Indigenous Struggles in Wayne County and Ohio

The conflicts faced by Indigenous groups in Ohio were complex.

Note: This section contains discussions of violence.

While the Delaware, Shawnee, and Wyandotte were able to build a new life in places like Wayne County, their rights to live, hunt, farm, and trade on this land were under near constant threat from European, and eventually American, colonists. Starting with the French and Indian War, white settlers began to grow more hostile to their Indigenous neighbors, and calls to clear this land for white settlement grew.¹

Indigenous people formed alliances with each other and with colonial powers in order to put themselves in the best position to trade and keep their lands. Some Indigenous people embraced European imports like trade and Christianity, while others resented them.² Violence, disease, captivity, and war were common, but so were trade partnerships, intermarriages, and friendships. Overall, Ohio was a space of complex relationships that slowly turned into a story of removal.

French and Indian War

1754-1763

An illustration from “A historical account of the expedition against the Ohio Indians in the year 1764,” Published in 1766. Image: William Smith. The Library of Congress and Picryl. No known restrictions on publication.

As Indigenous people moved into Ohio, this attracted the attention of colonial powers.³ During the French and Indian War, while the French and British fought over control of Ohio Country, groups of Shawnee and Delaware tried to drive out white squatters on their lands, which fuelled European hatred of Indigenous people.⁴ When Shingas, the appointed leader of the Delaware, asked to be guaranteed hunting grounds and trade with the British, General Braddock responded,

“No savage shall inherit the land”
General Braddock, quoted from Daniel P. Barr, “‘A road for warriors:’ The Western Delawares and The Seven Years War.” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 73, no. 1 (January 1, 2006), 27-28.

Shingas responded:

“We have been their friends many years, but now [we] have taken up the hatchet against them, and we will never make it up with them whilst there is an Englishman alive.”
Shingas, quoted from Daniel P. Barr, “‘A road for warriors:’ The Western Delawares and The Seven Years War.” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 73, no. 1 (January 1, 2006), 27-28.

The many groups of Shawnee, Wyandot, and Delaware allied with the French, who provided them with more protection than the British.⁵However, it was clear that both the French and the British ultimately wanted control of Indigenous lands. Many Indigenous groups allied with the French because they saw the French as a lesser threat to their territory for the time being. When the French lost, the British expanded across Ohio country and were not interested in engaging in diplomacy like the French, which worried Ohio’s Indigenous inhabitants.⁶

“We have great reason to believe you intend to drive us away, and settle the country; or else, why do you come to fight in the land that God has given us?
Shingas, quoted by R. Douglass Hurt, The Ohio Frontier, 41.

Portrait of Thomas Lee, founder of the Ohio Company. Unknown Artist (pre-1750.) Wikimedia images, public domain.

In 1752, planters in Virginia founded the Ohio Company, which foreshadowed the coming of more white settlers.⁷ The same year, the Ohio Company and Britain signed the Treaty of Logstown with the Iroquois and other Indigenous nations in Ohio, which opened lands west of the Allegheny mountains for settlement and extended Virginia’s border to the Ohio River.⁸

“…And whereas his Majesty has a present Design of making a Settlement or Settlements of British Subjects on the southern or eastern Parts of the River Ohio, called otherwise the [sic] Allagany.”
Treaty of Logstown, 1752.

In 1758, the Treaty of Easton granted the Iroquois lands in Pennsylvania and promised the Indigenous nations living in Ohio that they could keep their lands, which were vital to the Lenape and Shawnee.⁹ Despite the established peace, the British considered Ohio’s Indigenous people to be their conquered subjects they considered Indigenous lands from the Treaty of Logstown to be theirs.¹⁰ Discontent would continue as white Pennsylvanians continued to intrude in Ohio.

“We now remove the Hatchet out of your Heads, that was struck into it by our Cousins the Delawares: It was a French Hatchet that they unfortunately made use of, by the Instigation of the French: We take it out of your Heads, and bury it under Ground, where it shall always rest and never be taken up again. Our Cousins the Delawares, have assured us they will never think of War against their Brethren the English any more, but employ their Thoughts about Peace, and cultivating Friendship with them, and never suffer Enmity against them to enter into their Minds again.”
Tagashata, a Seneca Chief, Treaty of Easton, 1758.

