Kittanning (village)

kit- 'big' + hane 'mountain river' + -ink (suffix used in place names). "The main river"
, settlement_type = Historic Native American village
, image_skyline = Kittanning, Pennsylvania (8481673707).jpg
, imagesize =
, image_alt =
, image_map1 = Pennsylvania in United States (US48).svg
, mapsize1 =
, map_alt1 =
, map_caption1 = Location of Pennsylvania in the United States
, image_caption = Plaque at the site of Kittanning Village
, nickname =
, coordinates =
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 1724-1725
, established_title2 = Demolished
, established_date2 = 8 September, 1756
, established_title3 =
, established_date3 =
, population_total =
, population_est = 300-400
, pop_est_as_of = 1754
, subdivision_type = State
, subdivision_name = Pennsylvania
, subdivision_type1 = Present-day Community
, subdivision_name1 = Kittanning, Pennsylvania
, subdivision_type2 =
, subdivision_name2 =
, image_map = File:Armstrong County Pennsylvania Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Kittanning Highlighted.svg
, map_caption = Location of Kittanning Village in Armstrong County, Pennsylvania
, website =

Kittanning (Lenape Kithanink; ) was an 18th-century Native American village in the Ohio Country, located on the Allegheny River at present-day Kittanning, Pennsylvania. The village was at the western terminus of the Kittanning Path, an Indian trail that provided a route across the Alleghenies between the Ohio and Susquehanna river basins.Charles Augustus Hanna, ''The Wilderness Trail: Or, The Ventures and Adventures of the Pennsylvania Traders on the Allegheny Path'', Volume 1, Putnam's sons, 1911
/ref>

Together with Logstown, Pickawillany, Sandusky, and Lower Shawneetown, Kittanning was one of several large multiethnic and autonomous "Indian republics" made up of a variety of smaller disparate social groups: village fragments, extended families, or individuals, often survivors of epidemics and refugees from conflicts with other Native Americans or with Europeans.Richard White, ''The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650–1815'' Cambridge studies in North American Indian history, Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Kittanning served as a staging area for Delaware and Shawnee raids on British colonial settlements during the French and Indian War, until Pennsylvania provincial troops under the command of Colonel John Armstrong destroyed the village on 8 September 1756.

Etymology

The name ''Kithanink'' means 'on the main river' in the Lenape language, from ''kit-'' 'big' + ''hane'' 'mountain river' + -''ink'' (suffix used in place names). "The main river" is a Lenape epithet for the Allegheny and Ohio, considered as all one river.McConnell, Michael Norman, ''A Country Between: The Upper Ohio Valley and Its Peoples, 1724–1774''. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1992
The Six Nations tribes referred to the town as Adego, or Atiga, from which the French derived the names they used for the town, "Attigué" or "Attiqué".

History

Establishment, 1724

The village was initially settled by Delaware (Lenape) of the Turtle (''Pùkuwànku'') and Turkey (''Pële'') clansSipe, C. Hale, ''The Indian Wars of Pennsylvania'', 1929, Telegraph Press, Harrisburg.
/ref> some of whom were relocating westward due to pressure from expanding European settlements near Shamokin. It eventually became one of the largest Native American villages on the western side of the Alleghenies, having an estimated 300–400 residents in 1756.McConnell, Michael Norman, ''A Country Between: The Upper Ohio Valley and Its Peoples, 1724–1774''. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1992

Kittanning was settled in 1724 by Indians who had migrated from eastern Pennsylvania as European settlements rapidly expanded. In a conference between Pennsylvania provincial authorities and the chiefs of the Six Nations at Albany on July 3, 1754, Conrad Weiser, an interpreter from Pennsylvania, told the colonials: "The road to Ohio is no new road; it is an old and frequented road; the Shawnese and Delawares removed thither above thirty years ago from Pennsylvania."Myers, James P. "Pennsylvania's Awakening: the Kittanning Raid of 1756". ''Pennsylvania History'' 66 (Summer 1999), pp 399—420
/ref> By 1727, Pennsylvania traders including Edmund Cartlidge, Jonah Davenport, and James Le Tort, along with others, were trading at the Allegheny, with headquarters on the "Kythenning River". Anthony Sadowski established a trading post at Kittanning in June, 1729. In October, 1731 Jonah Davenport and James Le Tort, in separate affidavits made before Lieutenant Governor Patrick Gordon, reported that "last spring there were at Kythenning on the Kythenning River, fifty families and one hundred and fifty men, most Delaware." The population grew as groups of Lenape, Cayugas, Senecas, and Shawnees migrated west into the Ohio River Valley seeking to escape a smallpox epidemic in 1733 and a drought in 1741, creating a multi-ethnic community.Richard S. Grimes, "The emergence and decline of the Delaware Indian nation in western Pennsylvania and the Ohio country, 1730–1795", Doctoral Dissertation, Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, West Virginia University, 2005
/ref> The Shawnee established several smaller communities nearby, including Neucheconeh's Town, later known as Chartier's Town after the Shawnee leader Peter Chartier. Kittanning, with two or three smaller villages, and several on the Kiskiminetas River, constituted a center of Lenape and Shawnee population known as "Allegeney" or "Allegania".

