Breckinridge County KyArchives News.....Native Shawnee September 29, 2021 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ky/kyfiles.html ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Dana Brown http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00005.html#0001067 February 3, 2022, 11:55 am The Herald News Newpaper September 29, 2021 NATIVE SHAWNEE BY LESLIE GALLOWAY HAYCRAFT THE HERALD NEWS NEWSPAPER 9/29/2021 EDITION Recently I have been writing about the formation of our county and the battles that had to be fought between our founders, settlers and natives they encountered. While William Hardin had gained the name, “Indian Bill” one may wonder about the natives that the settlers crossed on their trip from Virginia to claim the beautiful land they found here in Kentucky. Shawnee tribes were the Indians in this area during the time of Hardin’s 1780’s travels down the Ohio River to Sinking Creek. White settlers considered open land with no buildings to be unclaimed, but to the Shawnee this side of the Ohio River was full of great resources for their hunting grounds. Although the tribe had been pushed north of the Ohio River years ago by other tribes and did not live on this land, they did claim rights to it. They traveled across the river regularly to the lush land of deer and other wildlife which they named their “happy hunting ground”. Both men and women farmed on the other side of the Ohio River probably but moved with the seasons of the crops in attempt to avoid too much conflict with colonists coming into their territory. A very spiritual people, the Shawnee numbers 10,000 before William Hardin came to Kentucky. As spiritual as they may have been, they still fought to protect what their families needed to survive just like anyone would. Shawnee hunted for both survival and trade as they had been taught the ways of English fur traders traveling the Ohio River. Indians had learned to barter with these white immigrants coming to their land, so hunting was a way to provide fur and bear skins that fur traders often wanted. When Hardin and fellow settlers came, unfortunately for the natives they were not just passing through like fur traders. They intended to stay and the Indians saw this as a violation to their territorial rights. Not only was it competing for food but the land itself. Members of Fort Hardin and the Shawnee were at odds over this territory. It had been the Treaty of Mohawk of Six Nations in New York much earlier in 1768 that had allowed white settlement of that area. An Indian representative at this conference claimed rights for our area of Kentucky (probably unknown to the Shawnee nation) due to conquest of the Shawnee in prior battles. It took several years after this for the government to send militia to assist settlers at the established forts in Kentucky. Those establishing forts in the beginning had no backup and were on their own to fight for their land. Settlers that tried to claim land on their won with cabins outside of forts had little or no chance of survival. For years the initial insult to the natives in our area of Kentucky and across the state caused many lives to be lost—both Indian and settlers. By 1793 raids had slowed down but were still existent in the Kentucky area due to militia assistance finally reaching the area to assist settlers. If the settlers were not formed together in forts to fight for land, they didn’t have much chance against the Indians in any region. Settlers that tried to stake claims on their own land with only their family nearly always succumbed to attack and loss. In 1795 another important Treaty of Greenville was the “settlement that concluded hostilities between the United States and an Indian Confederation headed by Miami Chief Little Turtle by which Indians ceded several states.” After the American Revolution “settlers moved west with a loose alliance with the Algonquin speaking people. Shawnee and Delaware Indians were driven West.” In 1794 George Washington sent 2,000 soldiers to assist Kentucky militia in Ohio at a standoff with Indians known as The Battle of the Fallen Timbers in which the warriors fled. After this Chief Little Turtle authorized a redefinition of borders between the United States and the Indian lands…he was criticized greatly by other tribes for giving land away that was not his. (Brittanica –Michael Ray) The War of 1812 and the death of Tecumseh in 1813, a Shawnee leader from the Great Lake area, was affectively the end of the Indian resistance in the United States. Most of the Shawnee Indians were moved to Oklahoma through clauses in these series of treaties. Today we have .211% Native American Indians or Alaskans that live in Kentucky. That is only about 9,324 people of Indian descent from the original hunters and caretakers of this happy hunting ground we now love. Additional Comments: Copied from original article, with permission from Leslie Galloway Haycraft (reporter) and the Herald News newspaper, from their 9/29/2021 edition. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ky/breckinridge/newspapers/nativesh567gnw.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/kyfiles/