Lower Shawneetown, also known as Shannoah or Sonnontio, was an 18th-century

Shawnee The Shawnee ( ) are a Native American people of the Northeastern Woodlands. Their language, Shawnee, is an Algonquian language. Their precontact homeland was likely centered in southern Ohio. In the 17th century, they dispersed through Ohi ...

village located within the Lower Shawneetown Archeological District, near South Portsmouth in

Greenup County, Kentucky Greenup County is a county located along the Ohio River in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2020 census, the population was 35,962. The county was founded in 1803 and named in honor of Christopher Greenup. Its c ...

and

Lewis County, Kentucky Lewis County is near the northeastern tip of the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 13,080. Its county seat is Vanceburg, Kentucky, Vanceburg. History Kentucky was part of Virginia unti ...

. The population eventually occupied areas on both sides of the Ohio River, and along both sides of the Scioto River in what is now

Scioto County, Ohio Scioto County is a county along the Ohio River in the south-central part of the U.S. state of Ohio. At the 2020 census, the population was 74,008. Its county seat is Portsmouth. The county was founded on March 24, 1804, from Adams County and i ...

. It was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

on 28 April 1983. It is near the Bentley site, a Madisonville Horizon settlement inhabited between 1400 CE and 1625 CE. Nearby, to the east, there are also four groups of

Hopewell tradition The Hopewell tradition, also called the Hopewell culture and Hopewellian exchange, describes a network of precontact Native American cultures that flourished in settlements along rivers in the northeastern and midwestern Eastern Woodlands from 1 ...

mounds, built between 100 BCE and 500 CE, known as the Portsmouth Earthworks. Extensive archaeological work has provided a clear picture of the town's appearance and activities, particularly the nature of trade, social organization, agriculture, and relationships with other Native American communities. Well-known British traders William Trent and

George Croghan George Croghan (c. 1718 – August 31, 1782) was an Kingdom of Ireland, Irish-born fur trader in the Ohio Country of North America (current United States) who became a key early figure in the region. In 1746 he was appointed to the Onondaga Cou ...

maintained trading posts in the town with large warehouses to store furs, skins, and other goods. Between about 1734 and 1758 Lower Shawneetown became a center for commerce and diplomacy, "a sort of republic"Thwaites, Reuben Gold
''The French Regime in Wisconsin and the Northwest,''
Vol I: 1634-1760. State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1908 populated mainly by Shawnee,

Iroquois The Iroquois ( ), also known as the Five Nations, and later as the Six Nations from 1722 onwards; alternatively referred to by the Endonym and exonym, endonym Haudenosaunee ( ; ) are an Iroquoian languages, Iroquoian-speaking Confederation#Ind ...

, and Delawares. By 1755, its population exceeded 1,200, making it one of the largest Native American communities in the

Ohio Country The Ohio Country (Ohio Territory, Ohio Valley) was a name used for a loosely defined region of colonial North America west of the Appalachian Mountains and south of Lake Erie. Control of the territory and the region's fur trade was disputed i ...

, second only to

Pickawillany Pickawillany (also spelled Pickawillamy, Pickawillani, or Picqualinni) was an 18th-century Miami Indian village located on the Great Miami River in North America's Ohio Valley near the modern city of Piqua, Ohio.Stephen Warren
''Worlds the Shawnees Made: Migration and Violence in Early America,''
UNC Press Books, 2014 The size and diversity of the town's population attracted both French and British traders, leading to political competition between France and Britain to influence the community in the years preceding the

French and Indian War The French and Indian War, 1754 to 1763, was a colonial conflict in North America between Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and Kingdom of France, France, along with their respective Native Americans in the United States, Native American ...

. The town remained politically neutral in spite of frequent visits by French, British and Native American leaders. Several English captives, including Mary Draper Ingles and Samuel Stalnaker, were held captive in Lower Shawneetown in the 1750s. Lower Shawneetown was abandoned in 1758 to avoid colonial American raids during the French and Indian War, and was relocated further up the Scioto River to the

Pickaway Plains Pickaway Plains is a wide area of rolling hills beginning about 3 miles south of Circleville, Ohio, and extending several miles to the north and south. This geological area was formed by sand and gravel deposited by melting water from the last glac ...

