How did Piqua get its name?

How did the Town of Piqua get its name?

Rosalie Yoakam, Contributing Writer

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Fort Piqua

A town grew out of the wilderness of Miami County after one pioneer built a log house near the Great Miami River in 1798.

Job Gard, a former soldier under “Mad Anthony Wayne,” was the pioneer. The land was about eight miles north of Troy on the west bank of the Great Miami River where there was a bend in the river.
The earth in this place had been roughly worked by the Shawnee Indians for several years and they raised corn there.

Gard built a log cabin, improved the fields and put up rail fences. Soon Gard sold his holdings to John Manning and ventured off into the backwoods again.

Other settlers moved into the area and built log cabins near each other for protection from the Indians. They also erected a block house and stockade for defense in case of attack. The building was made of sturdy logs and had no windows. The picket stockade had a huge gate that was secured with a padlock the size of a dinner plate. These structures were located near the river on the south side of present day East Water Street.

In 1807 the village, consisting of seven houses, was surveyed by Armstrong Brandon and named Washington. A short distance north was a Shawnee town called Piqua.

Piqua means “ashes” in the Shawnee language. An old legend explains the naming of the Shawnee village. Many years before, the Shawnee had captured a member of a tribe they were warring against and burned him at the stake. Then, to their amazement a human figure began to slowly grow from the ashes of their victim. The natives exclaimed, “Otatha-he-wagh-piqua!” or “He comes out of the ashes.”

In 1811 John Johnston moved his family to land he had purchased close to Washington, Ohio. There he built a brick house near a large spring on a site named Johnston’s Prairie. A year later the War of 1812 occurred and a new Indian agency was established near Washington, Johnston was appointed the agent.

About six thousand neutral Native Americans were moved to his area and Johnston worked to keep them friendly to the United States. His role was so crucial that several British assassination plans to eliminate him were hatched but thwarted by his Native American friends.
The increase in business, due to Johnston’s work during The War of 1812, helped the growth of Washington.

By 1816 the Shawnee village of Piqua had been abandoned, and the citizens of Washington asked the state legislature to let them change the name of their town to Piqua. Their request was granted.
Piqua was incorporated by the Ohio General Assembly in 1823. Thus, a town grew from the beginning work of one man, Gard, who perhaps never knew the outcome of his labor.

Piqua Shawnee 

Visit the Official Website Piquashawnee.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piqua,_Ohio

The Battle of Piqua

Battle of Piqua

George Rogers Clark

Throughout the American Revolution, Shawnee warriors conducted raids against American settlements in Kentucky. In the summer of 1780, George Rogers Clark, hoping to prevent further attacks, led 1,050 men against the Shawnee living in the Miami River Valley. Among Clark's soldiers was frontiersman Daniel Boone. The Americans crossed the Ohio River at what is now modern-day Cincinnati. The army burned five Shawnee villages, including Old Chillicothe, along the Little Miami River. The Americans also burned Loramie's Store, a British trading post, in what is now Shelby County, Ohio. The Shawnees generally fell back before Clark's army, but a major encounter between the two sides occurred on August 8, 1780, near what is now Springfield, Ohio. Known as the Battle of Piqua, both sides suffered significant casualties. Clark's attack, successful as far as it went, did not reduce the tensions between the Americans and the American Indians of the Ohio Country.

http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Battle_of_Piqua

Piqua Shawnee
www.piquashawnee.com

Shawnee Chief Blue Jacket

Shawnee Chief Blue Jacket

Chief Blue Jacket

Who was Blue Jacket and why was this Native Indian chief famous? Summary: Blue Jacket (c1743 - c1810) was a famous war chief of the Shawnee Native Indian tribe.  Prior to the War of Independence he led victorious battles against General Josiah Harmar and General Arthur St. Clair. He fought against the American colonists on the side of the British but was then forced to cede Ohio lands to the United States He joined the Western Confederacy in an attempt to regain Shawnee lands. He died in 1810.

