EDITOR'S NOTE: This story is the conclusion of a series on Ohio's great American Indian chiefs released by the Ohio Historical Society on Nov. 3, 1967. Ashland Source has entered into a collaborative agreement with the Ohio History Connection to share content across our sites.
The following is a chronology of the known history of Native American Indians in Ohio.
GALLERY: Ohio's great Native American Indian Chiefs
Portrait of Tecumseh
Tecumseh was a great chief of the Shawnee tribe.
- From the Ohio History Connection/Courtesy of Smithsonian Institution. Based upon a sketch by Pierre LeDru.
Logan portrait
This image of Mingo chief Logan is from an old print via the Ohio Historical Society.
- Ohio History Connection
Pontiac portrait
This is an artist's representation of Pontiac. No known portrait of Pontiac was painted during his lifetime.
- From the Ohio History Connection/Courtesy Smithsonian Instititution.
Little Turtle Portrait
Little Turtle was a great chief of the Miami tribe.
- Ohio History Connection/Courtesy Smithsonian Institution
Colonel Lewis portrait
Colonel Lewis was from the Shawnee tribe, who became a chief by accidental identification, according to legend.
- Courtesy of the Ohio History Connection/From M'Kenney and Hall, History of the Indian Tribes of North America
Tishcohan
Tishcohan was a chief of the Delaware Tribe.
- Courtesy the Ohio History Connection/From M'Kenney and Hall, History of the Indian Tribes of North America
Cornstalk
The Shawnee chief Conrstalk was a great leader of his people during the Revolutionary War era.
- Ohio History Connection/M'Kenney and Hall's copy of the original in the Smithsonian
The Prophet portrait
- The Ohio History Connection/Courtesy of Smithsonian Institution. Based upon a sketch by Pierre LeDru at Vincennes in 1808.
1669: Jolliet known to have been on Lake Erie.
1670: LaSalle believed to have explored the Ohio River.
1685: Traders, licensed by New York Governor Dongan, dealt with western tribes, collecting furs along the north shore of Lake Erie at Mackinac and possibly in the Scioto Valley.
1689: "King William's War," between France and England, extended from Europe to the North American collines.
1697: Sept. 20. Peace of Ryswick: The French hold on the Ohio country was strengthened.
1718: April 11. Treaty of Utrecht, concluding "Queen Anne's War." England gained strong claims to the Great Lakes region.
1740: The Hudson Bay Company began to establish commercial relations with Ohio Indians.
1744: Renewed war between France and England.
1747: November. Ten Ohio Indians went to Philadelphia to discuss trade and territory.
1749: Spring. At Lancaster, Pennsylvania, officials of that colony and Virginia signed a treaty with the Iroquois and the Ohio tribes, making English influence paramount in the west.
1749: August. Celeron de Blainville sought to take formal possession of the Ohio Valley for France and win the Indians to the French side. He reached the mouth of the Great Miami on Aug. 28, then went up river to Pickawillany overland to the Maumee, to Lake Erie and back to the St. Lawrence.
1750: Christopher Gist, scout and agent for the Ohio Land Company, visited Indian towns in Ohio.
1752: French-Indian force successfully attacked Pickawillany, stronghold of the Miami near Piqua.
1753: Virginia's Governor Dinwiddie, in the interest of the Ohio Land Company, sent George Washington west to warn off the French, but he was ignored.
1755: July 9. General Edward Braddock was defeated near Fort Duquesne; the French were now in control of the Ohio country and Ohio Indians.
1758: Nov. 25. General John Forbes recovered Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh), renaming it Fort Pitt.
1758: Moravian missionary Christian Frederick Post persuaded the Delaware and some other tribesmen to remain neutral in the French-English colonial struggle.
1763: Feb. 10 Peace of Paris: Canada and the eastern half of the Mississippi Valley became English territory.
1763: Ohio tribes banded together under Pontiac to drive out all invaders.
1763: Simultaneous attacks overthrow nine forts (including Sandusky) but Detroit and Fort Pitt held out, and the conspiracy failed.
1764: Colonel Henry Bouquet penetrated deep into the Ohio territory (near Coshocton), secured the release of white captives and arranged a peace council.
1772: Schoenbrunn, a Moravian mission village for Delaware converts, was established near New Philadelphia.
1774: Native American Indians, inflamed by the treachery and brutality of some of the intruders, went on the war path. Lord Dunmore, governor of Virginia, mobilized to subdue them. A bitter day-long battle at Port Pleasant (on the Ohio River opposite Gallipolis) was waged between militia men from western Virginia and Kentucky under Colonel Andrew Lewis against an army, mostly of Shawnee, under Chief Cornstalk. Lewis won a hard-fought victory. Governor Dunmore conducted a parley in Pickaway County, where Cornstalk sued for peace and agreed the Indians would stay north of the Ohio River. A group of Mingo, whose chief was Logan, refused to take part in the talks and was pursued. Mingo villages, on the present site of Columbus, were destroyed.
1775: Beginning of the Revolutionary War between England and The Colonists.
1775: September. Gathering of the tribes at Fort Pitt to secure friendship and neutrality in the war with England.
