Summary of Piankashaw Locations (ca. 1763 - ca. 1776), pp. 86-88
/pg.86/
In the winter of 1764-1765, during the period of transfer of the Wabash and Illinois area from French to British sovereignty-Piankeshaws of Vincennes were said to be hunting on the Ohio River who would return to Vincennes in the spring. At least one of the chiefs was wintering at "the large village of Piankashaws'' (location not specified, but probably referring to the village on Vermilon River). In June 1765 Croghan reported that a village of Piankashaws was located at Vincennes but gave no population figures. He knew several of these Piankashaws.
/pg. 87/
Croghan travelled north from Vincennes to Ouiatenon along the Wabash River with his Kickapoo and Mascouten captors passing large meadows the first of which he called the Piankashaws' hunting grounds, and some of the ones he passed later he said belonged to the Piankashaws of the Vermilion. Which side of the Wabash these were on is not clear. However at least part of the trip must have been on the western side of the Wabash River, since he crossed the Vermilion River, a western tributary of the Wabash, about half a mile from the Vermilion Piankashaw village. From this it seems that at least part of the Vermilion Piankashaws hunting grounds must have been on the western side of the Wabash River. Croghan mentioned no Piankashaw village at Ouiatenon in his description of the different Indian settlements there.
During these years of the English sovereignty in the west Piankashaws continue to be mentioned by various officials as being located at Vermilion River and at Vincennes. Indian groups from both areas also continued to visit the Illinois country. An account, written about 1771, of Indians on the Wabash River locates a village with about sixty men (or ca. 240 persons) at Vermilion River and one with about ten men (or cat forty persons) at Vincennes. From various other statements made by British officials in the 1760's and early 1770's it seems probable that the Indians in these villages were Piankashaws. An unknown number of other Piankashaws had left Vincennes at this time, at least temporarily, from fear of the Cherokees. A 1773 estimate by the same person indicates 110 warriors at Vincennes (or ca. 440 persons) and 125 warriors (or ca. 500 persons) at the Vermilion village.
/pg. 88/
In 1774 a village of Piankashaws, with a population estimate of more than 150 men (representing cat 600 persons), was located about a mile upstream from the mouth of the Vermilion River.
In 1775 Piankashaws of both the Vincennes and Vermilion villages signed a deed of sale of two blocks of land to speculators, reserving a third area for the French of Vincennes. The area reserved and sold comprised the western two-thirds of the present state of Indiana (below the present-day site of Lafayette) and the southeastern quarter of the present state of Illinois, a fact which indicates that the Piankshaws felt they had some right to dispose of lands in these areas. These lands extended from the mouth of the Wabash River upstream almost 300 miles, to the east of the Wabash about 100 miles, and to the west of the river about 75 miles.
The Piankashaws of the Vincennes area also, probably in the early 1770's invited some Delaware Indians to share part of their lands in southern Indiana.
No mention of Piankashaw locations has been found for year 1776, but it seems likely that they were still in their then customary locations in the Vincennes and Vermilion River areas, as they were in the immediately preceding and succeeding years, and hunting along both sides of the Wabash River and along its tributary streams from the Vermilion River down to its juncture with the Ohio River.
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