Fast Facts about Blue Jacket

• Tribe: Shawnee
• Lifespan of Blue Jacket: c1743 - c1810
• Alternate Name: Weyapiersenwah
• Place of Birth: Deer Creek (present Ross County, Ohio)
• Language: Algonquian
• Date of Birth: c1743
• Role War Chief of the Shawnee tribe
• Date of Death: c1810
• Native Indian Allies: Little Turtle
• European Allies and Wars: Fought with the British in the 1774 Lord Dunmore's War and in the War of Independence (1775 - 1783). Northwest Indian War (1785–1795) in Indiana and Ohio, also known as Little Turtle's war.
• Famous Battles: 1794 Battle of Fallen Timbers
• Peace Treaty: The Treaty of Greenville (1795) and the Treaty of Fort Industry (1805)
  
  
  
  
  Blue Jacket
  Blue Jacket was a famous Shawnee war chief who opposed white encroachment and resisted against white expansion. Little is known about Blue Jacket's early life. He first appears in written historical records in 1773, when he was already a Shawnee war chief. Throughout Blue Jacket’s life with the Shawnee tribe, it is known that he fought under Little Turtle and they were at the forefront of the white resistance when colonists tried to expand their power as they started to settle in the Western part of Ohio.
  
  Blue Jacket Timeline
  The following Blue Jacket timeline charts the resistance of this great Shawnee war chief against the encroachment of lands in Ohio.
• 1743: Blue Jacket was born c1743
• 1774: Lord Dumore's War. Americans defeated the Shawnee in the Battle of Point Pleasant, but Blue Jacket emerged as a strong Shawnee leader.
• 1775: The American Revolutionary War (1775 - 1783). Blue Jacket fought with the British against the American forces
• 1783: The 1783 Treaty of Paris ended the American Revolutionary War the British abandoned their native allies and ceded the land between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River to the United States (the Northwest Territory).
• 1785: Native American Indians formed the Western Confederacy with the objective of keeping the Ohio River as a boundary between Indian lands and the United States.
• 1785: The Northwest Indian War (1785–1795) aka as Little Turtle's war erupted.
• 1790: Conflict with General Josiah Harmar who attempted to subdue Native Indians in the Northwest Territory. General Harmar was defeated by a tribal coalition led by Little Turtle of the of the Miami tribe and Blue Jacket in an engagement known as "Harmar's defeat"
• 1791: Battle of the Wabash on November 4, 1791. American Indians were led by Little Turtle and Blue Jacket won a major Native Indian victory against Americans led by General Arthur St. Clair.
• 1794: Battle of Fallen Timbers on August 20, 1794. The Legion of the United States, which was an extension of the United States Army, led by Major General Anthony Wayne defeated Blue Jacket and the Native Indians
• 1795: The Treaty of Greenville was signed on August 3, 1795 following the Battle of Fallen Timbers in which the Native Indians were forced to cede much of present-day Ohio to the United States
• 1795: The Treaty of Greenville was made on August 3, 1795 ended the Northwest Indian War
• 1805: The Treaty of Fort Industry was signed on July 4, 1805 in which Blue Jacket relinquished even more of Ohio
• 1810: The Death of Blue Jacket
• 1811: Chief Tecumseh continued the Shawnee fight during Tecumseh's War in a final attempt to reclaim Shawnee lands in the Ohio Country.

Piquashawnee.com https://www.warpaths2peacepipes.com/famous-native-americans/blue-jacket.htm

The Shawnee Sun, 1: The First Indian-language Periodical Published in the United States

The Shawnee Sun, 1

The First Indian-language Periodical
Published in the United States

Doug C. McMurtrie

November 1933 (Vol. 2, No. 4), pages 338 to 342
Transcribed by lhn; digitized with permission of the Kansas Historical Society.

 https://www.kshs.org/p/the-shawnee-sun-1/12595

Visit the Official Website of the Piqua Shawnee

The Shawanese prophet and Tecumseh / Huyot. (Wood Engraving)

Library of Congress - Wood engravings--1810-1890.

