The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1937-07-15

| hSASAOOlo1 ~ we SIldll Sk6LcH DfleHy
their history-the story of the most
interesting of all the native tribes with
whom our early white settlers came
in contact.
Said one of the Shawnee chiefs in
1903:
"The Master of Life was himself an
Indian. He made the Shawnees before
any other of the human race. They
sprang from His brain. He gave them
all the knowledge He Himself pos
sessed and placed them upon the great
island (America), and all the other red
people sprang from the Shawnees.
After He had made the Shawnees He
made the French and English out of
His breast, the Dutch out of His feet,
and the Long Knives (Americans) out
of His hands. All these inferior races
He made white and placed them be-
yond the sinking lake atlantic
ocean,"
Before Lord Baltimore's settlement
of Maryland, or about 1917, the Iro-
quois of Western New York conquered
the tribes living in the valleys of the
Potomac and upper Ohio, and about
1664-1672 they also fought the Shaw
nees, who lived in the lower Ohio val
ley. The Shawnees then moved up the
Cumberland River valley into Ten
nessee, the Carolinas and Georgia;
some of them settled on the Savannah
River.
Due to troubles with both their red
and white neighbors in the south, part
of the "Savannahs," or Shawnees
moved north, the first group of about
seventy families settling about 1878
on the Susquehanna River near Cones
toga, Pa. About this time other groups
settled at Shawnee Old Town and at
other places on the Potomac, obtain
ing permission from their old enc
mics, the Iriquois, who claimed all the
country hereabouts which they had
conquered from the Delawares and
other tribes.
PENIS Second Conference Held
In 1701, William Penn held his Sec
ond conference with the Indians at
Philadelphia. 1t is recorded that among
those attending were Wa-pa-tha, king
of the Shawnees, and Wee-when-jaugh,
chief of the Gan-aw-eese, inhabiting
about the head of the Potomac.
We note here that in 1925 the Gov
ernor of Maryland arranged for con-
ference with the Potomac Indians, who
were to meet him at the Mononacy
River. The Indians, failing to come,
Israel Friend, an Indian trader, was
sent by the Governor up the Potomac
to invite the chiefs to come to Annapo-
lis.
Israel Friend was doubtless cousin
of the Friends who later settled Gar
rett county. We have no record of the
results of his mission, but in 1927 "five
Indian kings" decided to Israel Friend
considerable tract of land in Mary
land, at the junction of Antietam
Creek with the Potomac.
Due to the pressure of encroach-
ing English settlements from the east
and to the solicitation Of the French
from the West, the Shawnees began
moving, about 1925, from the Potomac
Valley across the Allegany mountains
to settle on the Ohio. All or most of
this migration was thru our county
over the Great Warrior and Nemacolin
Paths.
Indian Fields Deserted
In 1916, when Major William Mayo
surveyed the Potomac River to its
"head spring." he found only a few
scattered families of Indians remain
ing, but on his map he noted around
Old Town (Opessa's TOWN. "Shawano
old fields deserted" He noted similar
extensive deserted corn fields in the
Black Oak Bottom below the mouth
of the North Fork, or Savage River.
In addition to Opessa's Town, where
Colonel Cresap settled about 1742, the
Shawnees had village called Canitioc
at the mouth of Willis Creek (Cumber-
land), where Indian "Will' and his
family remained after his tribe crossed
the mountains. They also had consid-
cradle village in the Black Oak Bot.
tom.
In the French and Indian War
While living east of the mountains
the Shawnees were at peace with the
English and German settlers, but with.
in a few years after they went west
war was begun between the French
and English, and almost all the In.
dams in the west were drawn into it or
the side of the French. For forty years
thereafter the Shawnees were almost
constantly at war with the English OF
Americans. They distinguished them.
selves as the most hostile tribe in that
region, and it is said of them:
"They slew old and young, male anc
female, without pity and without re-
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