In 1763, Pontiac, an Ottawa Chief, and Neolin, a Delaware spiritual leader, led an inter-tribal rebellion against the British. They were outraged that the British did not recede after the Treaty of Easton, that the Treaty of Paris removed the French from Ohio, and that the British failed to help when smallpox broke out.¹¹ Nastwatees, a Delaware leader, feared for the future and was concerned about growing British power in Ohio.¹² It was during this rebellion that Colonel Bouquet marched through Ohio, and his assistant engineer, Thomas Hutchins, recorded local Indigenous settlements such as Mohican John’s Town and Killbuck’s Town.

“Thomas Hutchins Map of Henry Bouquet’s 1764 Expedition.” Thomas Hutchins (1764). Wikimedia images, US and international public domain.

In response, the British issued the Proclamation of 1763 to limit settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains. Violence on the border grew as white settlers pushed into Ohio lands, and as they demanded for the removal of its Indigenous inhabitants.¹³White American colonists began to see themselves as not only distinct from the British, but a distinct racial group from Indigenous people.¹⁴

This same year, the British and French signed the Treaty of Paris (1763) which granted French territories in North America to the British.¹⁵

In 1768, the Iroquois signed the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, which opened lands south of the Ohio River for settlement.¹⁶

In 1774, Lord Dunmore’s War broke out between Shawnee people who had hunting rights in Kentucky and white settlers who did not want them there.¹⁷ In the coming years, the Shawnee would seek revenge for this expansion into their hunting grounds.¹⁸

Revolutionary War

1775-1783

An illustration depicting American militiamen slaying praying Delaware settlers, Tropics of Meta.

Along with taxation without representation, colonists’ desire to remove Indigenous people sparked the American Revolution.¹⁹ Ohio’s Indigenous people took up arms to defend their land. Cycles of violence between Indigenous people and American colonists were common, as white settlers tried to push into Ohio, and Indigenous people pushed back.²⁰ While the British Government formed alliances with some nations, colonists saw Indigenous people as a singular enemy to be wiped out.²¹ Bands of young Indigenous men launched attacks against settlers for revenge and for encroaching on their lands while white settlers attacked Indigenous settlements.²² Increasingly, American colonists began to harbor strong feelings of hatred for all Indigenous people which further fuelled them to take Indigenous lands.²³

Indigenous people navigated this hostile landscape for their survival. For example, Nastwateees chose White Eyes to be the next Delaware leader. White Eyes, Gelelemend, and Captain Pipe negotiated with the Americans for peace in exchange for goods and the promise of protection, though the terms of this treaty were later disputed by Killbuck. However, the Wyandot and Shawnee, and other groups of the Delaware, did not trust the Americans: they sided with the British in hopes of protecting their land.²⁴

In 1778, White Eyes was suspected to be murdered and the Americans failed to provide sufficient protection. Captain Pipe broke ties with the Americans. Killbuck continued to side with the Americans and even fought against other Delaware groups.²⁵ In the end, neither the Americans nor the British had Indigenous interests at heart.

In 1782, American soldiers committed the Massacre of Gnadenhutten and only two Delawares in the Gnadenhutten settlement survived. The massacre was in part motivated by American settlers’ desire to take the Christian Delawares’ land. No one was formally punished for the incident. In response, the Delawares who were allied with the British exacted revenge by torturing Captain William Crawford. However, in the eyes of white American settlers, Crawford’s death was further proof that all Indigenous people were inherently violent and evil.²⁶

In 1783, the American victory led to even more violence, as white Americans, who considered Ohio to be theirs, poured into Indigenous lands.²⁷ While these acts of violence were most common along the Ohio River, the killing of 16 Indigenous men by Captain Fulkes shows that this violence also occurred in Wooster.

