183-646: Lower Shawneetown , also known as Shannoah or Sonnontio , was an 18th-century Shawnee village located within the Lower Shawneetown Archeological District, near South Portsmouth in Greenup County, Kentucky and Lewis County, Kentucky . The population eventually occupied areas on both sides of the Ohio River, and along both sides of the Scioto River in what is now Scioto County, Ohio . It
366-510: A "stone fort, strongly built and in good condition for their defense." As Joncaire's delegation approached the town by canoe, warriors manning the stockade fired three shots at them, all of which struck the French flag they were carrying. Joncaire boldly continued, and when the delegation landed, the Shawnees conducted them to the council house in the center of the town. There, as Joncaire was explaining
549-612: A 1614 Dutch map showing some Sawwanew located just east of the Delaware River . Later 17th-century Dutch sources also place them in this general location. Accounts by French explorers in the same century usually located the Shawnee along the Ohio River, where the French encountered them on forays from eastern Canada and the Illinois Country . Based on historical accounts and later archaeology, John E. Kleber describes Shawnee towns by
732-478: A 500% increase in mercury discharges between 2007 and 2013. For several decades beginning in the 1950s, the Ohio River was polluted with hundreds of thousands of pounds of PFOA , a fluoride-based chemical used in making teflon , among other things, by the DuPont chemical company from an outflow pipe at its Parkersburg, West Virginia , facility. The Ohio was listed among America's Most Endangered Rivers of 2023 on
915-744: A French architect and surveyor whose survey was the first mapping of the Ohio River, led an expedition of French troops from Fort Niagara down the Allegheny and Ohio Rivers as far as the mouth of the Great Miami River near Big Bone Lick and possibly the Falls of the Ohio (present-day Louisville ). Chaussegros de Lery mapped the Great Lakes in 1725, and engineered the Niagara fortifications in 1726. I am indebted for
1098-459: A French flag, and watched as Chartier attempted unsuccessfully to persuade the leaders of Lower Shawneetown to form an alliance with the French: They held a council to...hear the reading of Longueuil 's letter. After this [Chartier] took the [French] flag and planted it in front of one of the big chiefs of the village, saying to them: "This is what [your French ally] sends you, to continue to [do]
1281-572: A band of Cherokee along the lower Tennessee River and Chickamauga Creek against the colonists in that area. Some colonists called this group of Cherokee the Chickamauga , because they lived along that river at the time of what became known as the Cherokee–American wars , during and after the American Revolution . But they were never a separate tribe, as some accounts suggested. After
1464-621: A chief, in 1714 they asked Carondawana, an Oneida war chief, to represent them to the Pennsylvania provincial council. About 1727, Carondawana and his wife, a prominent interpreter known as Madame Montour , settled at Otstonwakin , on the west bank at the confluence of Loyalsock Creek and the West Branch Susquehanna River . By 1730, European American settlers began to arrive in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, where
1647-529: A detailed description of a wedding festival Gist witnessed during his 12-day stay in Lower Shawneetown. Indian trader William Trent established a storehouse in Lower Shawneetown in the mid-1730s, and the Shawnees kept it secure in order to encourage further trade with the British. Between 1748 and 1751 the British traders Andrew Montour and George Croghan visited the town three times. In 1749 Croghan built
1830-562: A few years of its establishment, the town became a key center in dealings between Native American tribes and Europeans. The community was initially built on the south bank of the Ohio River opposite its confluence with the Scioto River , on floodplains and terraces, with later growth of a sub-community on the north bank of the Ohio, along the east and west banks of the Scioto. The Ohio community on
2013-456: A girdle round them with a piece of cloth drawn through their legs and turned over the girdle, and appears like a short apron before and behind. All the hair is pulled from their eyebrows and eyelashes and their faces painted in different parts with Vermilion. They walk remarkably straight and cut a grotesque appearance in this mixed dress." — from the Journal of Nicholas Cresswell Ever since
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#17328521410102196-400: A great imprudence to go to their village. He instead invited them to visit his encampment to hear an announcement. The next day, a canoe bearing a white flag approached Céloron's camp, and Shawnee and Iroquois leaders from Lower Shawneetown met with Céloron. They apologized for their "great mistake" [referring to the shots fired at the French delegation]. Céloron negotiated with the leaders of
2379-568: A group of Shawnee migrated to the Savannah River area. The English based in Charles Town , South Carolina, were contacted by these Shawnee in 1674. They forged a long-lasting alliance. The Savannah River Shawnee were known to the Carolina English as "Savannah Indians". Around the same time, other Shawnee groups migrated to Florida, Maryland , Pennsylvania, and other regions south and east of
2562-541: A key, nails, chisels, hooks, a buckle, a Jew's harp , and pieces of a pair of iron scissors. On 29 June 1752, William Trent had just left Logstown when he learned of the Raid on Pickawillany , a large Native American village that was attacked by French and Ottawa forces and destroyed. Trent's storehouse there had been plundered. He traveled to Lower Shawneetown, where he met on 3 July in the council-house with Thomas Burney and Andrew McBryer, two English traders who had escaped during
2745-526: A letter of 27 July 1734, written by François-Marie Bissot, Sieur de Vincennes , describing an English trader's warehouse in "the home of the Shawnees on the Ohio River." Historian Charles A. Hanna proposes that the town was established by Shaweygila Shawnees who had been forced out of their home on the Monongahela River by the Six Nations chiefs. The first reference to the Lower Shawneetown by that name
2928-588: A point south of the Ohio River and north of the Falls: "Place where one found the ivory of Elephant in 1729" ( French : endroit ou on à trouvé des os d'Elephant en 1729 ). De Lery's men found teeth weighing ten pounds (4.5 kg) with a diameter of five to seven inches (130 to 180 mm), tusks 11 feet (3.4 m) long and 6–7 inches (150–180 mm) in diameter, and thigh bones 5 feet (1.5 m) long. The bones were collected and shipped to Paris, where they were identified as mastodon remains; they are on display at
3111-630: A small American post on the Sandusky River . After they were repulsed with serious losses, the British and Tecumseh ended their Ohio campaign. On Lake Erie, the American commander Captain Oliver Hazard Perry fought the Battle of Lake Erie on September 10, 1813. His decisive victory against the British ensured American control of the lake, improved American morale after a series of defeats, and compelled
3294-653: A southern route to his home in Augusta County, Virginia , in May 1745. John Howard was extradited to France to stand trial. His ship was intercepted by the English and, as a free man, he reported his adventures after landing in London; however, his account has been lost. Salling's detailed account of Virginia's adjacent lands was used in Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson's 1751 map. In 1749,
3477-612: A southwesterly direction from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illinois . It is the third largest river by discharge volume in the United States and the largest tributary by volume of the north-south flowing Mississippi River, which divides the eastern from western United States. It is also the sixth oldest river on the North American continent. The river flows through or along
3660-502: A speech in which he informed the chiefs that "the French offered a large sum of Money to any person who would bring them the said Croghan and Andrew Montour the Interpreter alive, or if dead their scalps." This was apparently a further attempt by the French to drive out the English traders, and Croghan evidently felt safe enough in the community to reveal that there was a bounty on his head. He then promised "a large Present of Goods...which
3843-631: A trading post in Lower Shawneetown (probably outside the town near the main overland trail or the Ohio River bank where traders could beach their canoes), operating in conjunction with his trading posts already established at Pine Creek , Oswegle Bottom, Muskingum , and Pickawillany, dominating the Ohio Valley deerskin trade . He may have spent the winter of 1752–1753 in Lower Shawneetown. Lower Shawneetown's size and connections to neighboring communities allowed traders to establish storehouses for incoming and outgoing goods, managed by European men who lived in
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#17328521410104026-576: A two-pronged invasion into the Ohio Country. The Shawnee chief Cornstalk attacked one wing but fought to a draw in the only major battle of the war, the Battle of Point Pleasant . In the Treaty of Camp Charlotte ending the war (1774), Cornstalk and the Shawnee were compelled by the British to recognize the Ohio River as their southern border, which had been established by the Fort Stanwix treaty. By this treaty,
4209-763: A whole is ranked as the most polluted river in the United States, based on 2009 and 2010 data. The more industrial and regional West Virginia/Pennsylvania tributary, the Monongahela River , ranked 17th for water pollution , behind 16 other American rivers. The Ohio again ranked as the most polluted in 2013, and has been the most polluted river since at least 2001, according to the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission (ORSANCO). The Commission found that 92% of toxic discharges were nitrates , including farm runoff and waste water from industrial processes such as steel production. The Commission also noted mercury pollution as an ongoing concern, citing
