Indymonks Trail of Tears - Chippewa Indians
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Number ten 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 Chippewa or Ojibwa was a tribe of the east coast and the Great Lakes area. Like the Miamis, they were part of the Algonquin linguistic group.
The first historical mention of the Ojibwe occurs in the Jesuit Relation of 1640. Through their friendship with the French traders (Coureur des boisand voyageurs), the Ojibwe gained guns, grew dependent upon White baubles, and began to dominate their traditional enemies, the Sioux and Fox to their west and south. They drove the Sioux from the Upper Mississippi region, and forced the Fox down from northern Wisconsin. The latter allied with the Sauk for protection.
By the end of the 18th century, the Ojibwe were the nearly unchallenged owners of almost all of present-day Michigan, northern Wisconsin, and Minnesota, including most of the Red River area, together with the entire northern shores of Lakes Huron and Superior on the Canadian side and extending westward to the Turtle Mountains of North Dakota. In the latter area, they were called the Plains Ojibwe or Saulteaux (by the French Canadians).
The Ojibwe (Chippewa) were part of a long-term alliance with the Anishinaabe Ottawa and Potawatomi peoples, called the Council of Three Fires. They fought against the Iroquois Confederacy, based mainly to the southeast of the Great Lakes in present-day New York, and the Sioux. The Ojibwe expanded eastward, taking over the lands along the eastern shores of Lake Huron and Georgian Bay. The Ojibwe allied with the French against Great Britain and its colonists in the Seven Years War (also called the French and Indian War). By 1763 France was forced to cede its lands in Canada and east of the Mississippi River to Britain after losing the war. Adjusting to British colonial rule, the Ojibwe allied with them and against the United States in the War of 1812. They had hoped a British victory could protect against United States settlers' encroachment on their territory.
In the U.S., the government attempted to remove all the Ojibwe to Minnesota west of Mississippi River. Violence arose over this effort, and many Ojibwe were killed in the Sandy Lake Tragedy, which resulted in several hundred deaths. Through the efforts of Chief Buffalo and popular opinion against Ojibwe removal, the bands east of the Mississippi were allowed to return to reservations on ceded territory. A few families were removed to Kansas as part of the Potawatomi removal.
In British North America, the Royal Proclamation of 1763 following the Seven Years War governed the cession of land by treaty or purchase . Subsequently France ceded most of the land in Upper Canada to Great Britain. Even with the Jay Treaty signed between the Great Britain and the United States, the newly formed United States did not fully uphold the treaty. Illegal United States immigration into Ojibwe and other Native American lands continued, and the tribes retaliated in the series of battles called the Northwest Indian War. As it was still preoccupied by war with France, Great Britain ceded to the United States much of the lands in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, parts of Illinois and Wisconsin, and northern Minnesota and North Dakota to settle the boundary of their holdings in Canada.
Often, earlier treaties were known as "Peace and Friendship Treaties" to establish community bonds between the Ojibwe and the European settlers. These earlier treaties established the groundwork for cooperative resource sharing between the Ojibwe and the settlers. The United States and Canada viewed later treaties offering land cessions as offering territorial advantages. The Ojibwe did not understand the land cession terms in the same way because of the cultural differences in understanding the uses of land. The governments of the US and Canada considered land a commodity of value that could be freely bought, owned and sold.
The Ojibwe believed it was a fully shared resource, along with air, water and sunlight. At the time of the treaty councils, they could not conceive of separate land sales or exclusive ownership of land. Consequently, today in both Canada and the US, legal arguments in treaty-rights and treaty interpretations often bring to light the differences in cultural understanding of treaty terms to come to legal understanding of the treaty obligations.
During Indian Removal of the 1830s, US government attempted to relocate tribes from the east to the west of the Mississippi River as the white pioneers colonized the areas. By the late 19th century, the government policy was to move tribes onto reservations within their territory. The government attempted to do this to the Anishinaabe in the Keweenaw Peninsula in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
In treaties made in 1795, 1817, and 1821, they relinquished their lands in Indiana to the whites. Their tribal name means “to roast until puckered,” and referred to the puckered seam in their moccasins.
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.
Congratulations to 17 Wins on the FTF.
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