Tecumseh,--Shawnee Chief,--1768-1813

Tenskwatawa,--Shawnee Prophet

 Created / Published [between 1814 and 1890]

 The Shawanese prophet and Tecumseh / Huyot.

Print shows Tenskwatawa, the Shawnee Prophet, and Tecumseh, 

with other Natives and tipis in the background.

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print

Digital Id

cph 3a20703 //hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3a20703

Library of Congress Control Number

2012645311

Library of Congress Link:

https://www.loc.gov/item/2012645311/

Visit the Official Website of the Piqua Shawnee:

www.piquashawnee.com

History of the Shawnee Indians: From the Year 1681 to 1854 by Henry Harvey (1855)

History of the Shawnee Indians: From the Year 1681 to 1854, Inclusive

Henry Harvey

Ephraim Morgan & sons, 1855 - Shawnee Indians - 306 pages

Author Henry Harvey, member of the Religious Society of Friends spent time with the Shawnee Indians learning their history and culture.  Although the intent was to teach the Shawnee doctrines and principles of the Christian Religion Henry Harvey took account of the Shawnee people and their history.  This is his account of his time with the Shawnee. 

Reference links:

http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Shawnee#/State-recognized_tribes

https://books.google.com/books?id=-egNAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false

Harvey, Henry (1855). History of the Shawnee Indians: From the Year 1681 to 1854, Inclusive. Cincinnati: Ephraim Morgan & Sons. p. 18.

Piqua Shawnee - Green Corn Ceremony

The Green Corn Ceremony(Wikipedia)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sioux Green Corn Dance c. 1860

The Green Corn Ceremony (Busk) is an annual ceremony practiced among various Native American peoples associated with the beginning of the yearly corn harvest. Busk is a term given to the ceremony by white traders, the word being a corruption of the Creek word puskita for "a fast".^[1] These ceremonies have been documented ethnographically throughout the North American Eastern Woodlands and Southeastern tribes.^[2] Historically, it involved a first fruits rite in which the community would sacrifice the first of the green corn to ensure the rest of the crop would be successful. These Green Corn festivals were practiced widely throughout southern North America by many tribes evidenced in the Mississippian people and throughout the Mississippian Ideological Interaction Sphere. Green Corn festivals are still held today by many different Southeastern Woodland tribes. The Green Corn Ceremony typically occurs in late July–August, determined locally by the ripening of the corn crops.^[1] The ceremony is marked with dancing, feasting, fasting and religious observations.

Traditions

The Green Corn Ceremony is a celebration of many types, representing new beginnings. Also referred to as the Great Peace Ceremony,^[1] it is a celebration of thanksgiving to Hsaketumese (The Breath Maker) for the first fruits of the harvest, and a New Year festival as well.
The Busk is the celebration of the New Year, so at this time all offenses are forgiven except for rape and murder, which are executable or banishable offenses. In modern tribal towns and Stomp Dance societies only the ceremonial fire, the cook fires and certain other ceremonial objects will be replaced. Everyone usually begins gathering by the weekend prior to the ceremony, working, praying, dancing and fasting off and on until the big day.
The whole festival tends to last seven-eight days, if you include the historical preparation involved (without the preparation, it lasts about four days).

Day One

The first day of the ceremony, people set up their campsites on one of the square ceremonial grounds.^[3] Following this, there is a feast of the remains of last year's crop, after which all the men of the community begin fasting (historically, the women were considered too weak to participate^[1]). That night there is a social stomp dance, unique to the Muscogee and Southeastern cultures.

