Native Americans

Painting of the Delaware chief at the time of removal, by George Catlin.

~by Julia Pearson

The deep timeline of the Native American nations is recorded in archaeological digs and artifacts, as well as the written observations of the Europeans who pushed them from their homelands. It is estimated that before settlers arrived on the American continent in the 16th and 17th centuries, the native population numbered in the millions.

Different tribal nations had unique cultures, language families, and traditional lifeways. Due to diseases brought by the Europeans, plus warfare and forced displacement, historians estimate the Native American population was reduced by 90%.

The state of Indiana was admitted to the Union on December 11, 1816, and was named for the Indiana Territory established in 1800. The name of Indiana was first used in 1768 for a tract of land ceded by the native tribes in Pennsylvania. The state government records the Miami,

Shawnee, Kickapoo, Ottawa, Potawatomi, Wea, Plankashaw, Chippewa, Delaware, Wyandot, Kaskaskia, and Eel River tribes as all living in Indiana at this time.

A significant and well-documented boundary was established in 1809 when William Henry Harrison, governor of the Indiana Territory, signed the Ten O’clock Line Treaty with Miami Chief, Little Turtle. Sixteen miles in length, 7.29 miles passes through today’s Brown County State Park.

It provided the acquisition of 3 million acres of Native American lands, recorded as a purchase by the United States government with the Delawares, Potawatomi, Miami, the Eel River Band of Miami, Weas, and the Kickapoo. Negotiations did not include the Shawnee, previously asked to leave the lands by Little Turtle.

Many of the tribes were refugee groups. Following the Treaty of St. Marys in 1818, the forced movement of tribes to the Missouri Territory began around 1821. Pioneer settlement in Brown County was not opened until the 1820 U.S. government survey was completed.

The first white man to arrive in Brown County is believed to be a German man, Johann Schoonover, who came to trade with the tribes. Trade goods would include iron kettles, knives, ax heads, drilling awls, cloth, blankets, brooches and gorgets, arms and ammunition. He lived along the creek which bears a variation of his name, Schooner Creek.

He was followed by William Elkins, who cleared land and built a homestead in the southeastern part of the county. Elkinsville is the name given to the community that sprang up around Elkins’ home.

Beginning in 1830 when the United States Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, the indigenous peoples were forced to move further west. Some individuals might have stayed behind because of intermarriage and strong trade relationships.

Settlement by Euro-Americans continued, and in 1835 a petition was presented to the state legislature requesting a new county be established. A bill providing for the formation of Brown County was passed by both the House and Senate on February 4, 1836.

Crossing the Ohio River, oxen-driven wagons of homesteaders headed north through dense hardwood forests on narrow Indian trails, the same trails used by generations of native people traveling to the chert quarry where they made arrow points, scrapers, and choppers; going to hunting grounds; or visiting other villages.

Evidence of prior inhabitants of an area includes placenames and local oral traditions.

A survey of Indiana placenames undertaken by the Indiana State University and published in 1975 includes Bean Blossom Creek, a stream whose head is in Brown County. A Miami name for the stream was Ko-chio-au-se-pe, which translates “Bean River.” Local lore, however, says General Tipton named the stream for a man named Bean Blossom who nearly drowned while trying to swim in the stream.

One of the stories in Tales and Trails of Brown County, Indiana speaks of tribes in that area. Along the waters of Bean Blossom Creek between Helmsburg and Trevlac there is a very steep hill fringed with pine trees that was known to the natives as Echo Mountain. A tragic legend of love and loss has been passed down regarding a native couple, Sun Ray and Dove’s Bill. It was said they lost their daughter Star Glow during a spring storm that swept the infant from the bluff into the creek below. Dove’s Bill was said to have mourned the loss of her infant so intensely that she ended her life by jumping from the cliff.

Brown County locals share the story of “Old KindEye,” a native warrior who escaped torment of an enemy tribe in Ohio by building a home camp on “Teepee Mountain,” what is now called Bear Wallow.

Carol Lucas Cummins recalls in 175 Years of Brown County of being at the foot of Browning Mountain, a location that has held the curiosity of many citizens: “There’s a hill there that has Indian designs in the buildings. As children, we knew this was Indian camp at some time…. We would pick up Indiana artifacts all the time. We picked them up by the handfuls.”