4392-584: Is 1,310 miles (2,110 km) long and carries the largest volume of water of any tributary of the Mississippi. The Indians and early European explorers and settlers of the region often considered the Allegheny to be part of the Ohio. The forks (the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers at what is now Pittsburgh) were considered a strategic military location by colonial French and British, and later independent American military authorities. The Ohio River
4575-476: Is a gap in the archaeological record between the most recent Fort Ancient sites and the oldest sites of the historic Shawnee. The latter were recorded by European (French and English) archaeologists as occupying this area at the time of encounter. Scholars generally accept that similarities in material culture, art, mythology , and Shawnee oral history linking them to the Fort Ancient peoples, can be used to support
4758-539: Is credited with being the first European to travel and explore western Pennsylvania and the upper Ohio Valley. Viele made contact with Native American nations as far west as the Wabash River , in present-day Indiana. He and his company left Albany , traveling southbound and crossing portions of present-day New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania. They apparently followed the west branch of the Susquehanna River into
4941-539: Is formed by the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers at what is now Point State Park in Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania . From there, it flows northwest through Allegheny and Beaver counties, before making an abrupt turn to the south-southwest at the West Virginia –Ohio–Pennsylvania triple-state line (near East Liverpool, Ohio ; Chester, West Virginia ; and Ohioville, Pennsylvania ). From there, it forms
5124-419: Is now Sylacauga, Alabama , Chalahgawtha at the site of present-day Chillicothe, Ohio , Old Shawneetown, Illinois , and Suwanee, Georgia . Their language became a lingua franca for trade among numerous tribes. They became leaders among the tribes, initiating and sustaining intertribal resistance to European and Euro-American expansion. Some Shawnee occupied areas in central Pennsylvania. Long without
5307-498: Is today part of Raven Rock State Nature Preserve. The earliest eyewitness account is a report by Charles III Le Moyne , Baron de Longueuil from July, 1739. A French military expedition made up of 123 French soldiers and 319 Native American warriors from Quebec , under the command of Longueuil, was on its way to help defend New Orleans from the Chickasaw , who were attacking the city on behalf of England . While on their journey down
5490-599: The 1763 Treaty of Paris . The 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix with several tribes opened Kentucky to colonial settlement and established the Ohio River as a southern boundary for American Indian territory. In 1774 the Quebec Act restored the land east of the Mississippi River and north of the Ohio River to Quebec , in effect making the Ohio the southern boundary of Canada . This appeased French Canadians in Quebec but angered
5673-459: The American Civil War . One antebellum slave trader reported that they kept slaves chained two-by-two while navigating the Ohio, only when they reached the Mississippi could the slaves be unchained for a time, because "there was slavery on both sides of the boat." The expression "sold down the river" originated as a lament of Upper South slaves, especially from Kentucky, who were shipped via
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5856-584: The Batts and Fallam expedition of 1671, and the Needham and Arthur expedition of 1673–74. In early autumn 1692, loyal English-speaking Dutchman Arnout Viele and a party of eleven companions from Esopus —Europeans, Shawnee , and a few loyal Delaware guides—were sent by the governor of New York to trade with the Shawnee and bring them into the English sphere of influence. Viele understood several Native American languages, which made him valuable as an interpreter. He
6039-718: The Beaver Wars , the Haudenosaunee Confederacy had claimed the Ohio Country as their hunting ground by right of conquest, and treated the Shawnee and Lenape who resettled there as dependent tribes. Some independent Iroquois bands from various tribes also migrated westward, where they became known in Ohio as the Mingo . These three tribes—the Shawnee, the Delaware (Lenape), and the Mingo—became closely associated with one another, despite
6222-526: The Beaver Wars , which began in the 1640s. Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy invaded from the east to secure the Ohio Valley for hunting grounds. The Shawnee became known for their widespread settlements, extending from Pennsylvania to Illinois and to Georgia . Among their known villages were Eskippakithiki in Kentucky, Sonnionto (also known as Lower Shawneetown ) in Ohio, Chalakagay near what
6405-539: The Bentley site , among which there were 19 children and adolescents and four adults. Including its 300 warriors, the town may have had a total population of between 1,200 and 1,500. In 1753, after a flood destroyed part of the town which had been on the Scioto River's west bank, some residents relocated to the east bank, and others moved to the Kentucky side of the Ohio River. According to A. Gwynn Henderson, eighteenth-century homes in this community would have resembled those of
6588-636: The Forks of the Ohio at Pittsburgh to the Port of New Orleans at the mouth of the Mississippi on the Gulf of Mexico. Since the "canalization" of the river in 1929, the Ohio has not been a natural free-flowing river; today, it is divided into 21 discrete pools or reservoirs by 20 locks and dams for navigation and power generation. The name "Ohio" comes from the Seneca , Ohi:yo' , lit. "Good River". In his Notes on
6771-491: The Fort Ancient inhabitants (a Native American culture that occupied the region from about 1000-1750 CE): ...Long rectangular buildings with rounded corners constructed of frameworks of wooden posts set singly into the ground and covered with either thatch, bark, mats or skins. Trade blankets or skins provided "doors" at the ends of the houses. Interior partitions broke up the space within each house, and hearths were located in
6954-568: The French National Natural History Museum . Charles III Le Moyne , second Baron de Longueuil (later the governor of Montreal and interim governor of New France ), commanded Fort Niagara from 1726 to 1733. He led an expedition of 442 men, including Native Americans, from Montreal to war against the Chickasaw who occupied territory on the lower part of the Mississippi River in the area claimed as La Louisiane . According to Gaston Pierre de Lévis , Duke de Mirepoix,
7137-601: The Indiana Territory , invited Potawatomi , Lenape, Eel River people , and Miami representatives to a meeting at Fort Wayne . In the negotiations, Harrison promised large subsidies to the tribes if they would cede lands to the United States. After two weeks of negotiating, the Potawatomi leaders convinced the Miami to accept the treaty as reciprocity, because the Potawatomi had earlier accepted treaties less advantageous to them at
7320-700: The Kanawha River , they entered the Ohio River 444 miles (715 km) above the falls. The Virginia pioneers traced the northern boundary of Kentucky for five hundred miles (800 km), reaching the Mississippi River on June 7. They descended just below the mouth of the Arkansas River , where they were ambushed by a large company of Native Americans, Blacks and Frenchmen on July 2, 1742; one or two of Howard's men were killed. The rest were brought to New Orleans and imprisoned as spies. After two years in prison, Salling escaped on October 25, 1744, and returned on
7503-510: The Kanawhan Region and the Ohio Valley tributaries in 1750–1751 and 1753, following the trail of Céloron through the Ohio country, visiting the same Indian towns the French expedition had visited and meeting with chiefs. In 1751 Gist, Indian trader George Croghan and Andrew Montour (interpreter), accompanied by Robert Callender , visited Lower Shawneetown. Gist's journal entry from January, 1751, states: Tuesday [January] 29 - Set out...to
Lower Shawneetown - Misplaced Pages Continue
7686-533: The Land Ordinance of 1784 , Thomas Jefferson proposed a new state called "Pelisipia", to the south of the Ohio River, which would have included parts of present-day Eastern Kentucky , Virginia and West Virginia . The river had great significance in the history of the Native Americans , as numerous prehistoric and historic civilizations formed along its valley. For thousands of years, Native Americans used
7869-662: The Midwestern Great Lakes states from the Upper South states, which were historically border states in the Civil War. The Ohio River is a left (east) and the largest tributary by volume of the Mississippi River in the United States . At the confluence , the Ohio is considerably bigger than the Mississippi, measured by long-term mean discharge. The Ohio River at Cairo is 281,500 cu ft/s (7,960 m /s); and
8052-492: The Mississippi River at the city of Cairo, Illinois . Where the Ohio joins the Mississippi is the lowest elevation in the state of Illinois, at 315 feet (96 m). The Mississippi River flows to the Gulf of Mexico on the Atlantic Ocean . Among rivers wholly or mostly in the United States, the Ohio is the second largest by discharge volume and the tenth longest and has the eighth largest drainage basin. It serves to separate
8235-521: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 's Ohio River Forecast Center. The water depth predictions are relative to each local flood plain based upon predicted rainfall in the Ohio River basin in five reports as follows: The water levels for the Ohio River from Smithland Lock and Dam to Cairo, Illinois, are predicted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 's Lower Mississippi River Forecast Center. The largest tributaries of
8418-625: The Ohio Company was established in Virginia Colony to settle and trade in the Ohio River region. Exploration of the territory and trade with the Indians in the region near the Forks brought white colonists from both Pennsylvania and Virginia across the mountains, and both colonies claimed the territory. The movement across the Allegheny Mountains of Anglo-American settlers and the claims of
