Pickawillany (also spelled Pickawillamy, Pickawillani, or Picqualinni) was an 18th-century Miami Indian village located on the Great Miami River in North America's Ohio Valley near the modern city of Piqua, Ohio.R. David Edmunds, "Pickawillany: French Military Power versus British Economics", Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine, vol. 58, April 1975, pp 169–184, accessed 17 October 2021 In 1749 an English trading post was established alongside the Miami village, selling goods to neighboring tribes at the site. In 1750, a stockade (Fort Pickawillany) was constructed to protect the post. French and English colonists were competing for control of the fur trade in the Ohio Country as part of their overall struggle for dominance in North America. In less than five years, Pickawillany grew to be one of the largest Native American communities in eastern North America.
The French decided to punish Miami chief Memeskia (also known as La Demoiselle or Old Briton), for rejecting the French alliance and dealing with the English traders, which threatened what had previously been a French monopoly over local commerce. On 21 June 1752, the village and trading post were destroyed in the raid on Pickawillany, also known as the Battle of Pickawillany, when French-allied Indians attacked the village, killing Memeskia and at least one English trader and burning the English stockade and the trading post. Following the attack, the village of Pickawillany was relocated about a mile to the southeast. The city of Piqua, Ohio, was established later near this site.
Pickawillany's destruction directly encouraged greater British fortification and military presence at other outposts in the Ohio Valley, and has been seen as a precursor to the wider British-French conflict that would become the French and Indian War.
Etymology The English term Pickawillany derives from , the Shawnee word for the Miami people – literally, "foreigner". The Miami name for the village () is a direct translation of the Shawnee or "ash people."David J. Costa, "On the Origins of 'Pickawillany'", Names, Vol. 62 No. 4, December 2014, 214-17, accessed 17 October 2021
Establishment and early history
In the two decades preceding the French and Indian War, France struggled to maintain military and economic control of the Ohio Country, which was strategically crucial to lines of supply and communication between Canada and Louisiana. French dominance largely depended on the continued favorable relations between the government of New France and the Native American tribes living in the region, primarily the Miamis (Twightwees), the Wyandots (Hurons), and the Shawnees.White, Richard. The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, reprinted 2011, accessed 17 October 2021 English traders from Pennsylvania were able to supply cheaper goods in larger quantities than the French traders could, attracting a greater share of the fur trade and influencing many Ohio tribes to shift their alliance to the English.
In 1739 the Huron leader Orontony relocated his community from Detroit to Junundat and became openly hostile towards the French. In 1747 a combined force of Huron and Miami Indians attacked French outposts including Fort St. Philippe (Fort Miami), which was destroyed.William A. Hunter, "Orontony", in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 3, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed May 16, 2021 The French forced the Wyandots to abandon Junundat in that year, but they were then faced with the growing influence of the newly-founded Miami community of Pickawillany, under the leadership of Memeskia, a Piankeshaw war chief. Memeskia had gained influence over many in the Miami tribe by encouraging a stronger trade relationship with the English rather than the French. The Miami elder Cold Foot had maintained loyalty to the French for many years, but English goods were cheaper and more readily available than those of the French, leading many tribes to settle closer to English trading posts.Martinez, Luke Aaron Fleeman "The land belongs to neither one": Native Americans, Europeans, and the raid on Pickawillany, Master's Thesis, College of Social Sciences, California State University, Fresno; May 2011, accessed 17 October 2021
In late 1747 Memeskia led a group of Miami Indians about to the southeast from their community at Kekionga on the Maumee River, to settle Pickawillany on the west bank of the Great Miami River, opposite the mouth of what was later named Loramie Creek.George Ironstrack, "The Crooked Trail to Pickawillany (1747-1752)" April 19, 2012, accessed 17 October 2021 The village was at the convergence of several trading trails in western Ohio, giving it unusual influence over trade in the region."Loramie and Pickawillany", Ohio Archaeological and Historical Publications, vol 17, 1908; Columbus: The Society. p 12, accessed 17 October 2021 In addition, it was the southern terminus of three key portages (overland carrying places between rivers) that provided access between the Ohio/Great Miami River systems and Lake Erie and other points to the north and west. Traveling by water from the east and the headwaters of the Ohio River toward the western Great Lakes, it would have been almost a necessity to pass through Pickawillany to get from one region to the other."Some Thoughts on Pickawillany, 1748-1752, Part 1: The Setting", Ohio History Connection, March 15, 2007, accessed 17 October 2021 Pickawillany was near enough to the Potawatomi, Kickapoo, Illinois, and other tribes for trade, and accessible to the English traders of Pennsylvania and Virginia.Memeskia (?-1752) Encyclopedia.com, accessed 17 October 2021 Its location was a threat to the French, as it was easily accessible by many tribes allied to the French, and brought English traders far into territory the French considered theirs. However, it was also deep in Ohio Country, too far from English colonial territory to expect military assistance if attacked.
