Ohio History Journal

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ROBERT E

ROBERT E. SMITH

 

The Clash of Leadership at the

Grand Reserve: The Wyandot

Subagency and the Methodist

Mission, 1820-1824

 

 

The War of 1812 ended in 1815 with the Indian tribes of

the Old Northwest divided and demoralized. Officials of the

United States government soon attempted to stabilize relations

between the federal government and its native American in-

habitants in Ohio where numerous treaties were negotiated be-

tween United States commissioners and chiefs representing the

Ohio tribes. Among those tribes caught up in government ef-

forts to set up a viable Indian policy were the Wyandots. Four

treaties affecting the Wyandots were concluded with the fed-

eral government between 1815 and 1818.1 By then most of the

tribe occupied reserves in Ohio, although a small Wyandot re-

serve remained near Detroit in Michigan Territory and another

branch of the tribe lived on land in the lower peninsula of

present Ontario, Canada. A majority of the Ohio Wyandots

resided on the Grand Reserve, in Northwest Ohio near the site

of the present town of Upper Sandusky. Tarhe, the venerable

chief of the Wyandots for twenty years, died in 1815 and was

replaced by Dunquod. The new chief was confronted with the

 

 

Robert E. Smith is Chairman of the Department of Social Science and

Associate Professor of History at Missouri Southern State College, Joplin.

The author gratefully acknowledges a research grant from the American

Philosophical Society.

 

 

1. Charles J. Kappler, comp. and ed., Indian Affairs: Laws and

Treaties, United States Senate, 58th Congress, 2nd Session, Executive

Document Number 319 (5 vols., Washington, D. C., 1904), II, 117-19, 145-55,

162-64.