American Indians entered the region south of the Great Lakes nearly 10,000 years ago. Some early sites along the Wabash have been preserved and investigated extensively by archaeological teams over the last 75 years. The people that we know the most about were cultures that established permanent locations along the Wabash and its tributaries. Researchers who want to get to know these cultures can form opinions based on a variety of evidence based in archaeology and later, the historical record.
The timeline for cultures in the region of the Wabash starts with the Paleo period which extends as far back perhaps as 27,000 BP (Before present) to 8,000 BC. - these were the earliest human inhabitants of North America up to the end of the last glaciation period. Archaic is the next period classification extending from roughly 8,000 to 1,000 BC. During this period, agriculture began and these people domesticated a large number of crops and lived in semi-permanent villages living as much by farming as by hunting. The next period has been classified as the Woodland period from about 1,000 BC to 1600 A.D. This is a period of significant change when pottery making was established. These people, in general, had more settled lives and dependency on agriculture grew tremendously. They began to build small mounds for burial purposes. In the southeast and in the region of the Wabash a culture known as Mississippian developed. Mississippian Mound Builders extended their culture into the Wabash/Ohio Valley from roughly 900 AD to 1400 AD. These folks existed in large complex communities including Angel Mounds just east of present day Evansville.
MISSION VALLEY
It is generally believed that a form of chiefdom operated within the Mississippian period. These chiefdoms, operating out of temple mound complexes, apparently controlled specific territories usually associated with a defined floodplain environment. Chiefs were responsible for the redistribution of food between outlying communities and the home community. Whether these chiefs were able to control exchanges of goods within their territory and with other chiefdoms, employ full-time artisans and specialists, or function as both the religious and political head, are questions requiring more research. Caborn-Welborn phase in the history of the Wabash was a culture primarily in the area near Hovey Lake west of Evansville. These people came out of the decline of the Angel Mounds site and traded or interacted with late prehistoric populations to the north and northwest which scientists call Oneota and south and southeast in the central Mississippi valley and eastern Tennessee. The native people who lived in this region, located their communities --hamlets and villages along a 40-mile stretch of the Ohio just east of the juncture with the Wabash. The Vincennes Phase was another Mississippian cultural site nearly 100 acres in size and had about 12 platform mounds in Illinois. The Merom Site in Sullivan County, Indiana, located on a 5-acre bluff above the Wabash is perhaps connected to this culture dating around 1200 AD. It was enclosed on two sides by stone and earthen walls and on the west by deep natural ravines leading to the Wabash River.
Due to a shift from complex villages and chiefdoms for reasons still not clear and the general abandonment of the region of the Wabash in the mid 17th century, a major fracture in our working knowledge of the southern Great Lakes and Ohio Valley exists. A series of wars and skirmishes during this time between factions of the Iroquois league who invaded this region over the extirpation of the beaver and fur bearing creatures from their homelands with the people of the lower Great Lakes causes gaps in the archaeological record that are not easily bridged. It is worth noting that a century later, leaders from historical tribes such as the Miami make speeches that are put into the historical record that reflect their belief that they were the former occupants of this region prior to the Iroquois Wars. This was said with little or no objection from dozens of other tribal elders and leaders present. It is known that by the end of the 17th century, the French were making contact with Miami, Piankeshaw, Wea, Illini and other Algonquin people who seemingly were located in an overcrowded region north of the Wabash in Wisconsin. They were starving, and living in far less than ideal conditions. Many of these groups including the Miami and Illinis were not native to Wisconsin due to observations made by early French explorers that these groups lacked winter gear such as snowshoes and other cold winter devices.
By 1679, a large group of Miami were already living on the south bend of the St. Joseph River of Lake Michigan. Another portion of the Miami or perhaps a political division of them relocated to Starved Rock, Illinois on the Illinois River in 1682. The Wea moved to the lower Wabash as early as 1691, about 20 miles below the mouth of the Tippecanoe River. The Crane Division or Atchatchakangouen moved from the Kankakee Region of the St. Joseph River of Lakes Michigan to the headwaters of the Maumee at Fort Wayne roughly around 1687. This was not far from the headwaters of the Wabash and was on the northern end of a portage between Detroit and the lower Wabash region. As French forts were constructed in the Wabash valley, the native populations grew to depend on these sources of goods and thus places such as Fort Wayne, Lafayette, Vincennes and Terre Haute became home to major divisions of the Miami and related groups such as the Piankeshaw.
Names that are synonymous with the history of the Wabash include Tecumseh of the Shawnee who later relocated his followers to a site near Battleground, Indiana along with his brother Tenskwatawa the Prophet; Little Turtle of the Miami who became the greatest war captain and diplomat ever recorded in the history of the Miami people; and Winnemac of the Potawatomi, a portion of whose tribe relocated in the early 19th century north of the Wabash. Chief John Richardville and his son-in-law, Topeah or Francis Lafontaine controlled the Fort Wayne-Wabash region for more than 50 years. Pacan, was a major player and head of the Crane band until his death in 1815. Blue Jacket's Shawnee having been pushed out of their Ohio homelands established a connection in the upper Wabash in the late 18th century. Frances Slocum became a white captive of first the Lenape and then married a Miami thus establishing her place in history on the Mississinewa, a tributary of the Wabash. Kakima Burnett and her descendants came to the Wabash after establishing an affluent trade business in the region of the St. Joseph in the latter half of the 18th century. Kakima contributed to the survival and even the successful Potawatomi fur trade of the early 19th century in the northern Wabash region.
The name of the Wabash itself comes from "Wabashiki"-- a Miami word meaning White Water. Salamonie River takes its name from the Miami word for bloodroot. Lagro and Wabash are small towns along the banks of the Wabash. Lagro is named for a Miami chief that had a village there in the late 18th century. Miami County obviously takes its name from the tribe that found its home near there. Paoli, Patoka and Peoria are all place names that have their linguistic roots in the Miami dialect of Algonquin.
It is not just place names that modern society recognizes as having an origin in Native culture. Some of the most profound changes to Euro-American culture came about due to Native agricultural practices including but not limited to the growing of corn, beans, squash, potatoes, tomatoes, tobacco and popcorn. Our modern grocery store shelves would be significantly altered if it were not for the Native contributions. Natives established trails and roads over animal paths and those same roads are used today as modern highways. Many modern cities have their origins as Native villages on the Wabash. Fort Wayne to Evansville and nearly every town in between has grown where a Native village was once located. Would the French have established posts in the Wabash valley if there was no one to trade with? The largest Mississippian mound village in the United States is located only 130 miles west of the Wabash and via trade routes, political ties and cultural traditions, this site is directly related to Angel Mounds with a population between 20,000-30,000 which at its height around 1000 AD was three to four times larger than any European city of the time.
Complex plant fiber harvesting, processing and twining techniques have been well established and used by Wabash Natives probably since the glacial ice retreated but most certainly reaching a peak in the Mississippian period. This use can be seen in the inlaid designs on pottery vessels. An abundance or surplus of this textile material was available for use in pottery design and probably served to establish the direction of trade and commerce in the Wabash Valley more than 500 years ago. Samples of intact fiber bags have been found in the White River dating to 300 BC. These were not the products of primitive savages. These were forward thinking, skilled people who established themselves on inland waterways to make use of the abundance of plants and foods, and other resources that were located in and around the region of the Wabash.
Wabash Natives MISSION VALLEY
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