Who once walked here
October 14, 2021 |
Before this place was Cincinnati — even before it was Losantiville — other peoples walked here.Usually my mind turns first to the Adena, the Hopewell, and those whose mounds and artifacts can still be found along the Little Miami River. Pre-historic. Mysterious. Silent.
This week, though, a wretched anniversary recalled different stories, of those who lived here not so long ago.
Our university was in its 15th year when, a few blocks away, more than 300 of the Myaamia people traveled down the Miami and Erie Canal to the Ohio River. They did not go willingly.
175 years ago this week. One more stage in a slow-motion expulsion of broken treaties that ushered these mourning Myaamia through Cincinnati — land they had previously occupied — to become part of a steamboat's cargo.
One hundred thirty-four barrels of whiskey, 10 sacks of 115 pounds of wool, eight barrels of varnish, two Indian ponies, Miami Indians—225 over and 78 under 8 years old, 49 perch stones for pigs.
Destination: Kansas, and ultimately Oklahoma.
To them and to the others who walked these lands, and to their proud descendants, we owe debts I don't know how to pay.
Photo reproduced by permission from "Native American Awareness," an exhibition by Greg Rust now on the 3rd floor of the Gallagher Student Center
