Pickawillany

Pickawillany was a Miami Indian village and fortified trading post located on the Great Miami River. It was destroyed in 1752 by French aided by Ottawa allies, in a battle over the fur trade.

The Miami abandoned the village, relocating nearby. The present-day city of Piqua, Ohio in the United States was later developed around the second location by settlers moving west during the American Revolutionary War.

History

Founded in 1748 by La Demoiselle (Memeskia), a Miami chief, the village became a trading post and developed an active trade with French-Canadian fur traders. It was destroyed by the French and their Native American allies under Charles de Langlade in June 1752. He was a war chief of Ottawa-French descent and was fluent in both languages.

(Langlade also took part in Braddock's Defeat three years later during the Seven Years' War.) The remains of Pickawillany may have been the site of a 1763 battle during the war described by Black Hoof, in which Miami and Wyandot fortified themselves against Delaware and Shawnee warriors, who gave up the siege after seven days.

Chief Little Turtle (Michikinikwa), at Greeneville, reportedly said, "You discovered on the Great Miami traces of an old fort. It was not a French fort, brother, it was a fort built by me." Historians believe this is an error in translation, and that he said "a fort built by Mishikinakwa (The Turtle)," the name of an early Miami leader known to be at Pickawillany. Pickawillany was a trading post/fort.

References

• Carter, Harvey Lewis. The Life and Times of Little Turtle. ISBN 0-252-01318-2.
• White, Richard. The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, reprinted 2011.

External links

• Piqua Daily Call, story of archaeological dig by Hocking College students and Ohio Historical Society at Fort Pickawillany site (30 July 2011)
• Seven Years' War timeline, includes a map showing the Pickawillany location