removed
to White Creek on the Wabash and joined the Wabash Indians
in their hostilities on the inhabitants of Kentucky.4
Some of these Shawnees from Ohio may have come into Area 72 by 1787.
Thomas Ridout, a young Englishman who was taken captive on the Ohio River by the Shawnees in the spring of 1788, described a Shawnee winter camp which was located somewhere west of what seems to be Whitewater River. The location is indefinite because of Ridout's inexact idea of the rivers of the region, but the camp may have been either in extreme southern Royce Area 72 or in the northeastern part of Royce Area 56. Ridout remarked that the Indian women were at that time "occupied in the adjoining forests" making maple sugar.5 This group of Shawnees had apparently only come to the region that winter, because the Americans had burnt their town on the
4. Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 32, p. 330; Dft. Ex. 81. The Scioto River flows through central Ohio, entering the Ohio River from the north. White Creek refers to White River, Indiana.
5. Edgar, Ten Years of Upper Canada, pp. 353-354; Dft. Ex. 116.
Drs. Erminie Wheeler-Voegelin
Emily J. Blasingham
Dorothy R. Libby:
An Anthropological Report on the
History of the Miamis, Weas, and
Eel River Indians, Vol. 2.
Chapter 8, pp. 325-330.
329 |
Scioto the previous fall. Later in the spring of 1788 they traveled west across southern Indiana.6
General Anthony Wayne, from his headquarters on the southwest branch of Miami River in Ohio, later known as Greenville, Ohio, ordered Major General Charles Scott in November, 1793
to strike at the Hunting Camps of the hostile Indians, and a small town
or Settlement of Delawares bearing about S.S.W. & distant between forty
& fifty miles from this place [Greenville, Ohio].7
Scott's expedition accomplished little. He found no Delaware village, and all five of the Indians from the camp he did find on a branch of upper White River escaped. While he noted a number of paths, he also remarked that none had been used that fall.8 Scott may have been in Area 72, or at least he must have crossed it to get to the headwaters of White River. At the time of his expedition, obviously, Indians were sparse in the region he traversed.
Sporadic Indian depredations and raids on American settlements in Kentucky and elsewhere continued after the American Revolution. After Gen. Anthony Wayne's signal defeat of the Great Lakes-Ohio Valley groups at Fallen Timbers on the lower Maumee River on August 20, 1794, various of these Indian groups sent delegations of chiefs to discuss peace with Maj. Hamtramck who, on October 22, 1794, had assumed command
6. Ibid., p. 357; Dft. Ex. 116.
7. Wayne, Ms. Papers, vol. 30, Wayne to Scott, Nov. 2, 1793; Dft. Ex. 74.
8. Scott to Wayne, Nov. 9, 1793; Dft. Ex. 74.
Drs. Erminie Wheeler-Voegelin
Emily J. Blasingham
Dorothy R. Libby:
An Anthropological Report on the
History of the Miamis, Weas, and
Eel River Indians, Vol. 2.
Chapter 8, pp. 325-330.
330 |
at Fort Wayne.9 One such delegation was composed of Miamis, and included the half-White village chief, Jean Baptiste Richardville. This delegation arrived at Fort Wayne on January 15, 1795, and five of its members, including Richardville, soon went on to Greenville to discuss peace with Wayne.10 While they were with him, Hamtramck had urged the visiting Miamis to
withdraw. . . themselves from the headquarters of corruption [Detroit], and invited them to come and take possession of their former habitations, which they have promised me to do. Richardville tells me, that as soon as he returns [from seeing Wayne at Greenville] he will go on the Salamanic [sic], on the head of the Wabash, and there make a village. He has also promised me to open navigation of the Wabash to the United States.11
Richardville did not establish a village on the Salamonie, but did, ca. June, 1795, establish one above the mouth of the Mississinewa, west of the Salamonie River and northwest of Area 72.12 However in June, 1795, there was also a "part of the Miami Indians" on the Salamonie River, "raising Corn up
9. American Pioneer, vol. 2, p. 388; Dft. Ex. 138. Hamtramck sent all such delegations on to Wayne, who on October 28, 1794, had left Fort Wayne to establish Army headquarters at Fort Greenville (present Greenville, Darke County, Ohio). Fort Greenville was the site of the Treaty of Greenville of August 3, 1795. Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 388-389; Dft. Ex. 138. 7 Stat. 49.
10. American Pioneer, vol. 2, pp. 388-390; Dft. Ex. 138.
11. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 390; Dft. Ex. 138.
12. Wade, Extracts, p. 7; Dft. Ex. 74. Bodley, Observations, p. 3; Dft. Ex. 74. Richardville was still living on the Mississinewa, we know, in 1809 (Journal of the Proceedings, pp. 10-11; Dft. Ex. 131).
Go to Continuation of Chapter VIII
Go to Chapter IX
Return to Anth. Rep. Docket 317 Volume II Table of Contents
Go to Anth. Rep. Docket 317 Volume I Table of Contents
Return to Ohio Valley - Great Lakes Ethnohistory Archive Menu
Return to Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology List of Publications
Return to Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology Home
Last updated: 04 September 2000
Comments: gbl@indiana.edu
Copyright 1997, Glen Black Laboratory of Archaeology and The Trustees of Indiana University.