Pickawillany
Pickawillany was an 18th-century Miami Indian village located on the Great Miami River in North America's Ohio Valley near the modern city of Piqua, Ohio. In 1749 an English trading post was established alongside the Miami village, selling goods to neighboring tribes at the site. In 1750, a stockade was constructed to protect the post. French and English colonists were competing for control of the fur trade in the Ohio Country as part of their overall struggle for dominance in North America. In less than five years, Pickawillany grew to be one of the largest Native American communities in eastern North America.
The French decided to punish Miami chief Memeskia, for rejecting the French alliance and dealing with the English traders, which threatened what had previously been a French monopoly over local commerce. On 21 June 1752, the village and trading post were destroyed in the raid on Pickawillany, also known as the Battle of Pickawillany, when French-allied Indians attacked the village, killing Memeskia and at least one English trader and burning the English stockade and the trading post. Following the attack, the village of Pickawillany was relocated about a mile to the southeast. The city of Piqua, Ohio, was established later near this site.
Pickawillany's destruction directly encouraged greater British fortification and military presence at other outposts in the Ohio Valley, and has been seen as a precursor to the wider British-French conflict that would become the French and Indian War.
Etymology
The English term Pickawillany derives from pkiiwileni, the Shawnee word for the Miami people – literally, "foreigner". The Miami name for the village is a direct translation of the Shawnee pekowiiθa or "ash people."Establishment and early history
In the two decades preceding the French and Indian War, France struggled to maintain military and economic control of the Ohio Country, which was strategically crucial to lines of supply and communication between Canada and Louisiana. French dominance largely depended on the continued favorable relations between the government of New France and the Native American tribes living in the region, primarily the Miamis, the Wyandots, and the Shawnees. English traders from Pennsylvania were able to supply cheaper goods in larger quantities than the French traders could, attracting a greater share of the fur trade and influencing many Ohio tribes to shift their alliance to the English.In 1739 the Huron leader Orontony relocated his community from Detroit to Junundat and became openly hostile towards the French. In 1747 a combined force of Huron and Miami Indians attacked French outposts including Fort St. Philippe, which was destroyed. The French forced the Wyandots to abandon Junundat in that year, but they were then faced with the growing influence of the newly-founded Miami community of Pickawillany, under the leadership of Memeskia, a Piankeshaw war chief. Memeskia had gained influence over many in the Miami tribe by encouraging a stronger trade relationship with the English rather than the French. The Miami elder Cold Foot had maintained loyalty to the French for many years, but English goods were cheaper and more readily available than those of the French, leading many tribes to settle closer to English trading posts.
In late 1747 Memeskia led a group of Miami Indians about to the southeast from their community at Kekionga on the Maumee River, to settle Pickawillany on the west bank of the Great Miami River, opposite the mouth of what was later named Loramie Creek. The village was at the convergence of several trading trails in western Ohio, giving it unusual influence over trade in the region. In addition, it was the southern terminus of three key portages that provided access between the Ohio/Great Miami River systems and Lake Erie and other points to the north and west. Traveling by water from the east and the headwaters of the Ohio River toward the western Great Lakes, it would have been almost a necessity to pass through Pickawillany to get from one region to the other. Pickawillany was near enough to the Potawatomi, Kickapoo, Illinois, and other tribes for trade, and accessible to the English traders of Pennsylvania and Virginia. Its location was a threat to the French, as it was easily accessible by many tribes allied to the French, and brought English traders far into territory the French considered theirs. However, it was also deep in Ohio Country, too far from English colonial territory to expect military assistance if attacked.
William Trent states that
the Miamis had a village on the west side of the Great Miami river, at the mouth of what afterward became known as Loramies creek. That point was visited by the coureurs des bois at an early day, and had become a place of note long previous to the alliance of the Miamis with the English. From the latter it received the name of "Tawixtwi town", until the building of a stockade, when it was called Pickawillany, although in some accounts we find the name "Picktown" applied to it.
File:Twightwee treaty of Lancaster - DPLA - a7eba5170b87fbfb63c0e75a4eb6f2e2.jpg|thumb|right|The 1748 Treaty of Lancaster between the Miami People and representatives of the Pennsylvania Provincial Council. The treaty was signed by George Croghan, Andrew Montour, Richard Peters, Conrad Weiser, and three Miami chiefs.|220pxIn July 1748, fifty-five representatives of the Six Nations, Delawares, Shawnees, Nanticokes, and Twightwees met at the courthouse in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and signed a peace treaty with the Pennsylvania Provincial Council. This treaty guaranteed commercial access to tribes across the Ohio Valley as far west as the Wabash River, an unprecedented diplomatic achievement for the English. The Indian leaders promised to try to persuade other Ohio communities to leave the French and join a pro-English alliance.
