Wapakoneta Heritage Parkway

Wapakoneta Heritage Parkway. . , Plaque # 1 , The Shawnee Indians were driven from the southern United States in the late 17th and early 18th centuries by white settlers and Catawba, Cherokee and Chickasaw Nations. the Shawnee were given permission by the Miamis and Wyandots to settle in Ohio and following the French and Indian War, the Miamis largely withdrew from Ohio leaving the Shawnees as the dominant Indian power in the region. In 1782 the Shawnees occupied Wapakoneta after being driven from Piqua by General George Rogers Clark in retaliation for Shawnee raids on Ohio River traffic and frontier settlements in Kentucky.

Plaque #2 , The Treaty of Greenville in 1795 reserved most of the Old Northwest Territory for the Indians. Many Indians were convinced however, that in spite of Treaty promises to the contrary, all Indian lands would eventually be occupied by the white man. To forestall such a development, the legendary Tecumseh launched a campaign to unite all Indians in a single confederacy dedicated to driving the whites back beyond the Alleghenies. In defiance of Black Hoof and other Shawnee chiefs at Wapakoneta, who counseled peace, Tecumseh traveled from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico urging all Indian Nations to join him in a war to expel the white man from lands west of the mountains.

Plaque #3 , Tecumseh enjoyed little success in forming a confederacy and his defiance of the chiefs led to his expulsion from Wapakoneta in the early 1800’s. This, as a result of internal dissension. The Shawnee divided during the War of 18 12 with Tecumseh and his followers supporting Britain while the majority of the Shawnees under Black Hoof either remained neutral or actively supported the United States. Following the war with Britain, the Treaty of Spring Wells (1815) guaranteed all pre-war boundaries between Indian and white man. In treaties at the Maumee Rapids (1817) and St. Marys (1818) The Spring Wells pact was repudiated by the Americans, however, and the Shawnees were forced onto reservations at Hog Creek, Lewistown, and Wapakoneta in an effort to more easily influence them into adopting the ways of white civilization.

Plaque #4 , During the 1820’s public opinion concluded that “civilization” of the eastern Indians had not been successful and this opinion resulted in enactment of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The Act authorized the President to exchange public land west of the Mississippi for all remaining land in the eastern United States and to remove the eastern Indians to the west at government expense. Consequently, treaties were concluded with the Shawnee in 1831 providing for cession of their Ohio reservations and Shawnee removal to Kansas. The Lewistown and Wapakoneta Shawnees migrated westward in 1832 thus bringing to a close the Shawnee era in Ohio.

Plaque #5 , Among the many prominent Shawnees who lived at Wapakoneta were the following, Tecumseh, the most famous of all Shawnees this skilled orator, statesman and strategist organized and led the last great Indian resistance to the Americans in the old northwest. Commissioned a Brigadier General in the British army, he was killed while leading his warriors against the Americans at the Battle of the Thames in 1813. Weh-Yah-Pih-Ehr-Sehn-Wah, or Blue Jacket, a white captive who became a war chief of the Shawnees and who, with Little Turtle of the Miamis, led the Indians in the annihilation of General Arthur St. Clair’s army in 1791. St. Clair’s Defeat is remembered as the worst ever suffered by the U.S. Army in campaigning against American Indians.

Plaque #6 , Catahecassa, or Black Hoof, was an unrelenting foe of the white man for most of his life. he made peace with the Americans at the Treaty of Green Ville in 1975 and thereafter, until his death in 1831, was a firm advocate of peaceful coexistence with the white man. Spamagelabe, or Captain James Logan, was raised and educated by the white man. He returned to his tribe in Wapakoneta and became a powerful chief. He lost his life while serving with the U.S.Army during the War of 18 12. To honor this gallant Indian ally, a section of land, today known as Logan Township, was given to his children.