8601-456: The Ohio River towards the Mississippi River , they met with local chiefs in a village on the banks of the Scioto, which was probably Lower Shawneetown, "where the Shawnees gave them a friendly reception and furnished reinforcements." Among Longueuil's officers was the young Pierre Joseph Céloron de Blainville , who returned to Lower Shawneetown in 1749. In April, 1745, Peter Chartier , a métis of Shawnee and French-Canadian parentage, opposed
8784-465: The Ohio River Valley , and Lower Shawneetown was situated at a convenient point, accessible to many communities living on tributaries of the Ohio River. The area had Iroquois , Delaware , Wyandot , and Miami communities within a few days' journey. The town also lay near the Seneca Trail , which was used by Cherokees and Catawbas , and the opportunity to trade for furs and to broker political alliances attracted both British and French traders. Within
8967-411: The Potomac River to the Ohio River. The Wheeling Suspension Bridge was built over the river at Wheeling from 1847 to 1849, making the trip west easier. For a brief time, until 1851, it was the world's largest suspension bridge. The bridge survived the American Civil War , after having been improved in 1859. It was renovated again in 1872, and remains in use as the oldest vehicular suspension bridge in
9150-409: The Powhatan Confederacy of 1618–1644, to settle in the Shenandoah Valley . The party was led by his son, Sheewa-a-nee. Edward Bland, an explorer who accompanied Abraham Wood 's expedition in 1650, wrote that in Opechancanough's day, there had been a falling-out between the Chawan chief and the weroance of the Powhatan (also a relative of Opechancanough's family). He said the latter had murdered
9333-406: The keelboats used for commerce in the early days of American settlement. The Ohio River boatmen inspired performer Dan Emmett , who in 1843 wrote the song " The Boatman's Dance ". Trading boats and ships traveled south on the Mississippi to New Orleans , and sometimes beyond to the Gulf of Mexico and other ports in the Americas and Europe. This provided a much-needed export route for goods from
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#17328521410109516-402: The 1750s. Lower Shawneetown was abandoned in 1758 to avoid colonial American raids during the French and Indian War, and was relocated further up the Scioto River to the Pickaway Plains . Established in the mid-1730s at the confluence of the Scioto and Ohio Rivers, Lower Shawneetown was one of the earliest known Shawnee settlements on the Ohio River. The first reference to the town is found in
9699-538: The 1839 Cherokee War. Texas achieved independence from Mexico under American leaders. It decided to force removal of the Shawnee from the new republic. But in appreciation of their earlier neutrality, Texan President Mirabeau Lamar fully compensated the Shawnee for their improvements and crops. They were forced out to Arkansas Territory . The Shawnee settled close to present-day Shawnee, Oklahoma . They were joined by Shawnee pushed out of Kansas (see below), who shared their traditionalist views and beliefs. In 1817,
9882-402: The Allegheny River also as Ohi:yo' . Similarly, the Geographic Names Information System lists O-hee-yo and O-hi-o as variant names for the Allegheny. An earlier Miami-Illinois language name was also applied to the Ohio River, Mosopeleacipi ("river of the Mosopelea " tribe). Shortened in the Shawnee language to pelewa thiipi , spelewathiipi or peleewa thiipiiki ,
10065-414: The American rebel cause. Cornstalk led the minority who wished to remain neutral. The Shawnee north of the Ohio River were unhappy about the American settlement of Kentucky. Colin Calloway reports that most Shawnees allied with the British against the Americans, hoping to be able to expel the settlers from west of the mountains. War leaders such as Blackfish and Blue Jacket joined Dragging Canoe and
10248-464: The British to fall back from Detroit. General Harrison launched another invasion of Upper Canada (Ontario), which culminated in the U.S. victory at the Battle of the Thames on October 5, 1813. Tecumseh was killed there, and his death effectively ended the Indigenous alliance with the British in the Detroit region. American control of Lake Erie meant the British could no longer provide essential military supplies to their Native allies, who dropped out of
10431-425: The British unless the treaty was nullified. In March, the Great Comet of 1811 appeared. During the next year, tensions between American colonists and Native Americans rose quickly. Four settlers were murdered along the Missouri River and, in another incident, Natives seized a boatload of supplies from a group of traders. Harrison summoned Tecumseh to Vincennes to explain the actions of his allies. In August 1811,
10614-422: The British. In the summer of 1749 Pierre Joseph Céloron de Blainville , leading a force of eight officers, six cadets, an armorer, 20 soldiers, 180 Canadians, 30 Iroquois and 25 Abenakis , moved down the Ohio River on a flotilla of 23 large boats and birch-bark canoes, on his "lead plate expedition," burying lead plates at six locations where major tributaries entered the Ohio. The plates were inscribed to claim
10797-405: The Chalahgawtha division of the Shawnees, who dominated the town. On English maps the town was labeled "the Lower Shawonese Town," "the lower Shawanees town," "Lower Shanna Town," "the Shannoah town," or "Shawnoah." The French called it "Saint Yotoc" (which may be a corruption of Scioto), "Sinhioto," "Sononito," "Sonnioto," "Scioto," "Sonyoto," and "Cenioteaux." Lower Shawneetown was downstream from
10980-427: The Chaouanons is quite pleasant, at least, it is not masked by the mountains, like the other villages through which we had passed. The Sinhioto River, which bounds it on the west, has given it its name. It is composed of about sixty cabins. The Englishmen there numbered five. On that morning, several of Céloron's Native American guides warned him that the town's inhabitants might be preparing to ambush Céloron's force, in
11163-428: The Five Nations...men from the Sault St. Louis ( Kahnawake ), there are also some from the Lake of Two Mountains ( Mohawks of Kanesatake ), some Loups from the Miami ( Munsee ), and nearly all the nations from the territory of Enhault ( Pays d'en Haut , the territory of New France to the west of Montreal )." In 1749, Joseph Pierre de Bonnecamps estimated that the entire town had about 60 cabins, but by 1751,
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#173285214101011346-422: The French Foreign minister , described the town as: ...Established at Sonontio, where it forms a sort of republic with a fairly large number of bad characters of various nations who have retired thither...In fact, there is reason to fear that the bad example of the savages...will lead them to do something evil. He urged the Marquis de la Jonquière , the Governor-General of New France , to send envoys to persuade
11529-402: The Indians, the attempt would have failed and put the French to shame. I have therefore withdrawn. In his description of the meeting between Céloron and the English traders, Bonnecamps says, "The Englishmen...were ordered to withdraw, and promised to do so," although he adds elsewhere, "firmly resolved, doubtless, to do nothing of the kind, as soon as our backs were turned." Céloron's expedition
11712-409: The Lower Creek, and the bands became involved in civil war, known as the Creek War . This became part of the War of 1812 when open conflict broke out between American soldiers and the Red Sticks of the Creek. After William Hull 's surrender of Detroit to the British during the War of 1812, General William Henry Harrison was given command of the U.S. Army of the Northwest . He set out to retake
11895-464: The Mississippi River at Thebes, Illinois , which is upstream of the confluence, is 208,200 cu ft/s (5,897 m /s). The Ohio River flow is greater than that of the Mississippi River, so hydrologically the Ohio River is the main stream of the river system. The Ohio River is a naturally shallow river that was artificially deepened by a series of dams . The natural depth of the river varied from about 3 to 20 feet (1 to 6 m). The dams raise
12078-409: The Mississippi River in North America. Later that year, the Crown issued the Proclamation of 1763 , legally confirming the 1758 border as the limits of British colonization. They reserved the land beyond for Native Americans. But the Crown had difficulty enforcing the boundary, as Anglo-European colonists continued to move westward. The Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768 extended the colonial boundary to
12261-423: The Mouth of Sciodoe Creek opposite to the Shannoah Town, here we fired our Guns to alarm the Traders, who soon answered, and came and ferryed Us over to the Town — The Land about the Mouth of Sciodoe Creek is rich but broken fine Bottoms upon the River & Creek. The Shannoah Town is situate upon both Sides the River Ohio, just below the Mouth of Sciodoe Creek, and contains about 300 Men, there are about 40 Houses on
12444-408: The Natural Bridge), crossing Greenbrier River and landing at the New River . At New River, the Virginia explorers built a large bull boat frame and covered it with five buffalo skins. The first Englishmen to explore the region then followed the New River for 250 miles (400 km), until it became too dangerous to navigate. At a large waterfall, they traveled overland to the Coal River . Following
12627-572: The Navy (which included the Bureau of the Colonies), wrote that ...it is reported that since the War , [the Shawnees] have been joined by a considerable number of savages of all nations, forming a sort of republic [at Lower Shawnee Town], dominated by some Iroquois of the Five Nations who form part of it; and that, as the English almost entirely supply their needs, it is to be feared that they may succeed in seducing them...I am writing to Monsieur de Vaudreuil regarding that union, so that he may strive to break it. In May, 1749, Antoine Louis Rouillé ,
