OHIO STATEWIDE FILES - Know your Ohio: Ohio's Huron and Wyandot Indians [2]
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by
Darlene E. Kelley
http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00026.html#0006374
April 27, 2000
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Historical Collections of Ohio
Diaries of S. J. Kelly
Plains Dealer
Know Your Ohio
by Darlene E. Kelley
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Ohio's Huron and Wyandot Indians -- Part 2.

By mutual consent, Ohio was considered part of the Iroquois domain in
1730, and , hoping to lure the Wyandot away from the French alliance and
into their " covenant chain " by offering British trade, the league made
no objection when the Wyandot began easing south in northern Ohio.
Within a few years, the Sandusky Wyandot regularly attended Iroquois
councils and were considered the League's  representative in Ohio, a
position which only added to the prestige the Wyandot already enjoyed
within the French alliance as the 
"eldest children" of Onontio. However, the Wyandot never became the
League's puppet, and Ohio slipped rapidly from Iroquois control.
Beginning in the 1720s, independent groups of Iroquois hunters had
started leaving the Iroquois villages to settle in eastern Ohio. For the
most part, these Ohio Iroquois ( Mingo ) were descendants of the Huron,
Erie, Neutals, and Tionontati who had been forcibly incorporated into
the Iroquois during the 1650's. Although the League did not object to
their presence in Ohio so long as they paid lip-service to its
authority, the Mingo were effectively independant of its control. By the
end of the 1730's the number of Mingo in Ohio had become significant.

At the same time, large groups of Delaware and Shawnee had tired of
Iroquois domination and the crowded conditions of their villages along
the Susquehanna River in eastern Pennsylvania and began lrelocating on
their own to the upper Ohio River in western Pennsylvania. During the
1740s, the Wyandot gave permission for them to also settle west in Ohio.
These tribes were also nominal members of the " covenant chain,"
although an important reason for their leaving the Susquehanna was to
free themselves from this arrangement. They were soon joined by small
groups of Mahican, Abenaki, and New England Algnquin, who had even less
allegiance to the League. Meanwhile, groups of Miami ( French Ally )
moved east into western Ohio to gain better access to the British
traders. Within a short period, Ohio was occupied by thousands of Native
Americans living in mixed-villages who owed not the slightest allegiance
to either the Iroquois, British, French, or American Colonists who
claimed the land on which they lived.

In 1738 Orontony ( Nicholas ), a Detroit Wyandot chief, refused to
participate in a raid against the Cherokee ( British Allies ) south of
the Ohio River. Going well beyond this, Orontony also helped the
Cherokee ambush; a Detroit war party which earned hm the lasting hatred
of the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and other Wyandot near Detroit. The Wyandot came
to the verge of civil war, but the clan mothers intervened to keep the
Wyandot from killing Wyandot. When the other Detroit Wyandot refused to
allow the Ottawa to punish Orontony, the resulting quarrel ended a
hundred years of close cooperation between them. Orontony and his
followers left Detroit to establish a new village on the Lower Sandusky
River in Ohio. By 1740 he was trading openly with the British and
encouraging the Wyandot near Detroit to do likewise. With the outbreak
of the King George's War ( 1744-48 ), the Detroit Wyandot, Ojibwe,
Ottawa, and Potawatomi sent their warriors east to help the French
defend Montreal from an expected British invasion. However, the Sandusky
Wyandot and Mingo remained neutral and stayed home.

Meanwhile, Orontony strengthened his ties with the British. In 1745 he
concluded a separate peace with the British-allied Cherokee and
Chickasaw. he also allowed Pennsylvania traders to build a blockhouse
near his village. By 1747 the French alliance was falling apart after a
British blockade of Canada had cut the flow of French trade goods. This
strengthened the competition from British traders, and attempts by the
French to prevent this only made matters worse. Encouraged by the
British, Orontony organized a conspiracy against the French and in 1748
burned their trading post at Sandusky. When he moved against Detroit,
the Detroit Wyandot refused to join him, and fearing retaliation,
Orontony and his followers abandoned their villages and moved west to
the White River in Indiana. Orontony continued efforts to form an
alliance with the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Miami to defy the French, and his
followers did not return to their old villages until after his death. In
1750 the French built a fort at Sandusky to limit Wyandot trade with the
British.

The revolt of the Wyandot , their most important ally, sent shock waves
through New France. In 1749 Pierre-Joseph Celoron was sent into Ohio to
expel British traders and mark the boundary of the French claim with
lead plates. His reception by the Ohio tribes was cold, almost hostile,
since they did not recognize the French claim to the area. A second
expedition in 1751 by Chabert de Joncaire met with a simular response,
and a Mingo chief asked him by what authority France was claiming land
belonging to the Iroquois. Faced with another revolt, the French could
only count on the support of the tribes at Detroit and Mackinac, but the
Detroit Wyandot were considering tading with the British themselves and
had no wish to fight the Ohio tribes. The situation simmered during the
smallpox epidemic that swept through the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley in
1751. In June, 1752, Charles Langlade, a mixed-blood Metis, led 250
Ojibwe and Ottawa warriors from Mackinac in an attack on the British
trading post an Miami village at Pickawillany ( Piqua, Ohio).

Afterwards,the French lowered their prices, increased the supply of
trade goods, and began construction of a line of forts intended to block
British access to Ohio. The revolt within their alliance collapsed. The
Wyandot renewed their attacks on the Chickasaw in 1752, and by July of
the following year, the Miami, Potawatomi, and Sauk had stopped trading
with the British. However the Ohio tribes, ( Mingo Delaware, and
Shawnee) still refused to recognize the French claim and wished to
continue their British trade. Seeing the new French forts for what it
was---an attempt to bring them under French control, they turned to the
Iroquois and British to prevent it. In 1754, Virginia sent troops
commanded by a 23-year-old militia major ( George Washington) to demand
the French remove their forts. The resulting confrontation started the
French and Indian War.( 1755-63 ). ( See George Washington's Diary at
this site.)
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to be continued in part 3--