In the mid-17th century, the Iroquois Confederacy launched a war for control of the burgeoning fur trade industry. These conflicts, known as the Beaver Wars, were among the bloodiest in North American history, and the resulting defeat of the Erie nation led to present-day Ohio's becoming devoid of significant, permanent Indian inhabitants. Only in the first quarter of the 18th century did tribes begin to tentatively resettle the area. This book details the story of the Beaver Wars, the subsequent Indian migrations into present Ohio, the locations and descriptions of documented Indian trails and settlements, the Moravian Indian mission communities in Ohio, and the Indians' forlorn struggles to preserve an Ohio homeland, culminating in their expulsion by Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal Act in 1830.

The Story of the Longest and Largest Forced Migration of Native Americans in American History The Indian Removal Act of 1830 was the culmination of the United States' policy to force native populations to relocate west of the Mississippi River. The most well-known episode in the eviction of American Indians in the East was the notorious "Trail of Tears" along which Southeastern Indians were driven from their homes in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi to reservations in present-day Oklahoma. But the struggle in the South was part of a wider story that reaches back in time to the closing months of the War of 1812, back through many states--most notably Ohio--and into the lives of so many tribes, including the Delaware, Seneca, Shawnee, Ottawa, and Wyandot (Huron). They, too, were forced to depart from their homes in the Ohio Country to Kansas and Oklahoma. The Other Trail of Tears: The Removal of the Ohio Indians by award-winning historian Mary Stockwell tells the story of this region's historic tribes as they struggled following the death of Tecumseh and the unraveling of his tribal confederacy in 1813. At the peace negotiations in Ghent in 1814, Great Britain was unable to secure a permanent homeland for the tribes in Ohio setting the stage for further treaties with the United States and encroachment by settlers. Over the course of three decades the Ohio Indians were forced to move to the West, with the Wyandot people ceding their last remaining lands in Ohio to the U.S. Government in the early 1850s. The book chronicles the history of Ohio's Indians and their interactions with settlers and U.S. agents in the years leading up to their official removal, and sheds light on the complexities of the process, with both individual tribes and the United States taking advantage of opportunities at different times. It is also the story of how the native tribes tried to come to terms with the fast pace of change on America's western frontier and the inevitable loss of their traditional homelands. While the tribes often disagreed with one another, they attempted to move toward the best possible future for all their people against the relentless press of settlers and limited time.

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Description of the early trails and surveys of Indiana.

With the advent of European settlement, the Indian foot trails that laced the Pennsylvania wilderness often became bridle paths, wagon roads, and eventually even motor highways. Most of the old paths were so well situated that there was little reason to forsake them until the age of the automobile. That the Indians, taking every advantage offered by the terrain, "kept the level" so well among Pennsylvania's mountains is an engineering curiosity. Just as remarkable is the complexity of the system and its adaptability to changing seasons and weather. Colonial travelers and Indians met frequently on the trail. Whether traveling to hunt, trade, war, negotiate, or visit, Native Americans demonstrated in these chance encounters that they were not the fiends some thought them to be. Indian Paths of Pennsylvania traces the Indian routes, reveals historical associations, and guides the motorist in following them today.