12810-438: The Ohio River Valley for settlement, frequently traveling by boats and barges along the Ohio River. Violent incidents between settlers and Indians escalated into Lord Dunmore's War in 1774. British diplomats managed to isolate the Shawnee during the conflict: the Iroquois and the Lenape stayed neutral. The Shawnee faced the British colony of Virginia with only a few Mingo allies. Lord Dunmore , royal governor of Virginia, launched
12993-500: The Ohio River increased to around 1,200 people by 1750. "[I] saw four Indian Chiefs of the Shawnee Nation, who have been at War with the Virginians this summer (i.e. 1774), but have made peace with them, and they are sending these people to Williamsburg as hostages. They are tall, manly, well-shaped men, of a Copper colour with black hair, quick piercing eyes, and good features. They have rings of silver in their nose and bobs to them which hang over their upper lip. Their ears are cut from
13176-564: The Ohio River opened about the same time. Although such boats cruised on the Ohio River in an oval pattern up and down, the state of Kentucky soon protested. Other states had to limit their cruises to going forward, then reversing and going backward on the Indiana shore only. Both Illinois and Indiana have long since changed their laws to allow riverboat casinos to be permanently docked, with Illinois changing in 1999 and Indiana in 2002. The Silver Bridge at Point Pleasant, West Virginia , collapsed into
13359-516: The Ohio River was called the " River Jordan " by slaves crossing it to escape to freedom in the North via the Underground Railroad . More escaping slaves, estimated in the thousands, made their perilous journey north to freedom across the Ohio River than anywhere else across the north-south frontier. Harriet Beecher Stowe 's Uncle Tom's Cabin , the bestselling novel that fueled abolitionist work,
13542-616: The Ohio River's rapids and tributaries in that area. However, the 1783 Treaty of Paris gave the entire Ohio Valley to the United States , and numerous white settlers entered the region. The economic connection of the Ohio Country to the East was significantly increased in 1818 when the National Road being built westward from Cumberland, Maryland , reached Wheeling, Virginia , (now West Virginia ), providing an easier overland connection from
13725-581: The Ohio Shawnee had signed the Treaty of Fort Meigs , ceding their remaining lands in exchange for three reservations in Wapaughkonetta , Hog Creek (near Lima ), and Lewistown , Ohio. They shared these lands with some Seneca people who had migrated west from New York. In a series of treaties, including the Treaty of Lewistown of 1825, Shawnee and Seneca people agreed to exchange land in western Ohio with
13908-554: The Ohio and Mississippi to cotton and sugar plantations in the Deep South . Changes in crops cultivated in the Upper South resulted in slaves available to be sold to the South, where the expansion of cotton plantations was doing very well. Invention of the cotton gin made cultivation of short-staple cotton profitable throughout the Black Belt of this region. Before and during the Civil War,
14091-441: The Ohio country. Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville , founder of New Orleans and the French colony of La Louisiane , writing in his journal in 1699, describes the Shawnee (or as he spells them, Chaouenons ) as "the single nation to fear, being spread out over Carolina and Virginia in the direction of the Mississippi." Historian Alan Gallay speculates that the Shawnee migrations of the middle to late 17th century were probably driven by
14274-640: The Oneida people, becoming the sixth nation of the Iroquois Confederacy; they declared their migration finished in 1722. Also at this time, Seneca (an Iroquois nation) and Lenape war parties from the north often fought pitched battles with pursuing bands of Catawba from Virginia, who would overtake them in the Shawnee-inhabited regions of the Valley. By the late 1730s, pressure from colonial expansion produced repeated conflicts. Shawnee communities were also impacted by
14457-566: The Revolution and during the Northwest Indian War , the Shawnee collaborated with the Miami to form a great fighting force in the Ohio Valley. They led a confederation of warriors of Native American tribes in an effort to expel U.S. settlers from that territory. After being defeated by U.S. forces at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794, most of the Shawnee bands signed the Treaty of Greenville
14640-449: The S Side of the River and about 100 on the N Side, with a Kind of State-House of about 90 Feet long, with a light Cover of Bark in which they hold their Councils. The day after they arrived, Gist, Croghan, Callender and Montour met in the council house with the town's elders and a chief whom Gist identifies as Big Hannaona (probably Big Hominy , also known as Meshemethequater ). Croghan made
14823-576: The Shawnee Reserve in Kansas. This movement was largely under terms negotiated by Joseph Parks (1793–1859). He had been raised in the household of Lewis Cass and had been a leading interpreter for the Shawnee. Ohio River Valley The Ohio River is a 981-mile-long (1,579 km) river in the United States . It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States , flowing in
15006-434: The Shawnee ceded all claims to the "hunting grounds" of West Virginia and Kentucky south of the Ohio River. But many other Shawnee leaders refused to recognize this boundary. The Shawnee and most other tribes were highly decentralized, and bands and towns typically made their own decisions about alliances. When the United States declared independence from the British crown in 1776, the Shawnee were divided. They did not support
15189-475: The Shawnee leader Blue Jacket and the Mohawk leader Joseph Brant . In response, Tecumseh began to expand on the teachings of his brother Tenskwatawa , a spiritual leader known as The Prophet who called for the tribes to return to their ancestral ways. He began to associate these teachings with the idea of an intertribal alliance. Tecumseh traveled widely, urging warriors to abandon accommodationist chiefs and to join
15372-474: The Shawnee population of the town to relocate "either to Canada or Louisiana " for fear the British would recruit Shawnee warriors "to stir up the nations and cause them to undertake expeditions against the French." He added: "If you succeed in inducing the [Shawnees] to leave, it [Lower Shawneetown] will be weakened to such an extent that it need no longer be feared." He also suggested that British traders be expelled from Shawnee communities to discourage trade with
15555-635: The Shawnee predominated in the northern part of the valley. They were claimed as tributaries by the Haudenosaunee or Six Nations of the Iroquois to the north. The Iroquois had helped some of the Tuscarora people from North Carolina, who were also Iroquoian speaking and distant relations, to resettle in the vicinity of what is now Martinsburg, West Virginia . Most of the Tuscarora migrated to New York and settled near
15738-507: The State of Virginia published in 1781–82, Thomas Jefferson stated: "The Ohio is the most beautiful river on earth. Its current gentle, waters clear, and bosom smooth and unbroken by rocks and rapids, a single instance only excepted." After the French and Indian War , Britain's trans-Appalachian Indian Reserve was divided by the river into colonial lands to the south and Native American lands to
15921-476: The U.S. Louisville was founded in 1778 as a military encampment on Corn Island (now submerged) by General George Rogers Clark at the only major natural navigational barrier on the river, the Falls of the Ohio . The Falls were a series of rapids where the river dropped 26 feet (7.9 m) in a stretch of about 2 miles (3.2 km). In this area, the river flowed over hard, fossil-rich beds of limestone . The outpost
16104-645: The United States for land west of the Mississippi River in what became Indian Territory . In July 1831, the Lewistown group of Seneca–Shawnee departed for the Indian Territory (in present-day Kansas and Oklahoma). The main body of Shawnee in Ohio followed Black Hoof , who fought every effort to force his people to give up their homeland. After the death of Black Hoof, the remaining 400 Ohio Shawnee in Wapaughkonetta and Hog Creek surrendered their land and moved to
16287-633: The Virginia mountains to the Mississippi River. The elder Howard had a promised reward of 10,000 acres (4,000 ha) of land for a successful expedition from the Virginia Royal Governor's Council to reinforce British claims in the west. Howard offered equal shares of the 10,000 acres to the four other members of his expedition. The party of five left John Peter Salling's house in August County on March 16, 1742, and traveled west to Cedar Creek (near
16470-594: The Way from the Shannoah Town...is fine, rich, level, Land, well timbered with large Walnut, Ash, Sugar Trees, Cherry Trees, &c; it is well watered with a great Number of little Streams or Rivulets, and full of beautiful natural Meadows, covered with wild Rye , blue Grass , and Clover, and abounds with Turkeys, Deer, Elks, and most Sorts of Game, particularly Buffaloes, thirty or forty of which are frequently seen feeding in one Meadow...a most delightful Country. The Ohio and all
16653-522: The age of 50. The language is written in the Latin script , but attempts at creating a unified spelling system have been unsuccessful. The Shawnee language has a dictionary, and portions of the Bible have been translated into Shawnee. Some scholars believe that the Shawnee descend from the precontact Fort Ancient culture of the Ohio region, although this is not universally accepted. The Shawnee may have entered
16836-407: The archaic shawano (now: shaawanwa ) meaning "south". However, the stem šawa- does not mean "south" in Shawnee, but "moderate, warm (of weather)": See Charles F. Voegelin , "šawa (plus -ni, -te) Moderate, Warm. Cp. šawani 'it is moderating...". In one Shawnee tale, "Sawage" (šaawaki) is the deity of the south wind. Jeremiah Curtin translates Sawage as 'it thaws', referring to the warm weather of
