Indymonks Trail of Tears - Wyandot Indians Traditional Cache
Indymonks Trail of Tears - Wyandot Indians
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Do not try to access this cache from the interstate. Number eight of twelve caches on Indymonks Trail of Tears. Indiana the state name means Land of Indians, and it was at one time. These caches are to celebrate their rich heritage, and our great loss. Indiana was a paradise that provided for all the needs of its tribal inhabitants. There were only about 20,000 people living in the area around the year 1600.
The Wyandot were also known as the Huron spoke an Iroquois language but do not seem to be related to that nation of people. In fact, they seemed to be enemies for the most part. The Wyandot tribe of Wisconsin and Ohio ceded their Indiana lands to the whites in 1795. Their tribal name means “dwellers on a peninsula.”
They were farmers with corn being the mainstay of their diets. Fish was preferred as the main supplement with venison also hunted.
Wyandot people lived in longhouses like the Iroquios. It was not uncommon to have 900 to 1600 people in a village, living in 30 or 40 longhouses.
Allied with the Shawnee, the Wyandots were referred to as "uncles" by the Shawnee. Tarhe was a respected Chief of the Wyandot around the time of Tecumseh's war.
The Wyandot now live in Okalahoma and spell their name Wyandotte.
There were no horses in Indiana when the white man first came here and they had not yet invented the wheel; the natives traveled by foot and canoe.
Indiana's waterways gave them the ability to travel from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River and beyond. Without roads for horse drawn wagons, the Indians had no practical use for the wheel.
The Native American Hoosiers created paths called portages between the lakes, streams, and rivers. They built light weight canoes and carried them from waterway to waterway. This is one of the reasons the tribes built villages near rivers and creeks.
The Indians also followed animal trails, the most famous in Indiana being the Buffalo Trace. It ran from the grassy plains of Illinois, crossing the Wabash River at Vincennes, going across Indiana to Clarksville Indiana across the Ohio River into Kentucky. US 150 in Indiana is based on the Buffalo Trace.
The Buffalo Trace was dangerous to travel. Cougars often attacked travelers and Indians and thieves also set up ambushes along the trail. When a family was attacked in 1807 by Indians, US soldiers began to patrol the Buffalo Trace. During the War of 1812 William Henry Harrison sent 150 men to protect the travelers. Washington County resident Major George Beck's letter to William Henry Harrison, (the governor of the Indiana Territory who later became Indiana's only US President) requested more patrol of the area after the Pigeon Roost Massacre.
The Delaware and the Shawnee Indians are not indigenous to Indiana but had moved to Indiana from Ohio as the settlers moved West into their tribal grounds. They were allowed to settle there by the Miami Tribe. Indiana was under the rule of Miami Chief Little Turtle, who had many tribes under his rule. It is difficult to accurately depict the area each tribe occupied. They weren't at war and made their villages near each other in a spotty fashion.
The Indians had their own commerce system and transportation system with connected communities throughout Indiana. The tribes traded goods with each other and Indian businessmen were plenty. Although they didn't use money, the Indian Trader was a profit seeking businessman who didn't hunt or farm to make a living.
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