The purpose of our trip was to see the site of Revolutionary forts and battles as well as follow the trail of the Indians to clarify their position and look at both sides of the situation. Americans have been taught that the Indians were a ferocious, bloodthirsty people who refused to leave the land.
What we have not been taught was that we were taking their land at any cost. We came up with treaties and enticements that were false and insignificant in the face of what the Indians would be losing. They were forced to give up not only their land, but also their culture, their name, their past, their traditions.
When we finally moved them out, they were forced to give up their children and have them taken away to Indian boarding schools, ripped from their homes and parents. They were forced to cut their hair, and throw away anything they brought that would remind them of their Indian heritage.
Shawnee Indian Chief Tecumseh knew that would happen. He chose not to attend the signing of the 1795 Greenville Treaty and was disappointed at the tribal chiefs who were in attendance and signed the treaty that gave away their future.
The outdoor drama in Chillicothe, “Tecumseh,” tells the story of his struggle. The drama takes place on a mountain near his birthplace and tickets are half price for families and seniors every Tuesday.
The following day, we toured the restored Ft. Recovery in the small town of Ft. Recovery, about half an hour from Greenville, Ohio. The town is literally built around the fort. I learned more about the treaty and the deceit involved in its planning and execution.
The Garst Museum in the town of Greenville was our destination the next day. Once the site of the Garst family Inn, the building is now the home of the Darke County Historical Society. More than 300,000 artifacts in six major and two minor venues are exhibited.
The venue that we were exploring was called “Crossroads of Destiny,” which tells the history of the Treaty of Greenville and the largest stockade fort ever built in North America. It was the scene of the signing of the most important American Indian treaty ever. It was here that the tribal chiefs gathered with many of their people to sign and witness the treaty in 1795 that would open the door to white settlers to lay claim to the Midwest. The treaty would end 40 years of conflict over the upper Ohio Valley.
The Paris Peace Treaty of 1783 granted the land to Americans, but the land was inhabited by Indians who had already settled there. The battles that followed would create such conflict and great bloodshed.
The exhibit shows those battles and the Indian Chiefs involved as well as President George Washington’s response to the defeat after two of the battles. The worse military defeat in United States history occurred in 1791 when General Arthur St. Clair was defeated by the Indians led by Chiefs Blue Jacket and Little Turtle, and the fort was destroyed. Even today, the battle is known as St. Clair’s Defeat.
By 1794, the fort had been rebuilt and named Ft. Recovery by General “Mad” Antony Wayne, who chose the name after the earlier defeat of St. Clair. More than 250 well-armed soldiers prepared for an Indian attack of 1,200 warriors. The Americans held their ground, and when the battle ended, there were 35 U.S. soldiers killed, 43 wounded and 20 missing. The Indians estimated about 17-50 killed and 100 wounded. But the fort stood. This victory was the final blow that led to the signing of the treaty the following year.
Little by little, step by step, treaty by treaty, the Indians were forced into smaller and smaller areas until finally in 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed into law the Indian Removal Act. The act granted the president the right to exchange lands west of the Mississippi in exchange for Indian lands within existing state borders.
Many of the tribes resisted, of course. A few went peacefully, the fight gone out of them. What followed in the forced march during the fall and winter of 1838 and 1839 has become known as the “Trail of Tears” when about 4,000 Cherokees died on the trail. I am sure that some died from sorrow over what they lost. Approximately 4,000 Cherokees lost their lives.
Imagine my surprise to find a former Jefferson, Ohio, resident’s quote on this matter included in an exhibit. William Dean Howells, born in 1837 in Martins Ferry, Ohio, is recorded in the exhibit, “An Unfulfilled Promise” to have actually witnessed the 1846 removal of the Miami tribe from Ohio.
The exact quote reads,
“Out of the land that was to know them no more forever”
– William Dean Howells who, as a youngster, witnessed the 1846 removal of the Miami tribe from Ohio.
But Howells was not born until 1837, making him nine years of age when the removal took place. After several searches that claimed Howells could not have witnessed the removal because he was too young, I dug deeper and searched his life, movements and dates and was able to piece together Howells’ timeline of life and came up with what I believe is the answer.
Since the Indian Removal Act passed in 1830, I questioned the exhibit quote because I did not see how Indians could still be living in Ohio in 1846 in order for the quote to be correct. Checking other resources, I found out that a historical marker in Miamisburg, Ohio, states that, “The Daily Receipts by the Miami Canal reported that on Oct. 10, 1846, a procession of five canal boats carrying Miami people passed through Miamisburg, Ohio, on the Miami and Erie Canal, en route to the Ohio River and then westward to Kansas, that ‘Miami Indians 225 over and 78 under 8 years old’ had arrived in Cincinnati, Ohio, just days after the start of the removal.”
Howells would have been living near Miamisburg in Hamilton in 1846, about 17 miles away. Could his parents have been visiting Miamisburg, doing business, visiting relatives or friends?
The news report proves that as late as the second half of the 1840s, Miami members were still in Ohio, but they were being moved out of the state. By the mid-1840s, most Miami had been removed from Ohio and Indiana, with the remainder going to Kansas and later Oklahoma. While their presence in Ohio was shrinking rapidly in the 1840s, it was still occurring until the 1846 removals.
Howells’ father was editor of the Ashtabula Sentinel, having come to Jefferson when son William was about 12. William helped in the print room and began writing very early in life. The family lived in a red brick, two-story home on South Elm Street on the west side. The home is still standing today.
William Dean Howells, 1837-1920, became known as the “Dean of Modern Letters.” In his many writings, he shares his early life in all the places his family lived. By the age of 21, Howells moved to Columbus and became the city editor of the Ohio State Journal. Later, he would be chosen to write the biography of Abraham Lincoln. Today, his books are collector items, many of them at the Jefferson Historical Society.
Just as today we are deeply touched by the Indians’ struggle to keep their homeland and identify, Howells felt that compassion so much that the Garst Museum chose his quote to include in their permanent exhibit.
Maps, artifacts, documents, photographs and videos graphically and accurately reveal what happened in this sad time of our history in a timeline. Great displays provide a real education of a neglected part of our nation’s past.
The Garst Museum will provide you with a map of the town of Greenville showing fifty historical markers, nineteen of which recognize the Treaty of Greenville or the Revolutionary War. It is certainly a historic town and feels as such when you are there and realize all that took place under the very ground you are walking on.
I hope you get the opportunity to visit Greenville, the Garst Museum, the historic marker walk and Ft. Recovery to make this year of our nation’s 250 birthday come more alive to you!
