THE PROBLEM OF
THE HISTORIC INDIAN IN THE OHIO VALLEY:
THE HISTORIAN'S VIEW
by DWIGHT L. SMITH
Sometime early in the morning of
October 12, land having
been sighted, a party debarked for
shore. "Presently they descried
people, [who were] naked."
Possession of the island was taken
in the presence of witnesses from the
ship and a number of "the
people of the island" who had
collected there.1 "As I saw that
they were very friendly to us, and
perceived that they could be
much more easily converted to our holy
faith by gentle means than
by force," wrote the leader of the
expedition in his journal, "I
presented them with . . . many . . .
trifles of small value, wherewith
they were much delighted, and became
wonderfully attached to
us. Afterwards they came swimming to
the boats, bringing parrots,
balls of cotton thread, javelins and
many other things which they
exchanged for articles we gave
them."2
These observations were made by
Christopher Columbus in 1492.
It is precisely at this time and with
this document that the "historic
Indian" becomes a reality. This is
the point of departure for any
study of the history of the indigenous
peoples of the New World.3
In any given locale, however, the date
at which the term historic
Indian can be applied is that of the
first recorded European contact.
This, in the Ohio Valley-Great Lakes
area, was when the French
explorers and Jesuit missionaries first
penetrated the depths of the
woodland and lake regions, probably
near the middle of the
seventeenth century.
When this contact occurs the historian
is immediately interested
1 Christopher Columbus, Journal of
First Voyage to America (New York, 1924),
23-24. The original manuscript journal
has long since disappeared. These quotes are
from Bartolome de Las Casas, who had
access to a copy of the original journal.
2 Ibid., 24-25. This is in the words of Columbus as copied by
Las Casas.
3 The name Indian was applied to these
people because Columbus believed he had
discovered India. The term was probably
used for the first time in a letter he wrote
to one of his benefactors on the return
from his initial voyage to the New World.
Columbus to Louis de Sant Angel, Lisbon,
February 1493, quoted in F. F. Hilder,
"Origin of the Name 'Indian,'"
American Anthropologist, N.S., I (1899), 545-549.
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Ohio Valley Historic Indian
Conference 173
in the Indian as a contributing factor
to the overall story of
American history. He is interested in
determining the role and
effect of the Indian on the frontier
with respect to international
struggles and diplomacy, the land
question, his impact on frontier
society, his contributions to the lives
of the pioneers, and his
subsequent absorption, liquidation, or
removal to make room for
new settlements and new states. Then,
of course, there are specialists
who are interested in Indian history as
a subject in itself, just as
there are specialists who are
interested, for example, in the
evolution of democracy in British
colonial governments, political
parties, or the Germans in the United
States. These specialists are
concerned with every aspect of the
Indian--political, social,
economic, religious, and cultural.
The approach of a historian to the
Indian is precisely the same
which he uses in the study of any other
subject. The task of a
historian, simply, is to reconstruct
past events, to weave a fabric
from the threads of information
recorded and left behind by eye-
witnesses and participants. This
reconstruction is never completed;
and, at best, it can only be an
approximation. The term "definitive"
is sometimes applied to an historical
study, but it is only a relative
term. The late Douglas Southall
Freeman, for example, would have
been the first to admit that 'his
exhaustive, multivolume treatment
of the life of George Washington is not
definitive. Likewise, the
late William T. Morgan, who devoted a
lifetime to the study of
the twelve-year reign of Queen Anne of
England, considered his
extensive several volumes of
bibliography of that era to be but an
introduction to the period.
With regard to the historic Indian,
there have been no such
monumental endeavors. Indeed, more so
than in any other phase of
American history in which one might
specialize, this one is affected
by a condition which makes it almost
impossible to satisfactorily
achieve such a goal. The difficulty
arises from the fact that the
Indian did not convert his spoken
language into a written form
until a relatively recent time. This
means, of course, that until
this occurred, he made no written
records. What the historian
learns of the Indian, therefore, is
that which has been recorded by
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Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
Europeans who came into contact with
the Indian, not from any-
thing that he himself left.
