In 1752, Pickawillany, the first British trading post west of the Alleghenies became a flashpoint and triggered a war that would determine control of North America.
In 1743 the remote French settlements along the Ouabache were prospering in relative peace. Four thousand miles away in Austria a king lay dying, his successor uncertain. England and France were determined to place an ally on his throne. Their North American colonies were dragged into the ensuing conflict along with their native allies. A British blockade cut the French settlements off from the goods they so desperately needed to maintain their relationship with the natives on whom their survival depended. The British used this opportunity to expand their influence west beyond the Alleghenies. Establishing a fortified trading post near the headwaters of the Great Miami River. By 1752 their war over Austrian succession was long over, but their final struggle for control of North America was about to begin in a place called Pickawillany.
Excerpt
Chapter 1
The bodies of three voyagers lay scattered on an island in the Ouabache near the mouth of the Vermillion River, steam rose from their exposed sculls in the early morning sunlight. A Miami warrior called Memeskia rifled through the bales of goods the voyagers had brought down river from Detroit.
"Here it is my friend!" Memeskia shouted as he tossed a jug to the executioner of the voyagers.
Another warrior by the name of Wa-Pa-Qa, his hands trembling with want, hurriedly pulled the cork from the bottle and tipped it up to his lips. The two men were part of a much larger contingent that had just left the Piankeshaw village on the Vermillion that morning. They had grown up there together as boys and returned to enlist some young warriors to their cause.
This was not a war party but a delegation led by a Wyandot known as Orontony. They spent most of the summer traveling the length of the Ouabache seeking allies for their British trade partners. The war between France and England all but stopped the flow of French goods and the patience of the native population was wearing thin. Orontony brought promises of plentiful British goods in exchange for allegiance.
Their argument was a simple one and growing in popularity. They contested the right of French authority over their freedom to trade with the British or anyone else. It was their belief that the French were in their land as guests and they were not obligated to them in any way. The only problem Orontony was having was the fact that for generations the French had intermarried with the native population. The relationship between the French and their various native allies had become like that of family over the years. Convincing these Ouabache tribes to turn their backs on the French was not a simple matter of economics.
Along with Orontony came representatives of the Lenape, Mingo, Shawnee, and Miami such as Memeskia. Orontony's campaign began in Detroit, but was discovered before he could launch an attack, so he focused his efforts on the Miami villages along the Ouabache.
He established a base on the White River within a few days journey of Kekionga. His devoted follower, Memeskia, assembled a village on the Great Miami River called Pickawillany. The British fortified Pickawillany with a stockade and trading house. From Pickawillany, Memeskia supplied Orontony's small outpost on the White River.
It had not been Orontony's intention to ambush these voyagers that morning, but when the opportunity presented itself, he could not resist it. He had used a similar tactic to stir up trouble near a Wyandot village on Lake Erie.
"Why do you want those?" a now satiated Wa-Pa-Qa said as he watched Orontony tie three blood drenched scalps to his belt.
"I plan to take them to Kekionga along with the goods we've captured. Nothing breeds success like success," Orontony smirked as he heaved a bale of goods into a nearby canoe.
That night they would pass the gates of the French fort at the Wea village of Ouiatenon under the cover of darkness. Orontony had the support of many Wea, but his immediate goal was the remaining Miami at Kekionga. As they approached Ouiatenon, Orontony turned up the Wildcat Creek and brought his canoe to a halt.
"We will rest here until Ouiatenon is fast asleep. I plan to share these goods with the warriors of Kekionga. If we can gain control of the Grand Portage the villages along the Ouabache will follow. I don't want to waste any treasure before we take the French fort at Kekionga."
Memeskia understood what Orontony was saying. Kekionga was the northern door to the Ouabache. If they were successful in Kekionga they could turn that door open to the British.
As they waited for sunset, Wa-Pa-Qa emptied what was left of the rum into his mouth. In his focus on the reward he failed to notice that one of the men he killed was someone he had known for years. Wa-Pa-Qa once lived among the Wea and his son was a Sachem of the tribe. His wife and children were born at Ouiatenon; one of his daughters married a Frenchman and now lived inside the post. There was hardly a man or woman at Ouiatenon over the age of ten that did not know Wa-Pa-Qa.
"All the more reason to pass by this place unnoticed," he mumbled to himself as he settled down to sleep off his reward.
"He's the best shot with an arrow I've ever seen. He must have been something when his eyes were clearer." Orontony remarked on Wa-Pa-Qa to Memeskia.
Without lifting his eyes from the knife he was sharpening, Memeskia replied, "He was, no one else could have dropped those three so silently or so quickly. He has a gift, and I intend to use him for everything it's worth." The two men chuckled and resumed their silence. Orontony used the time to organize his thoughts.
The scalps and goods he had acquired that morning provided him with the bait he needed to lure the remaining warriors of Kekionga into his fold. He had intentionally left the arrow riddled bodies of the voyagers where they landed in plain view. No doubt they would soon be found and the Piankeshaw of the Vermillion River would be blamed for their robbery and murder.
Orontony smiled as he imagined the acquisitions and suspicion this would cause. Even if the French believed the Piankeshaw pleas of innocence it would create friction. Several young warriors from the Vermillion River village were now in his company and that made it impossible for the Piankeshaw to avoid complicity. He began to share his thoughts with Memeskia.
"Once we arrive in Kekionga you gather what is left of the warriors there in a council," Orontony instructed Memeskia. "I'll show them the bales of trade goods with their unbroken seals and tell them that Detroit has fallen. If this plan works we'll have enough support to take the French fort next to the village. Next we will launch an assault on St. Ange's post. Most of the Piankeshaw in the little village of Chippekawkay have already vowed to support me if I call on them. After taking Kekionga and St. Ange's post, the Ouabache will be sealed off from the north and the south. The French at Ouiatenon will have little choice but to capitulate."
"First things first," Memeskia reminded Orontony, now resting with his eyes closed. "Kekionga is the key."
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