Wyandot Indians
The Wyandot Indians originally lived in southern Ontario. They were also called Hurons. But they called themselves "wendat" which in time became "Wyandot" or "Wyandotte." They were related to the Iroquois Indians. But in the years before European settlement, the Iroquois Confederacy attacked them and drove them from their homeland. Some came to live in northern Ohio. They built their main villages in Wyandot, Marion, and Crawford Counties, but they lived across northern Ohio and as far south as Ross County.
The Wyandots had a special friendship with the Shawnee Indians. They referred to the Shawnee tribe as their "nephew" or "younger brother." Other Indian tribes could be allies one day and enemies the next. Political alliances changed with the times.
The Wyandots were allies of the French until British traders moved into the Ohio Country circa 1740. The French pushed the British out of Ohio, and the Wyandots became allies of the French again until the British victory in the French and Indian War. But as French trading posts turned into British forts, the Ohio Indians banded together to fight the British in Pontiac's Rebellion in 1764. During the American Revolution the Wyandots fought for the British against the Americans. When the British surrendered, the Indians were left to fight the Americans on their own.
The Wyandots were fierce warriors. Colonel William Crawford led an expedition against the Wyandot town at Upper Sandusky in 1782. His army was defeated. The Indians captured Crawford and burned him at the stake.
General Anthony Wayne once ordered Captain William Wells to go to the Indian town at Upper Sandusky and bring in a prisoner who could tell them about the Indian's plans. Captain Wells replied that he "could bring in a prisoner, but not from Sandusky, because there were none but Wyandots at Sandusky and they would not be taken alive."
General Anthony Wayne finally defeated the Wyandots and other Ohio Indians at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794. They surrendered most of their lands in Ohio with the signing of the Treaty of Greeneville.
In 1842, the Wyandots gave up their claim to their reservation at Upper Sandusky. In 1843 the United States government sent the Indians off to a reservation in Kansas. They were the last Indian tribe to leave Ohio.
Tarhe and Leatherlips were notable leaders of the Wyandot Indians.
Portrait of Bill Moose Crowfoot in head dress and beaded tunic, 1930. He is regarded to have been the last of the Wyandot Indians who lived in Central Ohio. He was born in 1837 in northwest Ohio and moved to the Columbus area with his family when most of his tribe was displaced to Kansas and later to Oklahoma. He was known to have wandered the area around the Olentangy and Scioto rivers. He later lived in a small shack at the corner of Indianola and Morse Roads.
References and Suggested Reading
- Barr, Daniel P., ed. The Boundaries Between Us: Natives and Newcomers Along the Frontiers of the Old Northwest Territory, 1750-1850. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2006.
- Bond, Beverley W., Jr. The Foundations of Ohio. Columbus, OH: Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, 1941.
- Carpenter, Roger M. The Renewed, the Destroyed, and the Remade: The Three Thought Worlds of the Huron and the Iroquois, 1609-1650. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2004.
- Hurt, R. Douglas. The Ohio Frontier: Crucible of the Old Northwest, 1720-1830. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996.
- O'Donnell, James H., III. Ohio's First Peoples. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2004.
- Ricky, Donald B., ed. Encyclopedia of Ohio Indians. St. Clair Shores, MI: Somerset Publishers, Inc., 1998.
- Tooker, Elisabeth. An Ethnography of the Huron Indians, 1615-1649. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1991.
- Vogel, John J. Indians of Ohio and Wyandot County. New York, NY: Vantage Press, 1975.
Time Periods
Citation
"Wyandot Indians", Ohio History Central, July 1, 2005, http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=646
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