17019-532: The area at a later time and occupied the Fort Ancient sites. Fort Ancient culture flourished from c. 1000 to c. 1650 CE among a people who predominantly inhabited lands on both sides of the Ohio River in areas of present-day southern Ohio , northern Kentucky and western West Virginia . Like the Mississippian culture peoples of this period, they built earthwork mounds as part of their expression of their religious and political structure. Fort Ancient culture
17202-399: The area for France. Céloron also sought out British traders and warned them to leave this territory which belonged to France. Céloron approached the town of "St. Yotoc" on 21 August, where a Lenape Indian they met informed them that the town consisted of "about 80 cabins there, and perhaps 100." Father Bonnecamps, the geographer of Céloron's expedition, wrote: The situation of the village of
17385-519: The area near modern-day Pittsburgh led to conflict with the French, who had forts in the Ohio River Valley . This conflict was called the French and Indian War , and would merge into the global Anglo-French struggle, the Seven Years' War . In 1763, following its defeat in the war, France ceded its area east of the Mississippi River to Britain and its area west of the Mississippi River to Spain in
17568-405: The bidding of the general." They all took up arms, saying...they would have nothing to do with it...[that] it was only to make slaves of them...but [Chartier] told them that he would not listen to them. The same French trader witnessed Chartier's Shawnees performing a two-day "Death Feast," a ceremony conducted before abandoning a village. After staying in Lower Shawneetown for a few weeks, they left
17751-401: The border between West Virginia and Ohio, upstream of Wheeling, West Virginia . The river follows a roughly southwest and then west-northwest course until Cincinnati, before bending to a west-southwest course for most of the remainder of its length. The course forms the northern borders of West Virginia and Kentucky ; and the southern borders of Ohio , Indiana and Illinois , until it joins
17934-470: The border of six states , and its drainage basin includes parts of 14 states. Through its largest tributary, the Tennessee River , the basin includes several states of the southeastern U.S. It is the source of drinking water for five million people. The river became a primary transportation route for pioneers during the westward expansion of the early U.S. The lower Ohio River just below Louisville
18117-597: The center of earthen floors. Pits for storage lined the walls; trash was disposed in outdoor pits or on the ground in heaps behind the house. Bundles of dried food hung from the rafters. However, Europeans described some buildings as huts, cabins or houses--structures with squared logs and covered with bark or clapboard. A few even had chimneys. Lower Shawneetown was surrounded by fertile, alluvial flatlands that were ideal for growing corn, beans, squash, gourds, tobacco, and sunflowers. The remains of charred Northern flint corn have been documented archaeologically. The area around
18300-524: The city, which was defended by British Colonel Henry Procter , together with Tecumseh and his forces. A detachment of Harrison's army was defeated at Frenchtown along the River Raisin on January 22, 1813. Some prisoners were taken to Detroit, but Procter left those too injured to travel with an inadequate guard. His Native American allies attacked and killed perhaps as many as 60 wounded Americans, many of whom were Kentucky militiamen. The Americans called
18483-529: The colonists of the Thirteen Colonies . Lord Dunmore's War south of the Ohio river also contributed to cession of land north to Quebec to prevent colonial expansion onto Native American territory. During the Revolutionary War . in 1776 the British military engineer John Montrésor created a map of the river showing the strategic location of Fort Pitt , including specific navigational information about
18666-551: The comet of March 1811 had signaled his coming. He also said that the people would see a sign proving that the Great Spirit had sent him. As Tecumseh traveled, both sides readied for the Battle of Tippecanoe . Harrison assembled a small force of army regulars and militia to combat the Native forces. On November 6, 1811, Harrison led this army of about 1,000 men to Prophetstown, Indiana , hoping to disperse Tecumseh's confederacy. Early
18849-509: The connection from Fort Ancient society and development as the historical Shawnee society. But there is also evidence and oral history linking Siouan -speaking nations to the Ohio Valley. The Shawnee considered the Lenape (or Delaware) of the East Coast mid-Atlantic region, who were also Algonquian speaking, to be their "grandfathers". The Algonquian nations of present-day Canada, who extended to
19032-691: The differences in their languages. The first two spoke Algonquian languages and the third an Iroquoian language. After taking part in the first phase of the French and Indian War (also known as "Braddock's War") as allies of the French, the Shawnee switched sides in 1758. They made formal peace with the British colonies at the Treaty of Easton , which recognized the Allegheny Ridge (the Eastern Divide ) as their mutual border. This peace lasted only until Pontiac's War erupted in 1763, following Britain's defeat of France and takeover of its territory east of
19215-484: The early 18th century, they mostly concentrated in eastern Pennsylvania but dispersed again later that century across Pennsylvania, West Virginia , Kentucky , Ohio, Indiana , and Illinois, with a small group joining Muscogee people in Alabama . In the 19th century, the U.S. federal government forcibly removed them under the 1830 Indian Removal Act to areas west of the Mississippi River; these lands would eventually become
19398-632: The east side of the Scioto, where the village council-house was located, soon became significantly larger than the Kentucky community. Historian Richard White characterizes Lower Shawneetown and other growing Native American settlements in the region, including Logstown , Pickawillany , Kuskusky , and Kittanning as "Indian republics," multiethnic and autonomous, made up of a variety of smaller disparate social groups: village fragments, extended families, or individuals, often survivors of epidemics and refugees from conflicts with other Native Americans or with Europeans. According to historian Richard Warren, "It
19581-412: The expedition used the Ohio River as a corridor to the Mississippi. Among the officers who accompanied this party were Major de Lignery; Lieutenants, de Vassan, Aubert de Gaspe, Du Vivier, de Verrier, Le Gardeur de St. Pierre, Chevalier de Villiers, de Portneuf, de Sabrevious; Father Vernet, chaplain; Cadets, Joncaire de Closonne , Le Gai de Joncaire, Drouet de Richarville the younger, Chaussegros de Lery
19764-517: The fate of the Fort Ancient people. Most likely their society, like the Mississippian culture to the south, was severely disrupted by waves of epidemics from new infectious diseases carried by the first Spanish explorers in the 16th century. After 1525 at Madisonville , the type site , the village's house sizes became smaller and fewer. Evidence shows that the people changed from their previously "horticulture-centered, sedentary way of life". There
19947-457: The fighting, who gave Trent a full account of the raid. On 4 August 1752, Trent met with a group of survivors from Pickawillany, including the wife and son of Memeskia , the Piankeshaw chief who had been killed in the raid, and presented them with gifts. He engaged in talks with village elders in an attempt to strengthen the alliance between the Shawnees and the British government. He later visited
20130-455: The first reported eyewitness accounts of Shannoah , a Shawnee town, was by le Moyne III in July 1739. On their journey down the Ohio River toward the Mississippi, they met with local chiefs in a village on the Scioto River . John Howard, a pioneer from Virginia, led a party of five— John Peter Salling (a Pennsylvania German), Josiah Howard (John's son), Charles Sinclair, and John Poteet (Vizt)—from
20313-400: The following: A Shawnee town might have from forty to one hundred bark-covered houses similar in construction to Iroquois longhouses . Each village usually had a meeting house or council house , perhaps sixty to ninety feet long, where public deliberations took place. According to one English colonial legend, some Shawnee were descended from a party sent by Chief Opechancanough , ruler of
20496-459: The former. The Shawnee were "driven from Kentucky in the 1670s by the Iroquois of Pennsylvania and New York, who claimed the Ohio valley as hunting ground to supply its fur trade . In 1671, the colonists Batts and Fallam reported that the Shawnee were contesting control of the Shenandoah Valley with the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (Iroquois) in that year and were losing. Sometime before 1670,
20679-591: The fur trade from the Iroquois nations to the northeast, they migrated west of the Mississippi River in the 17th century to the territory now defined as Missouri , Arkansas , and Oklahoma . Several accounts exist of the discovery and traversal of the Ohio River by Europeans in the latter half of the 17th century: Virginian colonist Abraham Wood 's trans-Appalachian expeditions between 1654 and 1664; Frenchman Robert de La Salle 's putative Ohio expedition of 1669; and two expeditions of Virginians sponsored by Colonel Wood:
20862-450: The fur trade. While they gained arms and European goods, they also traded for rum or brandy, leading to serious social problems related to alcohol abuse by their members. Several Shawnee communities in the Province of Pennsylvania , led by Peter Chartier , a Métis trader, opposed the sale of alcohol in their communities. This resulted in a conflict with colonial Governor Patrick Gordon , who
21045-507: The furs and skins of deer, elk, bison, bear, beaver, raccoon, fox, wildcat , muskrat , mink and fisher . Town residents wore European-style glass beads, silver earrings, armbands, and brooches, rather than traditional Native American beads and pendants made from shell, animal teeth, or animal bone. Cloth matchcoats , wool blankets, linen skirts and shirts and leather shoes supplemented moccasins and garments manufactured from animal skins. Large cast-iron pots began to replace ceramic vessels in