Day Two

Before dawn on the second day, four brush-covered arbors are set up on the edges of the ceremonial grounds, one in each of the sacred directions.^[3] For the first dance of the day, the women of the community participate in a Ribbon or Ladies Dance, which involves fastening rattles and shells to their legs perform a purifying dance with special ribbon-clad sticks to prepare the ceremonial ground for the renewal ceremony.^[4] The ceremonial fire is set in the middle of four logs laid crosswise, so as to point to the four directions. The Mico (head priest) takes out a little of each of the new crops (not just corn, but beans, squash, wild plants, and others) rubbed with bear oil, and it is offered together with some meat as "first-fruits" and an atonement for all sins.^[1] The fire (which has been re-lit and nurtured with a special medicine by the Mico) will be kept alive until the following year's Green Corn Ceremony. In traditional times, the women would sweep out their cook-fires and the rest of their homes and collect the filth from this, as well as any old clothing and furniture to be burnt and replaced with new items for the new year.^[1][3] The women then bring the coals of the fire into their homes, to rekindle their home fires. They can then bake the new fruits of the year over this fire (also to be eaten with bear oil). Many Creeks also practice the sapi or ceremonial scratches, a type of bloodletting in the mid morning, and in many tribes the men and women might rub corn milk, ash, white clay, or analogous mixtures over themselves and bathe as a form of purification.^[4]
They also drink a medicine referred to as passv,^[3] also referred to as the "White Drink." (English traders referred to it as the "Black Drink" due to its dark liquid which froths white when shaken before drinking). This White Drink, known to strangers as Carolina Tea, is a caffeine-laden mixture of seven to fourteen different herbs, the main ingredient being assi-luputski, Creek for "small leaves" of Yaupon Holly. This medicine was intended to help receive purification, as it is a purgative when consumed in mass amounts. (Historically, only men drank enough of the liquid to throw up.) ^[1] The purgative was consumed to clean the dietary tract of last year's crop and to truly renew oneself for the new year.

Day Three

While the second day tends to focus on the women's dance, the third is focused on the men's.^[3]
After the purification of the second day, men of the community perform the Feather Dance to heal the community.
The fasting usually ends by supper-time after the word is given by the women that the food is prepared, at which time the men march in single-file formation down to a body of water, typically a flowing creek or river for a ceremonial dip in the water and private men’s meeting. They then return to the ceremonial square and perform a single Stomp Dance before retiring to their home camps for a feast. During this time, the participants in the medicine rites are not allowed to sleep, as part of their fast. At midnight a Stomp Dance ceremony is held, which includes feasting and continues on through the night. This ceremony usually ends shortly after dawn.

Day Four

The fourth day has friendship dances at dawn, games, and people later pack up and return home with their feelings of purification and forgiveness. Fasting from alcohol, sexual activity, and open water will continue for another four days.

Symbolism

Puskita, commonly referred to as the "Green Corn Ceremony" or "Busk," is the central and most festive holiday of the traditional Muscogee people. It represents not only the renewal of the annual cycle, but of the spirit and traditions of the Muscogee. This is representative of the return of summer, the ripening of the new corn, and the common Native American traditions of environmental and agricultural renewal.
Historically in the Seminole tribe, 12-year-old boys are declared men at the Green Corn Ceremony, and given new names by the chief as a mark of their maturity.

Tribal Participation

Several tribes still participate in these ceremonies each year, but tribes who have historic tradition within the ceremony include the Iroquois, Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, and Seminole tribes. Each of these tribes may have their own variations of celebration, dances and traditions, but each performs a new-year's ceremony involving fasting and several other comparisons each year.

Visit the official web site of the Piqua Shawnee at piquashawnee.com

Visit Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Tecumseh and the Shawnee Resistance Movement from the Oxford Research Encyclopedias

Tecumseh and the Shawnee Resistance Movement  

Stephen Warren

Subject: Early National History, Native American History

Online Publication Date: Jul 2016

DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.013.309

Summary and Keywords

Described as a “chief among chiefs” by the British, and by his arch-rival, William Henry Harrison, as “one of those uncommon geniuses which spring up occasionally to produce revolutions and overturn the established order of things,” Tecumseh impressed all who knew him. Lauded for his oratory, military and diplomatic skills, and, ultimately, his humanity, Tecumseh presided over the greatest Indian resistance movement that had ever been assembled in the eastern half of North America. His genius lay in his ability to fully articulate religious, racial, and cultural ideals borne out of his people’s existence on fault lines between competing empires and Indian confederacies. Known as “southerners” by their Algonquian relatives, the Shawnees had a history of migrating between worlds. Tecumseh, and his brother, Tenskwatawa, converted this inheritance into a widespread social movement in the first decade and a half of the 19th-century, when more than a thousand warriors, from many different tribes, heeded their call to halt American expansion along the border of what is now Ohio and Indiana. Tecumseh articulated a vision of intertribal, pan-Indian unity based on revitalization and reform, and his ambitions very nearly rewrote early American history.

