OHIO STATEWIDE FILES - Know your Ohio: Ohio's Huron and Wyandot Indians [15]
***********************************************************************
OHGENWEB NOTICE:  All distribution rights to this electronic data are
reserved by the submitter.  Reproduction or re-presentation of copyrighted
material will require the permission of the copyright owner.  The submitter 
has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently 
for free access.
***********************************************************************
File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by
Darlene E. Kelley
http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00026.html#0006374
May 27, 2000
***********************************************************************
Historical Collections of Ohio
Diaries of S. J. Kelly
Plains Dealer
Know Your Ohio
by Darlene E. Kelley
***********************************************************************

Ohio's Huron and Wyandot Indians -- Part 15

Preparation of the Removal of the Wyandots and actually what happened--

In July.1845, 664 Wyandot ( icluding 25 from Michigan and 30 from
Canada) left for Ohio by steamboat from Cincinnati. Passing the grave of
William Henry Harrison overlooking the Ohio River, the Wyandot fired a
rifle volley in salute. Their reasons for this can only be guessed. When
they arrived in Kansas, the Wyandot discovered the Shawnee did not wish
to sell, and the Wyandot had no land. In December they reached an
agreement with the Delaware to purchase ( with their own money) 36
sections at the eastern end of the Delaware reserve. The Delaware also
gave the Wyandot three additional sections out of respect and in
gratitude for when the Wyandot had allowed them to settle in Ohio during
the 1740s. The agreement was subject to congressional approval, but
there was some doubt this would be given. To be safe, the Wyandot
applied for lands on the Great Osage River but this was rejected since
the lands had already been alloted to other tribes. The government also
tried to appease the value of the improvements of their Ohio lands at
half their actual worth.

Approval of the purchase from the Delaware was not received until 1848.
In the meantime, Wyandot volunteers had served in the American army
during the Mexican War (1846-48). In 1849 several other Wyandot left
Kansas to join the California Gold Rush. Eight years after the 1842
treaty, the Wyandot still had not received the 148,000 acres promised
them and were living on lands purchased with their own money. In 1850 a
Wyandot delegation sent to Washington, D.C. proposed a new treaty
whereby they would become citizens, accept individual allotment of the
lands they ha purchased, and surrender their claim to the 148,000 acres
promised them in exchange for  $185,000. The treaty was signed in April,
but the version ratified by the Senate removed provisions for
citizenship and allotment. The attitude of the government changed after
the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854.

To prepare the route for a transcontinental railroad, Kansas and
Nebraska were open to white settlement. However, this required the
breakup of the blocks of land assigned by treaty to the Indian tribes
relocated to Kansas from east of the Mississippi. The treaty signed by
the Wyandot in 1855 ended their tribal status, but allowed them to
become citizens by taking their lands in severalty. Their excess lands
were sold to the government for $ 380,000. Although the treaty was
approved by a large majority, a sizable minority wishing to retain their
traditional tribal status and government, was strongly opposed to the
agreement. The settlement, the Kansas-Nebraska Act had set aside the
requirements of the Missouri Compromise and allowed the qustion of
slavery in Kansas to be decided by " popular sovereignty," As white
zealots from both north and south flooded into Kansas, the question of
slavery was decided not by the will of the majority, but by a violent
preview of the Civil War known as "Bleeding Kansas."

The Wyandots and other tribes in Kansas found themselves in the middle
of a whote man's war and were forced to take sides. For the most part,
the Wyandot were aganst slavery, and several members prominent in the
"Underground Railroad " to help black slaves escape to Canada or free
territory. By 1857, 200 Wyandot (Emigrant or Indian Party) had had
enough of the benifits of American citizenship and left for the Indian
Territory where the Seneca (Mingo) allowed them to settle on their lands
in the northeast Oklahoma.
After the beginning of the Civil War, Confederate troops occupied the
Indian Territory. In 1862 they swept through the Seneca Reserve. Because
of their pro-union and anti-slavery sentiments, the Wyandot living there
were forced to return to Kansas. While there, the Indian Party organized
their own tribal council and began negotiations with the Oklahoma Seneca
( also refugees living in Kansas) for the purchase of a part of their
lands as a Wyadot reserve.

After the war, the Indian Party returned to Oklahoma. It refused offers
of reconcilliation with the Citizens Party and petitioned the government
to renew their tribal status. An omnibus treaty signed in 1867 granted
recognition and permission for the Oklahoma Wyandotte to purchase 20,000
acres between the Neosho River and the Missouri State line as a reserve.
This was later broken up into individual allotments by the Dawes Act.
Some of the " citizen or absentee" Wyandot from Kansas were allowed to
rejoin the tribe through adoption, but in general, the Oklahoma
Wyandotte no longer recognized the Kansas Wyandot as tribal members and
would not allow them to settle on their Oklahoma Reserve without
permission. Beginning with the division between Christian and
traditional within the Huron Confederacy which contributed to their
defeat by the Iroquois, factionalism has plagued the Huron and /or
Wyandot for the last 400 years. The bitter fight for recognition between
the citizen and Indian parties has persited to the present-day between
the Wyandot Nation of Kansas and the Wyandotte Tribe of Oklahoma.
****************************************************
Farewell to a Beloved Land--

" The Wyandot's last Ohio Church Service"
July 9, 1843.

Squire Grey Eyes delivered the following address to the Wyandots
assembled at the Mission Church before leaving Ohio. All Six hundred and
sixty four members of the Wyandot Nation were gathered for the farewell
address. Squire Grey Eyes was an ordained minsiter and the Wyandot
spiritual Leader. He resisted removal from Ohio until the very end.

" My people, the time for our departure is at hand. A few words remain
only to be said. Our entire nation has gathered here for farewell. We
have this morning met together for the last tme in our Love Feast. More
than two-hundred  have testified to the great power of God. Brother
Wheeler has preached the funeral for our dead-our John Stewart, our
beloved Mononcue, our recently murdered Summundewat, our eloquent
Between-the-Logs. They sleep the sleep of death, but hope of immortality
is strong within our breasts. Our Chiefs have committed to the care our
White Brothers, our temple: to the great spirit, the grave of our
ancestors. The Indian does not forget the pale-faced brother who came to
him with the message from the Great Spirit, and who loved him well and
served him well.

The white man's God has become the Indian's God, and with us go ever to
our new home, our beloved shepard, Brother Wheeler, and sister Lucy
Armstrong, the Wyandot bride. Surely like the white-faced truth of all
that she says:   
" Whither thou goest, I will go and where thou lodest, I will lodge: thy
people shall be my people, and thy God, My God: whither thy diest, I
will die, and there will I be buried."

It remains only for me to say farewell. No more shall we engage in the
solemn feast. or feast of rejoicing. No more shall Sandusky"s Plains and
forests echo to the voice of song and praise. No more shall we assemble
in our Temple to sing the sacred songs and hear the stories of the
cross. Here our dead are buried. We have placed fresh flowers upon their
graves for the last time. No longer shall we visit them. Soon they shall
be forgotten for the forward march of the strong white man will not turn
aside for the Indian Graves. Farewell -- Farewell Sadusky
River--Farewell - Farewell our hunting Grounds and homes. Farewell to
the stately trees and forests. Farewell to the Temple of the Great
Spirit. Farewell to our White Brothers, and friends, and neighbors. It
is but a little time for us till we leave our earthly home: for here we
are no continuing city, but we seek one that is to come, whose builder
and maker is God. Let us remember the dying words of Brother Stewart;   

'Be Faithful. "
******************************************************

to be continued in part 16 -