21228-400: The hair retained, for neither martens nor beavers are seen there." Archeological evidence shows that, by the 1750s, trade had transformed the lives of the residents of the town. Traders brought guns, metal tools, knives, saddles, hatchets, glass and ceramic beads, strouds (a kind of coarse blanket), ruffled and plain shirts, coats, clay tobacco pipes, brass and iron pots, and rum to trade for
21411-531: The heels of contamination from a high-profile train derailment , and following years as one of the most polluted watersheds in the United States. The Ohio River is extensively industrialized and populated. Regular barge traffic carries cargoes of oil, steel and other industrial goods produced in the region. Major cities located along the northern and southern banks of the river include Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania ; Louisville, Kentucky ; Evansville, Indiana ; and Cincinnati, Ohio . The combined Allegheny-Ohio river
21594-771: The incident the "River Raisin Massacre". The defeat ended Harrison's campaign against Detroit, and the phrase "Remember the River Raisin!" became a rallying cry for the Americans. In May 1813, Procter and Tecumseh besieged Fort Meigs in northern Ohio. Native forces defeated the American reinforcements arriving during the siege, but the garrison in the fort held out. The Indians eventually began to disperse, forcing Procter and Tecumseh to return to Canada. Their second offensive in July against Fort Meigs also failed. To improve Indian morale, Procter and Tecumseh attempted to storm Fort Stephenson ,
21777-468: The increasing size of steamships and barges on the river meant that the outdated locks could serve only the smallest vessels until well after the Civil War when improvements were made. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers improvements were expanded again in the 1960s, forming the present-day McAlpine Locks and Dam . During the nineteenth century, emigrants from Virginia, North Carolina and Kentucky traveled by
21960-670: The interior along the St. Lawrence River and around the Great Lakes from the Atlantic coast, regarded the Shawnee as their southernmost branch. Along the East Coast, the Algonquian-speaking tribes were historically located mostly in coastal areas, from Quebec to the Carolinas. Europeans reported encountering the Shawnee over a wide geographic area. One of the earliest mentions of the Shawnee may be
22143-568: The kindness of your hearts and your sentiments. He even raised a troop of your young men to follow him." The Shawnee leaders refused to acknowledge any French loyalty, however. According to William Trent, Céloron was informed that the French "must not lay on the East of the [Ohio] River because they intended this side for their Brethren, the English, & they must [not] lay on the West side because they kept that country for themselves, but told them they must lay on
22326-430: The large Branches are said to be full of fine Fish of several Kinds, particularly a Sort of Cat Fish of a prodigious Size. Residents of the town used Raven Rock, a 500-foot-high sandstone rock formation on the Ohio side, as a lookout point to observe traffic on the Ohio River. Located about 5.5 miles southwest of the town center, the rock allowed lookouts to survey a 14-mile stretch of the river upstream and downstream. It
22509-560: The largest Native American communities in the Ohio Country , second only to Pickawillany . The size and diversity of the town's population attracted both French and British traders, leading to political competition between France and Britain to influence the community in the years preceding the French and Indian War . The town remained politically neutral in spite of frequent visits by French, British and Native American leaders. Several English captives, including Mary Draper Ingles and Samuel Stalnaker , were held captive in Lower Shawneetown in
22692-596: The largest inhabited island in the Ohio River, belongs to West Virginia, although it is closer to the Ohio shore than to the West Virginia shore. Kentucky sued the state of Indiana in the early 1980s because of their construction of the never-completed Marble Hill Nuclear Power Plant in Indiana, which would have discharged its waste water into the river. This would have adversely affected Kentucky's water supplies. The U.S. Supreme Court held that Kentucky's jurisdiction (and, implicitly, that of West Virginia) extended only to
22875-511: The low-water mark of 1793 (important because the river has been extensively dammed for navigation so that the present river bank is north of the old low-water mark). Similarly, in the 1990s, Kentucky challenged Illinois's right to collect taxes on a riverboat casino docked in Metropolis , citing its own control of the entire river. A private casino riverboat that docked in Evansville, Indiana , on
23058-693: The margin of the Arkansas river was broken into pieces; and most of the Indians thought that the Great Spirit, angry with the human race, was about to destroy the world. The Muscogee who joined Tecumseh's confederation were known as the Red Sticks . They were the more conservative and traditional part of the people, as their communities in the Upper Towns were more isolated from European-American settlements. They did not want to assimilate. The Red Sticks rose in resisting
23241-431: The mistaken belief that the French were coming to attack the town. Céloron decided to send a delegation ahead, made up of Kahnawake and Abenaki Indians led by Philippe-Thomas Chabert de Joncaire (who was raised in a Seneca community), to announce that the French were not intending to attack them. Hearing that a French military force was approaching, the inhabitants had hastily erected a stockade . Joncaire described it as
23424-446: The most polluted rivers in the United States. In winter, it regularly freezes over at Pittsburgh but rarely farther south towards Cincinnati and Louisville . Further down the river in places like Paducah and Owensboro , Kentucky, closer to its confluence with the Mississippi, the Ohio is ice-free year-round. The name "Ohio" comes from the Seneca language (an Iroquoian language ), Ohi:yo' (roughly pronounced oh-hee-yoh, with
23607-478: The mountains, transferred into wagons for a fourteen-day journey to Philadelphia and then shipped to London. On 6 August 1749, Céloron de Blainville met six English traders near Kittanning , who had left Lower Shawneetown and were on their way to Philadelphia with "fifty horses and about one hundred and fifty bales of furs." Father Joseph Bonnecamps examined the furs and described them as the skins of "bears, otters, cats, précans [possibly raccoons], and roe-deer, with
23790-716: The mountains, traversing the Tioga River and reaching a tributary of the Allegheny River before floating down to the Shawnee towns along the Ohio River. Viele and his expedition spent most of 1693 exploring the Ohio River and its tributaries in northern Kentucky with their Shawnee hosts. Gerit Luykasse, two of Viele's Dutch traders, and two Shawnee reappeared in Albany in February 1694 "to fetch powder for Arnout [Viele] and his Company"; their party had been gone for fifteen months, but Viele
23973-539: The mouth of the Ohio, settlers would travel north on the Mississippi River to St. Louis, Missouri . There, some continued on up the Missouri River , some up the Mississippi, and some farther west over land routes. In the early 19th century, river pirates such as Samuel Mason , operating out of Cave-In-Rock, Illinois , waylaid travelers on their way down the river. They killed travelers, stealing their goods and scuttling their boats. The folktales about Mike Fink recall
24156-400: The much smaller Upper Shawneetown, established about 1751 at the confluence of the Ohio River and the Kanawha River , near present-day Point Pleasant, West Virginia and known to the Shawnees as Chinoudaista or Chinodahichetha . Pressure from the growing European populations on the east coast of North America and in southern Canada had caused Native American populations to concentrate in
24339-506: The name evolved through variant forms such as "Polesipi", "Peleson", "Pele Sipi" and "Pere Sipi", and eventually stabilized to the variant spellings "Pelisipi", "Pelisippi" and "Pellissippi". Originally applied just to the Ohio River, the "Pelisipi" name later was variously applied back and forth between the Ohio River and the Clinch River in Virginia and Tennessee . In his original draft of
24522-502: The nature of trade, social organization, agriculture, and relationships with other Native American communities. Well-known British traders William Trent and George Croghan maintained trading posts in the town with large warehouses to store furs, skins, and other goods. Between about 1734 and 1758 Lower Shawneetown became a center for commerce and diplomacy, "a sort of republic" populated mainly by Shawnee, Iroquois , and Delawares . By 1755, its population exceeded 1,200, making it one of
24705-804: The next morning, forces under The Prophet prematurely attacked Harrison's army at the Tippecanoe River near the Wabash. Though outnumbered, Harrison repulsed the attack, forcing the Natives to retreat and abandon Prophetstown. Harrison's men burned the village and returned home. On December 11, 1811, the New Madrid earthquake shook the Muscogee lands and the Midwestern United States. While the interpretation of this event varied from tribe to tribe, they agreed that
24888-563: The next year. They were forced to cede large parts of their homeland to the new United States. Other Shawnee groups rejected this treaty, migrating independently to Missouri west of the Mississippi River , where they settled along Apple Creek. The French called their settlement Le Grand Village Sauvage . In the early 19th century, the Shawnee leader Tecumseh gained renown for organizing his namesake confederacy to oppose American expansion in Native American lands. The resulting conflict
25071-570: The north. In the late 18th century, the river became the southern boundary of the Northwest Territory . The river is sometimes considered as the western extension of the Mason–Dixon line that divided Pennsylvania from Maryland , and thus part of the border between free and slave territory, and between the Northern and Southern United States or Upper South . Where the river was narrow, it