White settlement also spread after the Revolutionary War. In 1785, the Delaware, Wyandotte, and the United States signed the Treaty of Fort McIntosh, which opened eastern Ohio for white settlement. However, groups like the Shawnee protested the treaty and did not view it as legitimate. These lands would not be truly secured by the United States without a fight.²⁸

Battle of Fallen Timbers and the Treaty of Greeneville

1794-1795

First image: Charge of the Dragoons at Fallen Timbers, R. T. Zogbaum (1895). Wikimedia images. Public domain. Second image: “Treaty of Greeneville” Unknown Artist, 1795. Wikimedia Images, Public Domain.

The United States and Britain’s Indigenous allies, including the Wyandotte, Miami, Delawares, and Shawnees, and others fought the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794.²⁹“Mad” Anthony Wayne, the namesake of Wayne County defeated this Indigenous coalition and destroyed Indigenous crops and settlements all along the Maumee River in a “scorched earth” attack.³⁰

This battle led to the Treaty of Greeneville (1795), one of the most significant treaties in the Ohio region. The Treaty of Greenville led to a massive influx of white settlers.³¹ Ohio was made a state in 1803, and Wooster was a town by 1808. The Treaty of Fort Industry was signed in 1805, which made even more sections of Ohio open to white settlers.

War of 1812

1812-1813

An illustration from 1860 shows Tecumseh (left of the man on the horse) saving white prisoners. Image: Tecumseh Saving Prisoners. Virtue, Emmins & Co., publisher. Picryl. No known restrictions on publication.

As American forces consolidated their power, enacted more treaties such as the Treaty of Fort Industry, and fought once again with the British, Indigenous people in Ohio mounted a resistance. Tecumseh, a Shawnee leader, and his younger brother, Lalawethika, are known for their roles in a large pan-Indigenous resistance in Ohio when they realized that the United States would expand beyond the Treaty of Greenville line.³² They sought recruits from tribes in Ohio and to the South in order to create a separate state for Indigenous people, as well as defend their lands from white settlement. A letter from Fred Wadsworth recalls his visit to Greentown, a Delaware settlement in Ashland County, where the “Great Prophet” was coming to enlist local Delaware men against the United States in 1809-1810.³³ Many Shawnees did not join him and rather sided with the Americans although they too faced violence from white settlers.³⁴ While Tecumseh allied himself with the British, he did not trust them fully.³⁵

Tecumseh was killed in 1813. In 1814, the United States and Great Britain signed the Treaty of Ghent to end the war. Article 9 stated that all Indigenous nations would be treated peacefully and would be granted the lands they had in 1811. However, after the war, the pace of white settlement hastened.³⁶ Systematic removals of the Delaware, Shawnee, and Wyandot followed, while white settlers across Ohio and Indigenous territories still posed a grave threat to Indigenous settlers.³⁷

Why did the Indigenous people of Wayne County leave “in one night?”

Benjamin Douglass would like to have you think that the Indigenous people of Wayne County left out of some desire to do evil, or to “deepen the blood-stain on their hands”³⁸ However, first-hand accounts from nearby settlements paint a different picture.

Rev. Benjamin Mortimer’s accounts of the area show that Indigenous people feared violence from white settlers, which caused them to flee. Reverend Benjamin Mortimer was a missionary who lived with Indigenous people, especially the Delaware, and served the Church of the United Brethren (or Moravian Church). He lived in settlements such as Goshen, which was a settlement for Delaware people and Moravian missionaries in present-day Tuscarawas County.

On April 30^th, 1812, Mortimer wrote:

“It was rumored here today that all of the Indians at the town half way between here and Sandusky were suddenly fled away and the neighboring white people did not know what was become of them. If this is the case, and this is not improbable, the cause, we suppose, is their excessive terror on account of the marching of the militia, whom all the Indians in these parts, from past experience, regard only as so many lawless, blood-thirsty murderers”
Journal Entry from Benjamin Mortimer, April 30th, 1812. From page 17 of Greentown: A Story of 1812 in Contemporary Documents, published by the Ashland County chapter of the Ohio Genealogical Society

While authors much later, such as Benjamin Douglass, dismissed the experiences of Indigenous people, and characterized them as violent, the War of 1812 was a fearful time for white settlers, who assembled militias out of their fear of Indigenous violence, and Indigenous people, who fled in fear of white violence.