Native Americans, Europeans, and the Raid on Pickawillany
ABSTRACT “THE LAND BELONGS TO NEITHER ONE”: NATIVE AMERICANS, EUROPEANS, AND THE RAID ON PICKAWILLANY In 1752, the Miami settlement at Pickawillany was attacked by a force of Ottawa and Chippewa warriors under the command of a métis soldier from Canada. This raid, and the events that precipitated it, is ideally suited to act as a case study of the role of Native American peoples in the Ohio Country during the first half of the eighteenth century. Natives negotiated their roles and borders with their British and French neighbors, and chose alliances with the European power that offered the greatest advantage. Europeans were alternately leaders, partners, conquerors and traders with the Natives, and exercised varying levels and types of control over the Ohio Country. Throughout the period, each of the three groups engaged in a struggle to define their roles in regards to each other, and to define the borders between them. Pickawillany offers insights into this negotiation. It demonstrates how Natives were not passive victims, but active, vital agents who acted in their own interest. The events of the raid feature a number of individuals who were cultural brokers, intermediaries between the groups who played a central, but tenuous, role in negotiations. It also exhibits the power of ritual violence, a discourse of torture and maiming that communicated meanings to friends and rivals alike, and whose implications shaped the history of the period and perceptions of Natives. Luke Aaron Fleeman Martinez May 2011 “THE LAND BELONGS TO NEITHER ONE”:
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