25254-584: The northern Shenandoah Valley: at Moorefield, West Virginia , on the North River ; and on the Potomac at Cumberland, Maryland . In 1753, the Shawnee on the Scioto River in the Ohio Country sent messengers to those still in the Shenandoah Valley, suggesting that they cross the Alleghenies to join the people further west, which they did the following year. The community known as Shannoah ( Lower Shawneetown ) on
25437-460: The powerful earthquake had to have spiritual significance. The earthquake and its aftershocks helped the Tecumseh resistance movement as the Muscogee and other Native American tribes believed it was a sign that the Shawnee must be supported and that Tecumseh had prophesied such an event and sign. The Indians were filled with great terror ... the trees and wigwams shook exceedingly; the ice which skirted
25620-419: The preparation of salt or maple sugar. Strings of glass beads, metal pendants, silver earrings and brooches of European manufacture were buried with the dead. European trade goods found at the site include gun spalls and gunflints , gun parts (sideplate, mainspring , ram pipes , and breech plugs), wire-wound and drawn glass beads , tinkling cones, a button, a brass pendant, an earring, cutlery, kettle ears,
25803-404: The purpose of Céloron's expedition, an Indian interrupted him, "saying that the French deceived them and that they came only to destroy them and their families." A number of warriors then "rushed to arms, saying that these Frenchmen should be killed" and Céloron and the others waiting upriver in the canoes should be ambushed. Fortunately, "an Iroquois chief averted the storm." With his help, Joncaire
25986-409: The request of the Miami. Finally, the tribes signed the Treaty of Fort Wayne on September 30, 1809, thereby selling the United States more than 3,000,000 acres (12,000 km ), chiefly along the Wabash River north of Vincennes, Indiana . Tecumseh was outraged by the Treaty of Fort Wayne, believing that American Indian land was owned in common by all tribes, an idea advocated in previous years by
26169-522: The resistance at Prophetstown . In August 1810, Tecumseh led 400 armed warriors to confront Harrison in Vincennes. Tecumseh demanded that Harrison nullify the Fort Wayne treaty, threatening to kill the chiefs who had signed it. Harrison refused, saying that the Miami were the owners of the land and could sell it if they so chose. Tecumseh left peacefully but warned Harrison that he would seek an alliance with
26352-492: The river and came with flags and pipes of peace . They had cut the grass to prepare a meeting place and everyone sat together. The men taken hostage with Joncaire were brought forward and handed over. The Shawnees invited Céloron to enter the town and address them in their council house , but Céloron was wary of being ambushed: I was aware of the weakness of my detachment; two-thirds were recruits who had never made an attack...[The Indians] being much displeased, it would have been
26535-493: The river and settled along its northern bank. Known as butternuts , they formed the dominant culture in the southern portions of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois with a society that was primarily Southern in culture. Largely devoted to agricultural pursuits, they shipped much of their produce along the river to ports such as Cincinnati. Because the Ohio River flowed westward, it became a convenient means of westward movement by pioneers traveling from western Pennsylvania. After reaching
26718-434: The river as a major transportation and trading route. In the five centuries before European colonization, the Mississippian culture built numerous regional chiefdoms and major earthwork mounds in the Ohio Valley like the Angel Mounds near Evansville, Indiana as well as in the Mississippi Valley and the Southeast. The historic Osage , Omaha , Ponca , and Kaw peoples lived in the Ohio Valley. Under pressure over
26901-451: The river on December 15, 1967. The collapse killed 46 people who had been crossing when the bridge failed. The bridge had been built in 1929, and by 1967 was carrying too heavy a load for its design. The bridge was rebuilt about one mile downstream and in service as the Silver Memorial Bridge in 1969. In the early 1980s, the Falls of the Ohio National Wildlife Conservation Area was established at Clarksville, Indiana . The Ohio River as
27084-431: The river. The colonial charter for Virginia defined its territory as extending to the north shore of the Ohio, so that the riverbed was "owned" by Virginia. Where the river serves as a boundary between states today, Congress designated the entire river to belong to the states on the east and south, i.e., West Virginia and Kentucky at the time of admission to the Union, that were divided from Virginia. Thus Wheeling Island ,
27267-496: The ruined town to recover what remained of his furs, bringing back what survived for safekeeping in Lower Shawneetown. Shawnee The Shawnee ( / ʃ ɔː ˈ n i / shaw- NEE ) are a Native American people of the Northeastern Woodlands . Their language, Shawnee , is an Algonquian language . Their precontact homeland was likely centered in southern Ohio . In the 17th century, they dispersed through Ohio, Illinois , Maryland , Delaware , and Pennsylvania . In
27450-422: The sale of alcohol in Native American communities and threatened to destroy any shipments of rum that he found, defying Pennsylvania governor Governor Patrick Gordon . Chartier persuaded about 400 Pekowi Shawnee to leave Pennsylvania with him and migrate south, taking refuge in Lower Shawneetown. In May, an anonymous French trader visiting Lower Shawneetown brought a letter from the French government in Quebec, and
27633-453: The sand where the waters cover when it's high and if they wanted wood, to have...the drift wood...& not cut the smallest stick of green wood, [and] if they did, they would kill them, every one." On 25 August Céloron summoned the five Pennsylvania traders who were then living in the town and ordered them to leave, stating that "they had no right to trade or aught else on the [Ohio] River." Céloron considered confiscating their goods, but as he
27816-547: The south. In an account and a song collected by C. F. Voegelin, šaawaki is attested as the spirit of the South, or the South Wind. The Shawnee language is known as saawanwaatoweewe. In 2002, the Shawnee language , part of the Algonquian family , was in decline but still spoken by 200 people. These included more than 100 Absentee Shawnee and 12 Shawnee Tribe speakers. By 2017, Shawnee language advocates, including tribal member George Blanchard, estimated that there were fewer than 100 speakers. Most fluent Shawnee speakers are over
27999-507: The states of Missouri , Kansas , and Texas . Finally, they were removed to Indian Territory , which became the state of Oklahoma in the early 20th century. Today, Shawnee people are enrolled in three federally recognized tribes , all headquartered in Oklahoma: Shawnee has also been written as Shaawana . Individuals and singular Shawnee tribes may be referred to as šaawanwa, and the collective Shawnee people as šaawanwaki or šaawanooki . Algonquian languages have words similar to
28182-424: The tips two thirds of the way round and the piece extended with brass wire till it touches their shoulders, in this part they hang a thin silver plate, wrought in flourishes about three inches diameter, with plates of silver round their arms and in the hair, which is all cut off except a long lock on the top of the head. They are in white men's dress, except breeches which they refuse to wear, instead of which they have
28365-442: The topographical details of the course of this River to M. de Lery, Engineer, who surveyed it with the compass at the time that he descended it with a detachment of French troops in 1729. A map of the Ohio River valley, drawn by Bellin from observations by de Lery, is in Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix 's History of New France . The 1744 Bellin map, "Map of Louisiana" ( French : Carte de La Louisiane ), has an inscription at
28548-514: The town consisted of 40 houses on the Kentucky side located along bluffs above the floodplain, and 100 houses on the Ohio side atop a forty-foot river bank lined with sycamores and willows. In the town center on the Ohio side there was a 90 feet (27 m) long council house and a large open area or plaza for public events. Houses were clustered together according to kinship, interspersed with gardens, trash heaps and family burial plots. The remains of 23 individuals have been recovered from 16 graves at
28731-401: The town contained abundant resources: hardwood forests , grasslands, canebrakes , nut-bearing trees, freshwater springs and some with brine. Wildlife included bear, deer, elk, and bison . Tools and pottery could be made from chert -bearing bedrock and clay riverbanks. In a journal entry from February, 1751, Christopher Gist describes the Ohio country in the area of Lower Shawneetown: All
28914-468: The town for two days but he was unable to persuade them to abandon their loyalty to the English, as "the cheap merchandise which the English furnished was [a] very seducing motive for them to remain attached to the latter." At one point he referred to the visit he had made to Lower Shawneetown as an officer with the Baron de Longueuil in 1739: "What have you done, Shawnese, with the sense you had ten years ago when M. de Longueuil passed here?...You showed to him
29097-450: The town on 24 June and proceeded down the Ohio River, then in August headed south into Kentucky to found the community of Eskippakithiki . The French had focused much attention on Canada, allowing English traders to establish themselves in the Ohio Valley, but in the late 1740s they took notice of Lower Shawneetown's size and commercial dependence on British trade. In February, 1748, Jean-Frédéric Phélypeaux , French Secretary of State of