William Trent states that
the Miamis had a village on the west side of the Great Miami river, at the mouth of what afterward became known as Loramies creek. That point was visited by the coureurs des bois at an early day, and had become a place of note long previous to the alliance of the Miamis with the English. From the latter it received the name of "Tawixtwi town", until the building of a stockade, when it was called Pickawillany, although in some accounts we find the name "Picktown" applied to it.William Trent, Journal of Captain William Trent from Logstown to Pickawillany, A.D. 1752, Alfred Goodman, ed. Cincinnati: Robert Clark, 1871, accessed 17 October 2021
In July 1748, fifty-five representatives of the Six Nations, Delawares, Shawnees, Nanticokes, and Twightwees met at the courthouse in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and signed a peace treaty with the Pennsylvania Provincial Council.A Treaty held by commissioners, members of the Council of the province of Pennsylvania, at the town of Lancaster, with some of the chiefs of the Six Nations at Ohio, and others, for the admission of the Twightwee Nation into the alliance of His Majesty, &c. in the month of July, 1748. Accessed 17 October 2021 This treaty guaranteed commercial access to tribes across the Ohio Valley as far west as the Wabash River, an unprecedented diplomatic achievement for the English. Edward G. Everett, "Pennsylvania's Indian Diplomacy 1747-1753", Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine, vol 44 (September 1961), pp. 241-56, accessed 17 October 2021Joseph Solomon Walton, 1900, Conrad Weiser and the Indian Policy of Colonial Pennsylvania Philadelphia: G.W. Jacobs & Co., 1900, accessed 17 October 2021 The Indian leaders promised to try to persuade other Ohio communities to leave the French and join a pro-English alliance.
Visit by Céloron de Blainville, 1749
In response to these new English alliances, the Governor of New France, Charles de la Boische, Marquis de Beauharnois decided to send a military force down the Ohio River to persuade and intimidate the main Native American communities to remain loyal to France. In mid-1749 Pierre Joseph Céloron de Blainville, leading a force of eight officers, six cadets, an armorer, 20 soldiers, 180 Canadians, 30 Iroquois and 25 Abenakis,O. H. Marshall, "De Celoron's Expedition to the Ohio in 1749," Magazine of American History, March, 1878, p. 146, accessed 17 October 2021 moved down the Ohio River on a flotilla of 23 large boats and birch-bark canoes, on his "lead plate expedition," burying lead plates at six locations where major tributaries entered the Ohio. The plates were inscribed to claim the area for France. Céloron also sought out English traders and warned them to leave this territory which belonged to France.A. Gwynn Henderson, "The Lower Shawnee Town on Ohio: Sustaining Native Autonomy in an Indian "Republic"." In Craig Thompson Friend, ed., The Buzzel about Kentuck: Settling the Promised Land, University Press of Kentucky, 1999; pp. 25-56. Accessed 17 October 2021
After visiting Kittanning, Logstown and Lower Shawneetown and receiving a cool response, Céloron's party traveled up the Great Miami River (which Bonnecamps referred to as the "rocky river", Rivière a la Roche) to Pickawillany, arriving there on 13 September. Céloron immediately found two "English soldiers" living in Pickawillany and sent them away. Of the Miami living in Pickawillany, Father Bonnecamps remarks, "This band is not numerous; it consists at most of 40 or 50 men."Joseph Pierre de Bonnecamps, "Relation du voyage de la Belle Rivière faite en 1749, sous les ordres de M. de Céloron" in Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, 73 vols. Cleveland: Burrow Brothers, 1896-1901, vol. 69, accessed 17 October 2021
Céloron does not mention a confrontation that took place when he and his party approached the village. According to William Trent, warriors opened fire on the Frenchmen, killing three soldiers. A Twightwee leader called the Mad Captain by the British then invited the Frenchmen to attack, but when they refused, the Mad Captain "pulled off his breechclout & slapped Monsieur Céloron across the face and told him he was an old woman."
Céloron's party spent a week camped outside the town. He wanted to persuade Memeskia to lead his people back to Kekionga, and some of the Miamis said they "had not much objection". At one point he proposed that the Miamis accompany his party north to Detroit, emphasizing that the English could not be trusted. Céloron dispensed the last of his trade goods to the Miamis, with promises of much more if the Miamis would declare loyalty to the French and return to Kekionga. Memeskia promised to return the following spring, "for the season is too far advanced." After this, Memeskia refused to meet with him again, and instead Céloron met with other Miami leaders who then sent messages to Memeskia.
On 20 September, Céloron gave up, burned his canoes and set off with his party overland to Detroit. On the way, he stopped at Kekionga and met with Chief Cold Foot, telling him that Memeskia had made a vague promise to return to the French. Cold Foot told Céloron that "La Demoiselle is a liar. It is the source of all my grief to be the only one who loves you, and to see all the nations of the south let loose against the French." Céloron later remarked, speaking in general about his journey, that "the nations of these localities are very badly disposed towards the French, and are entirely devoted to the English."
Fort and trading post, 1749-1750