Today's historian has no choice then
but to see the Indian through
the eyes of the white man. His sources
of information are, in a
sense, second hand rather than first
hand. With this second
handedness there is another factor with
which the historian has to
reckon, more so in this than in other
fields of inquiry. Those who
came in contact with the Indian seemed
to evaluate and think of
him with a rather pronounced bias,
sometimes very much in his
favor, and sometimes not. This often
lends considerable color to
the written impressions. Color is not
objectionable, to be sure, but
it is of prime importance that it be
recognized as such. It is necessary
to realize that we are seeing the
Indian through the eyes of a
third person who probably had a
personal bias of one sort or
another. The escaped captive, for
example, usually employed as
many superlatives and adjectives as he
had at his command to make
the story of his adventures as
excruciatingly unpleasant as possible.
He seemed to get a morbid satisfaction
from portraying his treat-
ment at the hands of the Indians in
lurid details worthy of the most
terrible accounts of the Inquisition or
of a Nazi prison camp. His
story was a combination of imagination
and fact. His bias was
not by innuendo or indirection but was
forthrightly and proudly
stated and proclaimed to all who read
his story. The missionary,
on the other hand, filled with sympathy
and understanding, might
well report to his superior that these
peoples of the forest and
wilderness were kind and lovable
"children of God." While the
Jesuit priest was the most intrepid of
those who pierced through
the curtain of the unknown into the
savage wilderness, his purpose
in doing so led him to be concerned
with the better side of the
character and make-up of the Indian.
The Moravian missionaries
were dedicated to the proposition that
Christianity was for the
Indian as well as for anyone else. The
Quakers were motivated by
the principle that the Indian was
entitled to the same rights and
consideration as were the whites, and
if treated accordingly, military
force leading to subjection would not
have to be used to obtain
and maintain peace on the frontier. The
bias of the missionary,
Ohio Valley Historic Indian
Conference 175
then, was in considerable contrast to
that of a person who had
lived in captivity and had gained his
freedom.
The gamut of bias ranged from the
missionary report to the
captivity narrative with probably the
majority opinion holding to
the old frontier maxim that the only
good Indian was a dead one.
Efforts were made to salvage the Indian
from the damage done
him by this feeling and the treatment
he had supposedly suffered
from the whites as a result of it.
Helen Hunt Jackson, for example,
in her highly emotional volume, A
Century of Dishonor, was in-
strumental in bringing about the
organization of the Indian Rights
Association. A more recent example of
an extremely pro-Indian
statement was a Time magazine
report of a few years ago on con-
ditions in the Southwest. The report
evoked considerable concern
and sympathy. This is not to assert
that such things as second
handedness, bias, and literary flair
render the sources from which
the historian must get his information
worthless. Far from it. It is
to say, though, that in a certain
sense, the wheat must be separated
from the chaff. And the presence of
valuable information otherwise
often not available elsewhere warrants
the effort required to salvage
it from these accounts.
What then, specifically, are the
sources at the command of
the historian interested in the Indian,
and what is the nature of
these sources? The earliest and among
the most extensive records
are the contact accounts made by
explorers and missionaries. In
the case of the Ohio Valley-Great Lakes
area the French explorers
and Jesuit priests pushed into the lake
and river valleys together.
The records of the latter especially
are crammed with valuable
data. Some seventy-odd edited volumes
of Jesuit accounts are
readily available in the average
reference library, but unpublished
reports of unknown quantity still exist
in European archives. In
many cases, too, the original
narratives of the explorers are avail-
able in carefully edited editions and
collections.
Fur traders, adventurers, and soldiers
kept records or an oc-
casional journal and wrote descriptive
letters. Although usually
fugitive pieces they are none the less
of value. These are likely to
appear in collections of other subjects
or as single items. The busi-
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Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
ness papers and the records of trading
posts and government fac-
tories are useful for economic studies.
A whole body of literature
in itself is that of the
above-mentioned captivity narratives. Their
literary appeal is certainly as
gripping and as fascinating as the
dime novel ever was. The Indian point
of view is often more nearly
approximated in a captivity than
elsewhere because in many cases
the captive had lived for years as an
Indian before securing his
freedom. And then, too, as captives,
the whites were sometimes eye-
witnesses and participants in
Indian-white conflicts. There are
enough accounts of whites who lived in
captivity in the Great
Lakes-Ohio Valley area reasonably
accessible to justify the time and
effort needed for a detailed study.
