“First settlers?”
When reading a book like Benjamin Douglass’s, readers get the sense that the early white settlers were the “first” in places like Wayne County. Is this accurate?
While books like Douglass’s talk about Indigenous Americans, their titles give readers an idea of whose history is more important.
Take Douglass’s title for example:
History of Wayne County Ohio:
From the Days of the Pioneers and First Settlers to the Present Time.
Why did he define his timeline like this? Who were the “earliest settlers” and the “pioneers?”
In the first chapter, Douglass establishes that when he says “early settlers,” he means the early white settlers of Wayne County in the early 1800s.
“The earliest inhabitants of the county were from Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, and a light component from the New England states. The predominant element was composed of emigrants from Pennsylvania…which…combined with the foreign Dutch, constitutes three-fourths of its population today.”
Benjamin Douglass, History of Wayne County Ohio (1878), 178.
This may look like a helpful paragraph that describes where folks emigrated from. However, on the next page, things take a turn. Douglass describes how these “earliest settlers:”
“…dared to invade the wilderness, with its perils of storm, of flood, of savage Indian and ambuscade, of possible starvation, sickness, and death.”
Benjamin Douglass, History of Wayne County Ohio (1878), Douglass, page 179
Clearly, as Douglass compares Native Americans to a force like a natural disaster, he thought of the “earliest settlers” as the earliest white settlers. This is even more explicit in other sections. For example, when introducing his discussion of Indigenous people in Wayne County, he calls them,
“…the Indians that inhabited Wayne County when the first settlements were made”
Benjamin Douglass, History of Wayne County Ohio (1878), 165-166.
However, in Douglass’s book, we can find examples of Native Americans who lived and settled in the Wayne County area during and before the arrival of the pioneers. For example, Douglass mentions that Indigenous people did live in Wayne County, especially in Clinton, Chippewa, East Union, and Franklin Townships. He even notes that while some were transient visitors, others lived in more permanent housing.1Douglass, History of Wayne County, Ohio, 165-166 One example of a more permanent settlement was Beaver Hat Town, a local trade center.
So, if Native Americans lived in Wayne County before white settlers, why aren’t they called the first settlers?
When we look at the context of why Douglass wrote his book, it was important for white settlers to claim that they, and not Indigenous people, were the first settlers of a given area. If white settlers could erase the history of the people who lived on this land before them, they could convince themselves that westward expansion, and the removal of Indigenous people, were justified.2 Jentz, Seven Myths of Native American History, 60-63. Ben Douglass similarly wanted to justify the white settlement of Wayne County.
This is called the “first settlers” myth.
Image: Border Settlers in Ohio (1876). New York Public Library. Creative Commons 1.0 Universal Public Domain.
White settlers either wanted to deny that Indigenous people lived on this land before them, or they wanted to deny that Indigenous people deserved the land as much as white settlers. The first settler myth comes in two forms: the image of the empty wilderness or the argument that white settlers were the first “real” settlers.
Empty Wilderness?
“Autumn in West Canada, Chippeway Indians” Cornelius Krieghoff (1865). Bonhams Fine Art Auctioneers & Valuers, public domain.
White settlers, and local historians who recorded their stories, often claimed that when they settled, they found an “empty wilderness.” However, if we dig into these accounts, Indigenous people are oftentimes still described as living and utilizing these supposedly “empty lands.” The image of an empty wilderness propped up the ideology of Manifest Destiny or westward expansion: if white settlers could erase the existence of Indigenous people and how they lived in a local area, they could avoid the uncomfortable truth that they settled on someone else’s land.3 Jentz, Seven Myths of Native American History, 57.
Sometimes, local historians will describe Native American populations in some parts of their books, but then claim that those same areas were completely empty in other places. For example, Douglass describes how the pioneers:
“…from the primal gloom of wilderness…made our county a garden of sunshine and delights.”
Benjamin Douglass, History of Wayne County, Ohio (1878), 190.
However, Douglass devotes multiple chapters of his book to describing the Indigenous people who lived in Wayne County. Douglass also does not conceal the fact that he discusses Indigenous people, as in his introduction he includes:
Indian ethnology, historical surveys of the Delawares, Wyandots, Shawnese, etc., who inhabited this section, together with descriptions of the Great Trail leading from Fort Pitt to Fort Sandusky, and the massacre by Captain Fulkes of the red warriors on the bands of Apple Creek, all are compassed in the range of the work.
Benjamin Douglass, History of Wayne County Ohio (1878), 8.
Why then would historians like Douglass say that Wayne County was a “wilderness?”
If white writers like Douglass could claim that their area was a “wilderness” before the arrival of white settlers, they could then justify their settlement without having to worry about how it impacted Indigenous people.
However, to erase how Indigenous people impacted the land is to erase their history.
The idea that Indigenous lands were the “wilderness” dates to the Puritan settlers in New England, who saw the “wilderness” as a place without the English towns they were accustomed to and as a place without white Christians, which was meant to test their faith.4Jentz, Seven Myths of Native American History,56-57.