Trade with New France

As early as 1726 the French made contact with the inhabitants of Kittanning and other Native American communities on the Allegheny. On 7 December 1731, the Quaker trader Edmund Cartlidge, in a deposition in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania stated: "For these five years past except that of 1729, a French gentleman who calls himself Cavalier has made it his practice to come every spring among the Indians settled there ... and that it is generally believed by all the Traders at Allegeney ... that this Cavalier is the bearer of the Governor of Montreal's messages to the Indians in these parts."

In a deposition made by James Le Tort and Jonas Davenport at Philadelphia on 29 October 1731, they stated that he had

... lately come from Allegeney, where there are Indian settlements consisting of about three hundred Delawares, two hundred and sixty Shawnees, one hundred Asswekalaes, and some Mingoes ... and that ... a French gentleman, in appearance, came down the river to a settlement of the Delaware Indians on the Ohio River, which the Delawares call Kithanning, with an intention ... to enquire into the numbers of English Traders in those parts, and to sound the minds of the Indians.

In a report written October 1, 1728, the Marquis de Beauharnois, Governor of New France, wrote that the Nation of the Chaouanons (Shawnees) "has been much attached to the French ... These Indians have begun a village on the river Ohio, which already contains more than 150 men and their families. They have traded from all time with the French, and are a very industrious people, cultivating a good deal of land ... Cavillier is the name of the person whom M. de Beauharnois has permitted to return to the Chaouanons. He is understood and known by these Indians, and will probably negotiate this affair with success."

Petitions to the Pennsylvania Provincial Council, 1733-43

On 24 April, 1733 the Shawnee chiefs at Kittanning sent a petition to Governor Gordon complaining that "There is yearly and monthly some new upstart of a trader without license, who comes amongst us and brings with him nothing but rum ..." and asking permission to destroy the casks of rum: "We therefore beg thou would take it into consideration, and send us two firm orders, one for Peter Chartier, the other for us, to break in pieces all the asksso brought." Chartier was a licensed trader for Shawnee communities who later became a Shawnee leader.

In 1734 the Council received a second letter, dated May 1, from Neucheconeh and other Shawnee chiefs living in Kittanning and other communities on the Allegheny, responding to Pennsylvania's repeated requests that the Shawnees return to the Susquehanna Valley.Stephen Warren, ''Worlds the Shawnees Made: Migration and Violence in Early America'', UNC Press Books, 2014
The letter complained about certain traders who sold rum to the Shawnees, and they requested that these men be "kept particularly" from trading amongst the Shawnees. They then endorsed several traders whom "we desire may have Licence to come and trade with us, as also Peter Cheartier, who we reckon one of us, and he is welcome to come as long as he pleases." They also petitioned that "no trader above-mentioned may be allowed to bring more than 30 Gallons of Rum, twice in a year and no more", as excessive drinking was starting to have social and economic effects on the Shawnee people.

On June 6, 1743 Governor Thomas informed the Pennsylvania Council that traders living at Allegheny had been advised by some friends of theirs among the Indians to leave "in order to avoid being murdered by the Indians, who had come to the resolution of cutting off all the white people." The Governor concluded that Peter Chartier had been spreading rumors in order to frighten traders who were still bringing quantities of rum into the Allegheny communities. In 1745 Chartier, dissatisfied with the Pennsylvania government's unwillingness to restrict the sale of alcohol to Native Americans, led Neucheconeh, Meshemethequater and over 400 Pekowi Shawnees out of Pennsylvania to found the community of Eskippakithiki in Kentucky.Lucien Beckner, "Eskippakithiki, The Last Indian Town in Kentucky", ''The Filson Club History Quarterly'', Vol. 6, No. 4, Oct 1932. Louisville, KY, pp 355-382
/ref>

Visit by Céloron de Blainville, 1749

In the summer of 1749 Pierre Joseph Céloron de Blainville, leading a force of eight officers, six cadets, an armorer, 20 soldiers, 180 Canadians, 30 Iroquois and 25 Abenakis,O. H. Marshall, "De Celoron's Expedition to the Ohio in 1749, ''Magazine of American History'', March, 1878, p. 146.
/ref> moved down the Ohio River on a flotilla of 23 large boats and birch-bark canoes, on his "lead plate expedition", burying lead plates at six locations where major tributaries entered the Ohio and nailing copper plates bearing royal arms to trees to claim the territory for New France.