Visit by Céloron de Blainville, 1749
In response to these new English alliances, the Governor of New France, Charles de la Boische, Marquis de Beauharnois decided to send a military force down the Ohio River to persuade and intimidate the main Native American communities to remain loyal to France. In mid-1749 Pierre Joseph Céloron de Blainville, leading a force of eight officers, six cadets, an armorer, 20 soldiers, 180 Canadians, 30 Iroquois and 25 Abenakis, moved down the Ohio River on a flotilla of 23 large boats and birch-bark canoes, on his "lead plate expedition," burying lead plates at six locations where major tributaries entered the Ohio. The plates were inscribed to claim the area for France. Céloron also sought out English traders and warned them to leave this territory which belonged to France.After visiting Kittanning, Logstown and Lower Shawneetown and receiving a cool response, Céloron's party traveled up the Great Miami River to Pickawillany, arriving there on 13 September. Céloron immediately found two "English soldiers" living in Pickawillany and sent them away. Of the Miami living in Pickawillany, Father Bonnecamps remarks, "This band is not numerous; it consists at most of 40 or 50 men."
Céloron does not mention a confrontation that took place when he and his party approached the village. According to William Trent, warriors opened fire on the Frenchmen, killing three soldiers. A Twightwee leader called the Mad Captain by the British then invited the Frenchmen to attack, but when they refused, the Mad Captain "pulled off his breechclout & slapped Monsieur Céloron across the face and told him he was an old woman."
Céloron's party spent a week camped outside the town. He wanted to persuade Memeskia to lead his people back to Kekionga, and some of the Miamis said they "had not much objection". At one point he proposed that the Miamis accompany his party north to Detroit, emphasizing that the English could not be trusted. Céloron dispensed the last of his trade goods to the Miamis, with promises of much more if the Miamis would declare loyalty to the French and return to Kekionga. Memeskia promised to return the following spring, "for the season is too far advanced." After this, Memeskia refused to meet with him again, and instead Céloron met with other Miami leaders who then sent messages to Memeskia.
On 20 September, Céloron gave up, burned his canoes and set off with his party overland to Detroit. On the way, he stopped at Kekionga and met with Chief Cold Foot, telling him that Memeskia had made a vague promise to return to the French. Cold Foot told Céloron that "La Demoiselle is a liar. It is the source of all my grief to be the only one who loves you, and to see all the nations of the south let loose against the French." Céloron later remarked, speaking in general about his journey, that "the nations of these localities are very badly disposed towards the French, and are entirely devoted to the English."
Fort and trading post, 1749-1750
In November 1749, George Croghan, an Irish trader and Pennsylvania Indian agent, established a trading post alongside the village. According to a letter from Governor Robert Dinwiddie, when the French learned that Croghan had established a trading post at Pickawillany, they offered a price for Croghan's capture or for his scalp:Two Prisoners who had been taken by the French, and had made their Escape from the French Officer at Lake Erie... brought News that the French offered a large sum of Money to any person who would bring them the said Croghan and Andrew Montour the Interpreter alive, or if dead their scalps.
In late 1750, the Pennsylvania Provincial Council sent gifts to the people of Pickawillany and requested permission to build a "strong house", a fortified enclosure designed to withstand attack, but technically not a fortress, as the pacifist Philadelphia Quakers felt that they could not ethically finance any military structures. Nonetheless, this building was referred to by everyone else as "Fort Pickawillany." William Trent describes the fort's construction in 1750:
Having obtained permission from the Indians, the English, in the fall of 1750, began the erection of a stockade, as a place of protection, in case of sudden attack, both for their persons and property. When the main building was completed, it was surrounded with a high wall of split logs, having three gateways. Within the inclosure the traders dug a well, which furnished an abundant supply of fresh water during the fall, winter, and spring, but failed in summer. At this time Pickawillany contained four hundred Indian families, and was the residence of the principal chief of the Miami Confederacy.
File: on the left side of the page, on the "Rocky R" at the confluence of Loramie Creek. Kekionga can be seen to the north, near Fort Miami.|220px
With the security of a stockade fort, traders began building storehouses to contain their trade goods and to store the skins and furs they received in trade from the Indians. Trent describes these storehouses as
ordinary log cabins, the trading being carried on below, while an "upper storey" or "loft" was used as a place to store away skins and combustible material... The articles of traffic on the part of the whites were firearms, gunpowder, lead, ball, knives, rings, rum, medals, hatchets, flints, blades, cooking utensils, shirts and other articles of wearing apparel, tobacco pipes, paint, etc.... Some of the traders would run regular "caravans" of fifteen or twenty horses, making several trips during the year.
The presence of a fort and a trading post attracted many English traders to the village seeking a new source of skins and furs. Hunters from many nearby communities began visiting Pickawillany regularly to trade, and the accumulation of European trade goods gave Memeskia increased influence over neighboring tribes, as he could strengthen alliances through gift-giving, a standard Native American practice. The French became increasingly concerned that the Miamis were considering "a general revolt against the French in pursuance of their plan of making themselves masters of all the upcountry."