Eventually, the “wilderness” became the excuse used by white settlers to remove Native Americans and settle on their lands, as was the case in Ohio. Even in areas that looked “empty,” the myth of the “empty wilderness” still applies. While it is suspected that Ohio’s Moundbuilders died in large numbers from infectious diseases upon European contact, many Indigenous people survived, and Indigenous people did not disappear entirely.5Jentz, Seven Myths of Native American History, 57-58. While Indigenous people were spread out, they understood their land to be an important resource and a center for economic activity tied to their group’s history.6Jentz, Seven Myths of Native American History, 65. In Ohio, Indigenous people tended to live in settlements but claimed broader swaths of land for hunting and food.7 Hurt, The Ohio Frontier, 24-25
In other areas, the usage of treaties to remove Indigenous people, such as the Treaty of Greenville and the Treaty of Fort Industry created an artificial “wilderness.”8 Jentz, Seven Myths of Native American History, 63-64. The removal of Indigenous people allowed white Americans to claim that they were the “first” in the area, while ignoring this removal history.
This myth extended beyond local history books and can be found in many forms of culture throughout the nineteenth century. For example, look at Walt Whitman’s poem “Pioneers! O Pioneers!” (1865):
We detachments steady throwing,
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing as we go the unknown ways,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
We primeval forests felling,
We the rivers stemming, vexing we and piercing deep the mines within,
We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Image: Walt Whitman (1887). George Collins Cox. Wikimedia images. Public Domain.
This poem tells the story of westward settlement in the entire American West, which was also home to many different Native American nations. The existence of Native Americans and Indigenous agriculture counters the idea that the West was a “virgin soil” and complicates stories that glorify the pioneers.
In Wayne County, local information still credits white settlers as the “first settlers” of Wayne County and Wooster.
The earliest settlers were from Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey and New England. A great number also came from Pennsylvania, people who came to be known as Pennsylvania Dutch or Pennsylvania Germans.
Main Street Wooster, “Our Mission and History,” 2022.
If you’ve read the rest of this webpage, you will already know that this quote is taken directly from Douglass, page 178.
Even today, many people still believe that lands that belonged to Indigenous people were “empty.” However, even learning a small amount about the Indigenous people who hunted, lived, or traded in your local area will prove this myth to be false.
How can I challenge the “empty wilderness” myth?
Instead of framing white settlers as the “first settlers” of an area, research how different groups of Indigenous Americans lived. Stress the idea that white settlers were one group out of many who called North America, or your local area, home, oftentimes through campaigns of removal.
Avoid making generalizations about empty, untouched lands. Instead, mention any settlements that existed in the area, or any settlements that existed in the wider region, even if your local area was not a major settlement site. While some areas appeared to be “unsettled,” Indigenous people were likely not far away.
Consider replacing “first settlers” with:
- European colonists/inhabitants
- White colonists/inhabitants
- A description based on where white colonists came from, such as their county, region, or state of origin
It is important to note that in Wayne County, Ohio, and many other places in Ohio, Indigenous people were settlers as well. Many of the Indigenous populations in the area arrived in Ohio in the 1700s after white settlement and Indigenous conflicts drove them out of their original homelands, while other Indigenous groups have left evidence of their lives before European contact.
First “real” settlers?
When evidence of Indigenous settlement was obvious, local historians tweaked their definition of “settlement” and claimed white settlers to be the first “real” settlers because they brought “modernity.” 9O’Brien, Firsting and Lasting, xxiii. O’Brien also notes that in New England, where many Indigenous people remained, white Europeans claimed that they were not “real” Indigenous people to deny their existence. This led to local historians calling white, European settlements the “first” even when Indigenous settlements predated them.10O’Brien, Firsting and Lasting, 6. In this context, “first” means “the first thing of any importance.”
Local historians in regions such as New England asserted that white settlers were the “true” first settlers because of their connection to characteristics supposedly exclusive to white Europeans, such as “culture, science, and reason,” according to historian Jean O’Brien.11O’Brien, Firsting and Lasting, 3. Particularly, local historians often portrayed white settlers as the “first” because they were Christian.12 O’Brien, Firsting and Lasting, 43. This stereotypes Native Americans as being perpetually backward and traditional.13O’Brien, Firsting and Lasting, 4.
Ben Douglass says that early white settlers’ causes were:
“religion, civilization, and man”
Benjamin Douglass, History of Wayne County, Ohio (1878), 180.
Meanwhile, he dismisses Indigenous cultures as having any importance or influence:
“A predatory, languid, wandering, lazy race, they have bequeathed no evidences of inventive genius, productive energy, enterprise, or thrift. A houseless, habitationless, self-barbarizing people…they made us devisees of bloody lands, uncultivated and unimproved.”
Benjamin Douglass, History of Wayne County, Ohio (1878), 171.Trade, Agriculture, and Settlement
Clearly, while Douglass in some places claims that white settlers were the first to live in Wayne County, in other places he robs the Indigenous people who lived here of their rightful role in history. However, Indigenous people both in Wayne County and Ohio did in fact contribute to the broader history of Ohio, participated in agriculture, and lived in settlements.
How can I challenge the idea of the first “real” settlers?
Instead of insisting that only white settlers were “civilized,” try to research the lifestyles, cultures, and beliefs of tribes who once lived in your area, as well as how they try to preserve these traditions today. Emphasize that while both white and Indigenous settlers had their own ways of life, white settlers began to view Indigenous people through negative stereotypes to justify their removal or erasure.