Thus far the captivity narrative
has only been employed by a few
scholars. Some exploratory
projects have been done covering the
captivity as a whole or some
particular phase, like torture, and
some beginning has been made to
ascertain the value of making a
regional or tribal study. As a
valid field of literature, the subject
has already been treated satis-
factorily. Bibliographical data, too,
has been compiled and is readily
available. But it still remains an
almost unexploited source for
the historian.
Another considerable body of literature
that awaits investigation
as a source of information of the historic
Indian of the Ohio Valley-
Great Lakes region is composed of
literally hundreds of travel
accounts. Much as a ship's captain
keeps a careful log, travelers
from Europe and the eastern seaboard
kept detailed journals and
wrote lengthy letters as they journeyed
across the Midwest. Much
of this material was published and read
widely because little else
was available at the time in the form
of travel literature. Ob-
servations were made on everything
encountered, including the
Indians. Details often overlooked or
taken for granted by local
settlers were made a matter of record
by the travelers. Several
research libraries have substantial
collections of travel accounts. The
Indian material contained in this
literature needs to be utilized.
During the last century there appeared
a number of works pur-
porting to be complete histories of the
Indian. Many of these were
worthless and many were almost entirely
secondary accounts with
Ohio Valley Historic Indian
Conference 177
most of the material taken from other
sources. Occasionally one
appeared, the foundation of which
represented conscientious and
prodigious work either with the Indians
themselves or in the source
materials. Some of these assumed
considerable proportions and
must still be consulted by scholars
today. Because of the immensity
of the subject, however, manifestly
these works could not begin
to treat the Indian in any adequate
fashion. For example, in the
1830's Thomas L. McKenney and James
Hall produced their three-
volume History of the Indian Tribes
of North America. This is
indeed a valuable source, but the
contents do not even begin to
cover the subject that the authors
indicated by their title. During
the next decade, under the direction of
the United States Bureau of
Indian Affairs, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
produced his Historical
and Statistical Information
Respecting the History, Condition and
Prospects of the Indian Tribes of
the United States. This was a
big order even though in comparison
with the McKenney and Hall
work just mentioned the geographic area
involved was reduced con-
siderably and the number of volumes
doubled. Another work,
although of little value today, should
be mentioned in this con-
nection merely to illustrate what one
writer claimed to cover in his
two volumes. Francis S. Drake in the
1880's produced The Indian
Tribes of the United States: Their
History, Antiquities, Customs,
Religion, Arts, Language,
Traditions, Oral Legends, and Myths.
The American government adopted the
policy of acquiring Indian
lands by treaty--at the termination of
wars, by deliberate nego-
tiations, or through the removal plan
whereby trans-Mississippi
lands were traded for their holdings in
the Ohio Valley-Great Lakes
area. Negotiations with the Indians
were slow and deliberate, re-
quiring conferences and councils that
often went on for lengthy
periods. Proceedings for these
negotiations were usually kept, and
some of them are still available for
use today.
Also in this connection, there were
public officers who dealt with
the Indians in official capacities and
whose papers contain a great
deal of valuable information. It is
impossible to know the details
of the government's efforts to secure
lands from the Indians in the
Old Northwest without consulting the
papers of William Henry
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Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
Harrison, who negotiated most of the
treaties before the War of
1812. Careful study of the papers of
such men as Arthur St. Clair,
James Wilkinson, and Anthony Wayne,
which are quite voluminous
and readily available, is necessary to
reconstruct the story of the
Indian Wars following the American
Revolution. The records and
papers of John Johnston, long-time
Indian agent in western Ohio,
are pertinent for that phase of the
Indian story. Lewis Cass and
Henry Rowe Schoolcraft wrote numerous
and voluminous official
reports and accounts of their knowledge
and observations of the
Indians in the Midwest.
The records, manuscripts, and documents
from which the his-
torian pieces together the account of
the historic Indian are readily
accessible for use. Any good repository
of American history contains
collections that need to be scrutinized
and studied for the con-
tributions they can make to Indian
history. The Burton Historical
Collection at the Detroit Public
Library, the library of the Historical
Society of Pennsylvania at
Philadelphia, and the Clements Library
at Ann Arbor are a few of the more
outstanding ones that one can
mention. Official government records of
the bureaus, agencies, and
commissions which at one time or
another have dealt with the
Indian are housed by the National
Archives and the Library of
Congress. For French-Canadian and
English-Canadian records, which
have a great deal of relevance for this
area, the Public Archives of
Canada at Ottawa are by far the best.