Céloron arrived at Kittanning, which he referred to as "Attigué", on August 6, 1749. He found the village of 22 cabins (probably wickiups) abandoned except for a Lenape chief and two young men. Through his interpreter Philippe-Thomas Chabert de Joncaire, Céloron told them, "I come only to speak to the nations of the Beautiful River (the Ohio), to animate the children of the (French) government which inhabit it." Céloron gave this chief wampum belts to deliver to the villages lower down as an invitation to hear Céloron speak at a council he was planning to hold in the nearby village of Chiningué (Logstown). He requested that anyone attending his council should "remain quiet upon their mats isten attentively without interrupting since I only came to treat of affairs with them, which would be advantageous to them."

Captives

At the beginning of the French and Indian War, the defeat of General Edward Braddock in July 1755 left Pennsylvania without a professional military force. Shingas and Captain Jacobs launched dozens of Shawnee and Delaware raids against British colonial settlements, killing and capturing hundreds of colonists and destroying settlements across western and central Pennsylvania.William Albert Hunter, "Victory at Kittanning", ''Pennsylvania History'', vol. 23, no. 3, July 1956; pp 376-407
/ref> Kittanning was used as a staging point for these raids, where warriors would gather to prepare and where prisoners were brought immediately afterwards.

A number of captives were held at Kittanning,George Dallas Albert, ''Report of the Commission to Locate the Site of the Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania'', Vol II. Harrisburg: W. S. Ray, state printer, 1916.
/ref> including George Woods, (father-in-law of Pennsylvania senator James Ross). He was captured during the assault on Fort Bigham on June 11–12, 1756. After running the gauntlet, Woods was adopted into the tribe. He reportedly bargained with his captors to pay an annual fee of ten pounds of tobacco for life, in exchange for his freedom. Eventually Woods was taken to Fort Pitt and released.

James Smith probably spent three weeks in June, 1755, at Kittanning, which he does not name, but refers to as "an Indian town that was on the north side of the lleghenyRiver, about forty miles above Fort Duquesne.

Marie Le Roy and Barbara Leininger, both age 12, were held at Kittanning from December 1755 until the day the village was attacked and destroyed:Chester Hale Sipe, "The Principal Indian Towns of Western Pennsylvania", ''Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine'', v. 13, no. 2; April 1, 1930; pp. 104-122
/ref>

We remained at Kittanny until the month of September, 1756. The Indians gave us enough to do. We had to tan leather to make shoes (moccasins), to clear land, to plant corn, to cut down trees, to build hutts, to wash and cook. The want of provisions, however, caused us the greatest suffering. During all the time we were at Kittanny we had neither lard nor salt, and sometimes we were forced to live on acorns, roots, grass and bark. There was nothing in the world to make this new sort of food palatable, excepting hunger itself. In the month of September, Colonel Armstrong arrived and attacked Kittanny town. Both of us happened to be in that part of it that lies on the other side of the river. We were immediately conveyed ten miles further into the interior, in order that we might have no chance of trying, on this occasion, to escape. The savages threatened to kill us ... After the English had withdrawn, we were again brought back to Kittanny, which town had been burned to the ground.

John Cox, 18, reported that he and his brother Richard, and another man named John Craig, were taken in early February, 1756 by Delaware Indians

... and brought to Kittanning "on the Ohio." On his way hither he met Captain Jacobs and 15 men, whose design was to destroy the settlements on Conococheague Creek. When oxearrived at Kittanning, he saw about 100 fighting men of the Delaware tribe, with their families, and about 50 English prisoners, consisting of men, women and children. During his stay here Shingas' and Jacobs' parties returned ... The warriors held a war council which, with their war dances, continued a week, when Captain Jacobs left with 48 men, intending, as Coxe was told, to fall upon the inhabitants at Paxtang.

Cox was later taken to Tioga, Pennsylvania and managed to escape to Fort Augusta on August 14, 1756.

Simon Girty, then only 15 years old, was captured when Fort Granville was taken by the French and Indians in July, 1756 and taken to Kittanning with his stepfather, his mother, and his brothers Thomas, John, George, and James Girty. There he had to witness the torture and death of his stepfather, John Turner. His older brother Thomas was one of the seven prisoners rescued by Colonel Armstrong, although Simon, his mother and his other brothers remained in captivity. Simon was released by order of Colonel Henry Bouquet in November 1764. Later he fought on both sides during the American Revolutionary War and took part in several other campaigns.

Hugh Gibson, 14, was captured in July, 1756, by Delaware Indians, outside Robinson's Fort, near present-day Southwest Madison Township, Perry County, Pennsylvania. His mother and a neighbor were killed by the Indians, and he was brought to Kittanning, where he was adopted by Shingas' brother Pisquetomen

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases