ACHS offers program on native history
WAPAKONETA — It wasn’t until the end of his program that professor Stephen Warren got personal with Wapakoneta residents, asking them what “Ohioans could do to help deal productively with the legacy of Indian removal and promote a better collective memory of the Shawnee people.”
His questions came at the end of his Facebook Live presentation that outlined the Shawnee struggle against removal from Ohio and other parts of the country, or, as he said, explaining “how the Midwest became so white.”
Warren, a professor of history and American studies at the University of Iowa, was invited to speak by the Auglaize County Historical Society, who sponsored his Facebook appearance.
He outlined the timeline of Indian removal and exclusion, explaining the “deliberate” policies on state, local and national levels that removed the Shawnee people from their homelands to Oklahoma.
In Ohio, removal and exclusion began soon after statehood was awarded. Warren said Ohio statutes included a bond law that said African Americans had to prove they were free men and
women and were then required to pay $500 to stay in the state. Segregated schools kept populations separate. Using Chief Black Hoof as an example throughout his presentation, Warren said the Shawnee removal agent, James Gardiner, threatened Black Hoof’s people, telling them they were non-citizens and had no right to protect themselves or their property: “they might be beaten or killed by white men” and “no matter how many Indians were present — unless they could prove it by a white man they had, or would have, no remedy.”
This is why the Shawnee were so willing to sign treaties and agree to removal, Warren said. “They were forced,” he added.
Black Hoof lived through three major wars in his lifetime, Warren said, and after each war he and his people had to start over from scratch. He was opposed to American expansion, which he fought against most of his life but “gave up the fight” in 1794 after the battle of Fallen Timbers. Black Hoof became American ally and served as a scout for the United States in the War of 1812. He then made Wapakoneta the center of the Shawnee nation.
While in Wapakoneta, Black Hoof added a grist mill and farming to their lives and he worked with the Quaker missionaries there. There was no way to outrun the white settlement, so Black Hoof wanted to establish their home in Wapakoneta. He wanted to stay neutral with the white settlers — and resist relocation.
In 1815, northwest Ohio was also home to tribes of Wyandots, Ottawas, Delawares, Senecas and Cayuga Indians. Black Hoof said “we’ve arrived at the point beyond which they could not go, that when they looked over the Mississippi they saw the white people moving there as fast as in former times they spread themselves over Kentucky and Ohio.”
Black Hoof died in 1831 on the eve of removal, Warren said, so he didn’t have to live through what came next. He outlined the boarding school policies that were put in place for Indian youth, the Dawes General Allotment Act and other indignities as the result of U.S. policies.
Warren posed his questions about the future of am Ohio and local relationship with the Shawnee nation, and provided a statement from Chief Ben Barnes of the Shawnee tribe for those viewing to consider: “Non-natives should imagine having to leave the comforts of their own homes. Imagine that after you have left, new people move in and begin to talk among themselves and create false stories about you and your homes. Soon, people impose their own imagined idea of you on what remains of your presence. Some even claim to be your long lost cousins and they act in your name.”
Warren said the Wapakoneta High School’s Redskin mascot doesn’t help matters as it bears no resemblance to the Shawnee people or the actual history of the Shawnees.
“I would ask that subsequent conversations include Shawnees,” Warren said, including historians and scholars who could talk more about the meaning Ohio has about the Shawnee people. Topics could include grave protection and ways that historic sites might be strengthened with the tribes.
“There’s just so much in the way of possibility,” he added. “So much you all could do together.”