Primary Sources

For an excellent, chronologically arranged collection of sources related to both Tecumseh and the Shawnees, historians should first consult the Shawnee Papers, housed in the Erminie Wheeler-Voegelin Archives at Indiana University’s Glenn Black Laboratory of Archaeology. This collection contains a wealth of primary sources, gathered together by an exceptional team of anthropologists and historians through their work on behalf of the Indian Claims Commission. As such, this collection offers a useful springboard into more difficult and harder-to-reach archival sources.
Tecumseh’s own words come to us through Anthony Shane and Stephen Ruddell, white captives of the Shawnees who were raised alongside Tecumseh. The oral historian and archivist Lyman Draper interviewed both men about Tecumseh in the 1840s, years after his death. Draper also interviewed and corresponded with a host of Tecumseh’s adversaries, and their recollections can be found in the Tecumseh Papers of the Lyman Copeland Draper Collection, which have been microfilmed by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin.

Colonizers left behind a rich, but terribly biased, source record on Tecumseh. For example, many of Tecumseh’s speeches can be found in the papers of his foremost adversary, William Henry Harrison, published by the Indiana Historical Society. Similarly, the papers of Thomas Forsyth and Simon Kenton offer useful, but adversarial, perspectives on pan-Indianism. Historians should also consult British perspectives on Tecumseh, including the papers of John Askin, William Claus, and the McKee family. In the 19th century, neither British nor American historians bothered to interview Shawnees about Tecumseh and his legacy. A century later, the ethnohistorian Erminie Wheeler-Voegelin interviewed Shawnees about Tecumseh, and her papers are housed at the Newberry Library.

Read the complete version at:
http://americanhistory.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-309

Visit the Official Web Site of the Piqua Shawnee at piquashawnee.com

Life of Tecumseh and His Brother the Prophet By Benjamin Drake (1852)

Life Of Tecumseh and his Brother the Prophet By Benjamin Drake (1852)

https://hdl.handle.net/2027/inu.32000003384825 

The Library of Congress is a great source for historical information and has many periodicals available for digital download and search.

The book notes that the earliest mention of the Shawnee by any writer is the beginning of the 17th Century.  Mr. Jefferson in his "Notes on Virginia" mentions Captain John Smith (April 1607) there was a fierce War raging against the allied Mohicans, residing on Long Island, and the Shawanoes on the Susquehanna, and to the westward of that River, by the Iroquois.

Tecumseh: The Last Warrior (1995)

Tecumseh: The LastWarrior (1995)

IMDB Information

Director: Larry Elikann
Writers:James Alexander Thom
(book), Paul F. Edwards
(teleplay) (as P.F. Edwards)

Stars:Jesse Borrego,
David Clennon,
Tantoo Cardinal
| See
full cast & crew »

Chief Tecumseh Poem

Chief Tecumseh Poem

Tecumseh Poem

Chief Tecumseh Poem - American Shawnee Chief

Chief Tecumseh Poem

This poem written by Chief Tecumseh was used in the movie "Act of Valor" (2012) Production Companies Relativity Media (presents) Bandito Brothers.
 
Music by Hunter Hayes 'Where We Left Off"

As relevant today as it was when written and spoken by Chief Tecumseh.

*NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED*

Visit the Official Website of the Piqua Shawnee Tribe at www.piquashawnee.com

See the Video on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBpplCMhTJE&index=1&list=RDOBpplCMhTJE 

A Native Nations Perspective on the War of 1812 - PBS.ORG

A Native Nations Perspective on the War of 1812

By Donald Fixico
PBS.ORG


The War of 1812 was an important conflict with broad and lasting consequences, particularly for the native inhabitants of North America.  During the pivotal years before the war, the United States wanted to expand its territories, a desire that fueled the invasion of native homelands throughout the interior of the continent. Tribal nations of the lower Great Lakes, including the Shawnee, Potawatomi, Ojibwa, and others saw their lands at risk.  The same was true for the Muscogee Creek, Seminole, Choctaw, Cherokee and Chickasaw in the south.

The Native leaders who emerged in response to this expansion shared a single concern, that of protecting tribal lands. There were Indians who sided with the Americans -- Red Jacket and Farmer’s Brother led a Seneca faction to help the Americans at the Battles of Fort George and Chippewa. But most Indian nations sided with the British against the U.S, believing that a British victory might mean an end to expansion.  In all, more than two dozen native nations participated in the war. In addition to the Lower Great Lakes Indians, led by Tecumseh, and Southern Indians, the Mohawks fought under Chief John Norton to hold onto their lands in southern Quebec and eastern Ontario.

Read the full essay, that covers these pivotal events:
The Indian Confederation under Tecumseh

Tippecanoe and the Aftermath 

The Loss of a Leader 

About the Author:  Donald Fixico is the Distinguished Foundation Professor of History at Arizona State University, and the author of Treaties with American Indians: An Encyclopedia of Rights, Conflicts and Sovereignty and Rethinking American Indian History. 

http://www.pbs.org/wned/war-of-1812/essays/native-nations-perspective/

Visit the Official Website of the Piqua Shawnee Tribe of Alabama 

The Piqua Shawnee Tribe - Today

The Piqua Shawnee Tribe - Alabama Today

State of Alabama Indian Affairs Commission
www.aiac.alabama.gov

State of Alabama Indian Affairs Commission Tribal Map

Today
Now, in the 21st century, there are many descendants who still call Alabama home. Many of their family stories are varied. Some avoided walking the Trail of Tears. Some families escaped into the Cumberland mountains, others hid in swamps or less traveled places. A careful study of southeastern history will reveal that not all settlers agreed with Andrew Jackson’s removal policy. While many people did not escape the removal, some did. After the turmoil subsided some families returned. Many families chose to live in outlying rural areas where there was little government scrutiny and their neighbors weren’t too curious. While a lot was lost, family histories and ways were passed down.

It is out of that background that current Piquas live and work to preserve their unique heritage. The tribe consists of several family groups that are interrelated and live in several states. We also have relatives who reside in Canada. Currently the majority of Piquas live in Alabama, with members also in Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, Texas, Maryland, and South Carolina. Because we are so widely dispersed, we have at least four tribal gatherings per year in alternating geographic locations, thereby preventing any of our people from having to travel much farther than the others.

While we have a Principal chief, and second chief, our tribal government is maintained by a Tribal Council. The Council is composed of clan mothers and clan chiefs, with an advisory body known as the Council of Elders. Tribal Council is conducted in accordance with Clan protocol. All issues are debated and taken before the clans for consideration and deliberation. It is the function of the Council to debate and seek consensus on all tribal matters so that the people speak with one voice. Modern positions such as treasurer and secretary are determined by election for a set period of time. These positions do not have a vote on Council.

In 1991 the Governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky recognized the Piqua Sept of Ohio Shawnee as an Indian tribe. On July 10, 2001 the Alabama Indian Affairs Commission under the authority of the Davis-Strong Act recognized the Piqua Sept of Ohio Shawnee Tribe as an Indian tribe in the state of Alabama, thus making the Piqua Sept the first petitioning group to be recognized in 17 years.

Enrollment will be considered by the Tribal Council for applicants who can document their Shawnee ancestry. Those applicants who are of American Indian descent other than Shawnee must be descended from a tribe that was known to live with the Shawnee prior to the 1832 removal act. Potential applicants are encouraged to visit so that we may get to know you before any decisions are made regarding enrollment.


Visit the Official website of the Piqua Shawnee Tribe at www.piquashawnee.com