HISTORY OF
ORANGE COUNTY
CHAPTER II
BY SELWYN A. BRANT
INDIANS AND MOUND BUILDERS - THE FIRST AND SUBSEQUENT TREATIES - THE INDIANS WHO OCCUPIED THE COUNTY - THE PIANKESHAWS - BLOCKHOUSES - INDIAN MASSACRES - THE DEATH OF CHARLES - TRAILS AND VILLAGES - ORIGIN OF THE MOUND BUILDERS - THE PAOLI FORTIFICATION - THE EARTHWORKS AT VALEENE - REFLECTIONS. |
In early struggles for supremacy on the Western Continent between the nations of the Old World, nearly all of the Mississippi Valley gradually came under the dominion of France. This was acquired through the influence of the large number of ardent and zealous missionaries whom that country sent out in the latter part of the seventeenth and fore part of the eighteenth centuries. A number of trading posts were established throughout the whole of this vast tract of country from along the shores of the lakes and banks of important streams to the mouth of the Mississippi River, and from these places the peltry of the Indians was received in exchange for whatever gaudy and trifling ornaments would most attract the savages’ fancy. This, in connection with the religious influence of devout Catholics, won the heart and confidence of the red man toward the French. Almost without opposition France had thus secured control of all the land from the Alleghany Mountains to the Mississippi River. Near the middle of the eighteenth century England began to arouse herself to the situation. Her supremacy along the Atlantic was not questioned, and she had rested in contentment, satisfied with claiming the Pacific Ocean as the western boundary of her colonies. When her traders began to push beyond the mountains, they found themselves forestalled by the French, and thus the conflict began, which only ended with the French and Indian war in 1763, and with which the student of American history is familiar. In February of that year a treaty of Peace was signed at Paris in which France gave up all claims to any territory lying east of the Mississippi River, excepting the town of New Orleans and the island on which it is situated. Thus matters remained until the Revolution necessitated a new map of the American Continent.
The policy of the British Government seems to have retarded commerce with the Indians, who in turn despised the haughty and domineering spirit of the English. No doubt the foundation of Indian hostility to later pioneers of the West was laid in this early antipathy for the English, and which when once conceived was craftily nourished by the proud and unrelenting natives. Immediately prior to the war for Independence several large tracts of land were purchased, by companies organized for that purpose, in the territory northwest of the Ohio River.