Then there are notable cases of
specialized collections and re-
positories which contain mines of
documentary materials. The
archives of the Bureau of American
Ethnology command the
attention of historians as well as
anthropologists and ethnologists.
The Edward E. Ayer collection of the
Newberry Library in Chicago
is of such value that any scholar whose
interests are in this field
should not overlook its possibilities.
One object Mr. Ayer had in
assembling his collection, and one
which is still the policy of its
curator, was to obtain all the
available manuscripts and books
recording the first contact of
Europeans with every Indian tribe of
North America, those describing the
subsequent treatment of the
Ohio Valley Historic Indian
Conference 179
Indians by the whites, and all
materials shedding light on the later
history of each tribe. The Frank
Phillips Historical Collection at
the University of Oklahoma and the
holdings of the Oklahoma
Historical Society contain, in addition
to many other valuable items,
a great bulk of the records of the
Indian nations as they organized
into governments when they removed to
the Indian Territory. A
notable private collection containing,
among other things of im-
portance, literally hundreds of pages
of transcripts of manuscript
materials in European archives, is that
of the late Grant Foreman
and his widow, Carolyn Thomas Foreman,
of Muskogee, Oklahoma.
Of tremendous importance are the
voluminous records presently
abuilding as a result of the
investigations of the Indian Claims
Commission. The commission has engaged
the services of top-flight
scholars to carry out its work. The
materials which they are as-
sembling from every source that might
conceivably have bearing
on their investigations are to be
housed and made available to
interested scholars after the work of
the commission is completed.
The extreme value of these to
historical, anthropological, and
ethnological studies is already
attested by those engaged in the
project.
Contemporary historians are divided in
opinion as to the role and
importance of the Indian to American
history. One present-day
history textbook writer suggests in his
opening chapter that, "to be
sure, the Indians contributed
something, but surprisingly little, to
American history." He adds that
their contributions "have been so
slight that one is justified in
suggesting that they might be omitted
entirely without appreciably altering
the main trend of develop-
ment." It is interesting to note,
in this connection, the subtitle to
his volume:"From Wilderness to World Power."4 On
the other
hand, another eminent present-day
historian asserts that "American
culture has been greatly enriched by
the Indians' contribution. The
American character," he says,
"even among people of unmixed
European descent, is very different
from what it would have been
4 Ralph
V. Harlow, The United States: From Wilderness to World Power (rev. ed.,
New York, 1953), 1-2.
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Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
if this continent had been vacant of
mankind when our ancestors
arrived."5
These divergent statements would
suggest, as is the case, that
all too little has been done by
historians in the field of the American
Indian. The implication of the textbook
writer that this subject
is not worthy of scholarly pursuit
notwithstanding, it constitutes one
of the most neglected and least
understood fields in which an
American historian can conduct
research. The major difficulty is
that trained research historians
devoting any substantial block of
time and effort to the historic Indian
are extremely few in number.
The contribution of the historian is
important. But the fruits of
his research, by virtue of his
methodology, his tools, and the nature
of these tools or sources, are only a
part of the story of the historic
Indian. The archaeologist, the
anthropologist, the ethnologist, and
the linguist, as well as the historian,
all have essential contributions
to make.
The mutual interdisciplinary distrust
and suspicion among these
disciplines is gradually being replaced
by open-minded cooperation
and exploratory ventures. As a
historian learns the techniques and
studies the problems of, for example,
the archaeologist, he becomes
a better historian. For several years
now specialists in these branches
of learning have met annually to make
contributions from their
studies of the Iroquois. The Newberry
Library in Chicago called a
special exploratory conference about
two years ago to determine
the common interests of these
disciplines in the study of the
American Indian and to suggest ways in
which interdisciplinary
studies might be encouraged and
propagated. It was the privilege
of this writer to be granted a
fellowship in ethnohistory as one of
the first fruits of the Newberry
conference. The fact that there
exists sufficient interest among
individuals of these different groups
to engender an organization such as the
Ohio Valley Historic Indian
Conference, on a regional basis, is
evidence in itself of the continued
and growing interest in the historic
Indian.
5 Samuel E. Morison and Henry S.
Commager, The Growth of the American Re-
public (2 vols., New York, 1950), I, 12.