1777: Cornstalk and his son were murdered by frontiersmen, causing a new uprising and bloody raids by both Native American Indians and settlers to the region.
1777: Schoenbrunn is abandoned. Fort Laurens, the first U.S. Army fort in Ohio, is established.
1778: Ohio, which encompasses a network of trails leading from Detroit and the Illinois settlements to Fort Pitt and Kentucky, was the scene of many skirmishes. The famous exploits of George Rogers Clark, Daniel Boone, Simon Kenton and William Crawford took place along these locations. Their opponents included Sir Henry ("Hair Buyer"), Hamilton and the renegades, Simon Girty, Alexander McKee and Matthew Elliott.
1779: August. Fort Laurens was constantly under Native American Indian attack, and was finally evacuated.
1780: George Rogers Clark, with 1,000 backwoodsmen, pushed up the Little Miami and pursued fleeing Shawnee to fight a successful engagement near Springfield in the Battle of Piqua.
1780: The state of New York gave up its claims to the western region as other seaboard states were to do later.
1781: American forces from Fort Pitt broke the power of the Delaware in a battle at Goachochgung (Coshocton).
1782: March. Peaceful Delaware, converted to Christianity by the Moravian brethren, are massacred at Gnadenhutten and Salem.
1782: June 4 and 5. Action by Americans against the Wyandot center near Upper Sandusky became a disorderly retreat in which Colonel William Crawford was captured and burned at the stake.
1782: Aug. 19. A force of Kentuckians, ambushed by Indians and Detroit Rangers at the Blue Licks on the Licking River, was annihilated.
1782: September. Fort Henry (Belmont County) was unsuccessfully besieged for three days by British and Native American Indians -- the last British offensive in the war.
1782: November: George Rogers Clark led an expedition up the Miami Valley to the British trading post at Loramie's Store, burning Shawnee towns and supplies.
1783: Sept. 3: Treaty of peace between the United States and England signed at Paris. Terms gave the northwestern region to the United States. Ohio tribes, however, were subsidized by the British, who wished to retain the fur trade.
1784: Congress negotiated with the Iroquois to cede their claims to land north of the Ohio River.
1785: January. Congress signed a treaty with the Wyandot, Chippewa, Delaware and Ottawa for territorial rights, making the northwestern quarter of the present state into a great Indian reservation. The Shawnee did not sign.
1787: Sept. 17. The United States Constitution is adopted in convention.
1787: The U.S. Congress enacted the Ordinance of 1787, creating the government of the Northwest Territory.
1788: April 7. First settlers arrived at the site of Marietta.
1788: July 9. General Arthur St. Clair arrived in Marietta as governor of the Northwest Territory.
1790: Native American Indians resisted new settlements. General Josiah Harmar made an expedition north through western Ohio to Fort Wayne, but was repulsed and the hostilities continued.
1791: General St. Clair started a chain of forts north from Cincinnati. On Nov. 4, Little Turtle and Blue Jacket led a surprise attack on his army and routed them with heavy losses in Mercer County.
1793: A new campaign was launched under General Anthony Wayne, who erected a number of strong forts in western Ohio.
1794: June 30. The battle at Fort Recovery raged for two days. It resulted in broken morale for the Native American Indians.
1794: Aug. 20. The Battle of Fallen Timbers, above present-day Maumee, resulted in an impressive victory by the Americans over Blue Jacket's 2,000 braves.
1795: August. The Treaty of Greeneville is signed by over 90 representatives of the Native American Indian tribes. It was an agreement to cease hostilities, restore prisoners, and honor a boundary line south of which new settlements might be established.
1805: July 4. The Treaty of Fort Industry (Toledo) meant that Indians gave up their claim to the Western Reserve west of Cleveland.
1811: Nov. 7. William Henry Harrison defeated Indians at the Battle of Tippecanoe in Indiana.
1812: Spring. General William Hull and his army marched from Cincinnati through western Ohio to Detroit, where the Americans ignominiously surrendered to the British.
1812: Sept. 29. The first battle in the War of 1812 battle that was fought on Ohio soil took place on Marblehead Peninsula between the Ohio militia and Native American Indians.
1813: April to July. Sieges of Fort Meigs at Perrysburg by British and Native American Indians failed to dislodge the Americans under General Harrison.
1813: Aug. 2. George Chroghan successfully defended Fort Stephenson (Fremont) against a force of 1,200 British and Native American Indians.
1813: Sept. 10. Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry defeated the British fleet at the Battle of Lake Erie.
1813: Oct. 5. Harrison became the victor of the Battle of the Thames in Canada where Tecumseh was killed.
1814: Dec. 24. The Treaty of Ghent is signed, ending the War of 1812. This secured the Ohio country for the United States.
1818: The Treaty of St. Marys is signed. This is the last treaty which deprived the Ohio tribes of their native lands, except for small reservations.
1829: The Delaware ceded the remainder of their lands south of the Wyandot reservation in Wyandot County and moved west.
1831: Only 2,000 Native American Indians remained in Ohio.
1831: August. The Shawnee at Wapakoneta and the Seneca on the Sandusky River relinquished their reservations by treaty and moved west.
1842: The Wyandot reservation at Upper Sandusky was abandoned, marking the end of organized tribal life in Ohio.