29280-469: The town year-round and sometimes married Native American women. These trading posts attracted local hunters to bring skins and furs to the town, meaning that a post in Lower Shawneetown could do profitable business with dozens of villages without requiring the traders themselves to travel, as they had done previously. The town's location on the Ohio River allowed traders to send furs and skins by canoe up to Logstown , where they were taken by packhorses over
29463-415: The two leaders met, with Tecumseh assuring Harrison that the Shawnee intended to remain at peace with the United States. Afterward, Tecumseh traveled to the Southeast on a mission to recruit allies against the United States from among the " Five Civilized Tribes ". His name Tekoomsē meant "Shooting Star" or "Panther Across The Sky". Tecumseh told the Choctaw , Chickasaw , Muscogee , and many others that
29646-421: The vowel in "hee" held longer ), a proper name derived from ohiːyoːh ("good river"), therefore literally translating to "Good River". "Great river" and "large creek" have also been given as translations. Native Americans , including the Lenape and Iroquois , considered the Ohio and Allegheny rivers as the same, as is suggested by a New York State road sign on Interstate 86 that refers to
29829-428: The war. The Americans controlled the area during the remainder of the conflict. The Shawnee in Missouri migrated from the United States south into Mexico, in the eastern part of Spanish Texas . They became known as the " Absentee Shawnee ". They were joined in the migration by some Delaware (Lenape). Although they were closely allied with the Cherokee led by The Bowl , their chief John Linney remained neutral during
30012-402: The water level and have turned the river largely into a series of reservoirs , eliminating shallow stretches and allowing for commercial navigation. From its origin to Cincinnati, the average depth is approximately 15 feet (5 m). The largest immediate drop in water level is below the McAlpine Locks and Dam at the Falls of the Ohio at Louisville, Kentucky , where flood stage is reached when
30195-443: The water reaches 23 feet (7 m) on the lower gauge. However, the river's deepest point is 168 feet (51 m) on the western side of Louisville, Kentucky. From Louisville, the river loses depth very gradually until its confluence with the Mississippi at Cairo, Illinois , where it has an approximate depth of 19 feet (6 m). Water levels for the Ohio River from Smithland Lock and Dam upstream to Pittsburgh are predicted daily by
30378-404: The west since the trek east over the Appalachian Mountains was long and arduous. The need for access to the port of New Orleans by settlers in the Ohio Valley is one of the factors that led to the United States' Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Because the river is the southern border of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, it was part of the border between free states and slave states in the years before
30561-419: The west, giving British colonists a claim to lands in what are now the states of West Virginia and Kentucky. The Shawnee did not agree to this treaty: it was negotiated between British officials and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, who claimed sovereignty over the land. While they predominated, the Shawnee and other Native American tribes also hunted there. After the Stanwix treaty, Anglo-Americans began pouring into
30744-472: The younger, de Gannes, Chev. Benoist, de Morville, de Selles, and seventeen others. The rank and file consisted of three sergeants, six corporals, six lance corporals, twenty-four soldiers, forty-five habitants , one hundred and eighty-six Iroquois from the Sault, forty-one from the Lake of Two Mountains , thirty-two Algonquin and Nipissing , fifty Abenaqui from St. Francois and Bécancour, Quebec; Father La Bretonnier, Jesuit; Queret, missionary. One of
30927-431: Was a sprawling series of wickiups and longhouses ... French and British-allied traders regarded Lower Shawneetown as one of two capitals of the Shawnee tribe." Although mainly a Shawnee village, the population included contingents of Seneca and Lenape . After his visit to Lower Shawneetown in 1749, Céloron de Blainville wrote: this village [is] composed for the most part of Chavenois ( Shawnee ) and Iroquois of
31110-444: Was added to the National Register of Historic Places on 28 April 1983. It is near the Bentley site , a Madisonville Horizon settlement inhabited between 1400 CE and 1625 CE. Nearby, to the east, there are also four groups of Hopewell tradition mounds, built between 100 BCE and 500 CE, known as the Portsmouth Earthworks . Extensive archaeological work has provided a clear picture of the town's appearance and activities, particularly
31293-434: Was away for about two years. He and his companions returned from the Pennsylvania wilderness in August 1694, accompanied by diplomats from "seven Nations of Indians" who sought trade with the English (or peace with the powerful Iroquois nations of New York and Pennsylvania), and hundreds of Shawnee who intended to relocate in the Minisink country on the upper Delaware River . In 1729, Gaspard-Joseph Chaussegros de Léry ,
31476-474: Was called Tecumseh's War . The two principal adversaries in the conflict, Chief Tecumseh and General William Henry Harrison , had both been junior participants in the 1794 Battle of Fallen Timbers . Tecumseh did not sign the 1795 Treaty of Greenville . However, many American Indian leaders in the region accepted the Greenville terms, and for the next ten years local intertribal resistance to American hegemony faded. In September 1809, Harrison, then governor of
31659-405: Was confronted by a large and well-armed Shawnee force, he decided to leave. He wrote in his journal: My instructions enjoin me to summon the English traders in Sinhioto and instruct them to withdraw on pain of what might ensue, and even to pillage the English should their response be antagonistic, but I am not strong enough and as these traders are well-established in a village and well-supported by
31842-400: Was crossed by thousands of slaves escaping to the North for freedom; many were helped by free blacks and whites of the Underground Railroad resistance movement. The Ohio River is a climatic transition area, as its water runs along the periphery of the humid subtropical and humid continental climate areas. It is inhabited by fauna and flora of both climates. Today, the Ohio River is one of
32025-419: Was in a letter by William Trent on 20 October 1748, reporting a murder at Kuskusky , when a Virginia trader there was killed following an altercation over some liquor, "which he was tying up, in order to send to the Lower Shawna Town." The Shawnee name of the town is unknown, but evidence suggests that it may have been "Chillicothe," a Shawnee word meaning "principal place" and typically applied to villages of
32208-468: Was intended to impress the inhabitants of the Ohio River Valley with the capability of the French to maintain control over the region, but it met with defiance and resulted in a weakening of the French position. In 1750, the Ohio Company hired Christopher Gist , a skilled woodsman and surveyor , to explore the Ohio Valley in order to identify lands for potential settlement, and to undo any French influence lingering after Céloron's expedition. He surveyed
32391-478: Was moved that same year to the south shore where Fort-on-Shore was constructed. It proved insufficient within 3 years, and the mighty Fort Nelson was constructed upriver. The town of Louisville was chartered in 1780, in honor of King Louis XVI of France. The first locks on the river – the Louisville and Portland Canal – were built between 1825 and 1830 to circumnavigate the falls. Fears that Louisville's transshipment industry would collapse proved ill-founded: but
32574-461: Was obstructed by rapids known as the Falls of the Ohio where the elevation falls 26 feet (7.9 m) in 2 miles (3.2 km) restricting larger commercial navigation, although in the 18th and early 19th century its three deepest channels could be traversed by a wide variety of craft then in use. In 1830, the Louisville and Portland Canal (now the McAlpine Locks and Dam ) bypassed the rapids, allowing even larger commercial and modern navigation from
32757-437: Was once thought to have been a regional extension of the Mississippian culture. Scholars now believe that Fort Ancient culture (1000–1650 CE) was descended from Hopewell culture (100 BCE–500 CE). The people in those earlier centuries also built mounds as part of their social, political and religious system. Among their monuments were earthwork effigy mounds , such as Serpent Mound in present-day Ohio. Uncertainty surrounds
32940-399: Was released to return under guard to the canoes waiting upstream with Céloron and the rest of the expedition. The others who had accompanied Joncaire were held hostage by the Shawnees. Céloron selected a guard of fifty reliable soldiers and went to the riverbank opposite the town. As he approached, the Shawnees saluted him by firing their guns into the air. The town's chiefs and elders crossed
33123-427: Was the best known of the anti-slavery novels that portrayed such escapes across the Ohio. The times have been expressed by 20th-century novelists as well, such as the Nobel Prize -winning Toni Morrison , whose novel Beloved was adapted as a film of the same name. She also composed the libretto for the opera Margaret Garner (2005), based on the life and trial of an enslaved woman who escaped with her family across
33306-454: Was under pressure from traders to allow rum and brandy in trade. Unable to protect themselves, in 1745, some 400 Shawnee migrated from Pennsylvania to Ohio, Kentucky, Alabama and Illinois, hoping to escape the traders' influence. Prior to 1754, the Shawnee had a headquarters at Shawnee Springs at modern-day Cross Junction, Virginia . The father of the later chief Cornstalk held his council there. Several other Shawnee villages were located in
33489-415: Was under the Care of the Governor of Virginia (at that time, Robert Dinwiddie ), who had sent Me out to invite them to come and see Him, & partake of their Father's Present next Summer." Big Hannaona responded with a warm speech which concluded: "We hope that the Friendship now subsisting between us & our Brothers will last as long as the Sun Shines or the Moon gives light." The journal terminates with
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