Foundation and names

Established in the mid-1730sA. Gwynn Henderson, David Pollack
"A Native History of Kentucky: Selections from Chapter 17: Kentucky," in ''Native America: A State-by-State Historical Encyclopedia,''
edited by Daniel S. Murphree, Volume 1, pages 393-440; Greenwood Press, Santa Barbara, CA. 2012Charles Augustus Hanna
''The Wilderness Trail: Or, The Ventures and Adventures of the Pennsylvania Traders on the Allegheny Path,''
Volume 1, Putnam's sons, 1911 at the confluence of the Scioto and Ohio Rivers, Lower Shawneetown was one of the earliest known Shawnee settlements on the Ohio River. The first reference to the town is found in a letter of 27 July 1734, written by François-Marie Bissot, Sieur de Vincennes, describing an English trader's warehouse in "the home of the Shawnees on the Ohio River." Historian Charles A. Hanna proposes that the town was established by Shaweygila Shawnees who had been forced out of their home on the

Monongahela River The Monongahela River ( , ), sometimes referred to locally as the Mon (), is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed August 15, 2011 river on the Allegheny Plateau in nor ...

by the Six Nations chiefs.Charles Augustus Hanna
''The Wilderness Trail: Or, The Ventures and Adventures of the Pennsylvania Traders on the Allegheny Path''
Volume 2, Putnam's sons, 1911Caudill, Courtney B.
"Mischiefs So Close to Each Other": External Relations of the Ohio Valley Shawnees, 1730-1775."
Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. Paper 1539625770, May 1992 The first reference to the Lower Shawneetown by that name was in a letter by William Trent on 20 October 1748, reporting a murder at Kuskusky, when a Virginia trader there was killed following an altercation over some liquor, "which he was tying up, in order to send to the Lower Shawna Town."Samuel Hazard, ed
''Pennsylvania Archives: 1st Series: Selected and Arranged from Original Documents in the Office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth, Conformably to Acts of the General Assembly, February 15, 1851, and March 1, 1852.''
Pennsylvania, Secretary of the Commonwealth. J. Severns, 1853 The Shawnee name of the town is unknown, but evidence suggests that it may have been "Chillicothe," a Shawnee word meaning "principal place" and typically applied to villages of the Chalahgawtha division of the Shawnees, who dominated the town. On English maps the town was labeled "the Lower Shawonese Town," "the lower Shawanees town," "Lower Shanna Town," "the Shannoah town," or "Shawnoah." The French called it "Saint Yotoc"O. H. Marshall
"De Celoron's Expedition to the Ohio in 1749
''Magazine of American History,'' March, 1878 (which may be a corruption of Scioto), "Sinhioto," "Sononito," "Sonnioto," "Scioto," "Sonyoto," and "Cenioteaux."A. Gwynn Henderson
"The Lower Shawnee Town on Ohio: Sustaining Native Autonomy in an Indian "Republic."
In Craig Thompson Friend, ed., ''The Buzzel about Kentuck: Settling the Promised Land'', University Press of Kentucky, 1999; pp. 25-56. Lower Shawneetown was downstream from the much smaller Upper Shawneetown, established about 1751 at the confluence of the Ohio River and the

Kanawha River The Kanawha River ( ) is a tributary of the Ohio River, approximately 97 mi (156 km) long, in the U.S. state of West Virginia. The largest inland waterway in West Virginia, its watershed has been a significant industrial region of th ...

, near present-day

Point Pleasant, West Virginia Point Pleasant is a city in and the county seat of Mason County, West Virginia, United States, at the confluence of the Ohio River, Ohio and Kanawha River, Kanawha Rivers. The population was 4,101 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 censu ...

and known to the Shawnees as ''Chinoudaista'' or ''Chinodahichetha''.Phillip R. Shriver
"Lower Shawnee Town on the Eve of the French and Indian War,"
''Ohio Archaeologist,'' Vol 40:3, Summer 1990, pp 16-21Andrew Lee Feight
"Lower Shawnee Town and Celoron's Expedition,"
''Scioto Historical''

Description

Location

Pressure from the growing European populations on the east coast of North America and in southern Canada had caused Native American populations to concentrate in the

Ohio River Valley The Ohio River () is a river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing in a southwesterly direction from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to its mouth on the Mississippi River in Cairo, ...

, and Lower Shawneetown was situated at a convenient point, accessible to many communities living on tributaries of the Ohio River. The area had

Delaware Delaware ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic and South Atlantic states, South Atlantic regions of the United States. It borders Maryland to its south and west, Pennsylvania to its north, New Jersey ...

, Wyandot, and

Miami Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...

communities within a few days' journey. The town also lay near the Seneca Trail, which was used by

Cherokees The Cherokee (; , or ) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern ...

and Catawbas, and the opportunity to trade for furs and to broker political alliances attracted both British and French traders. Within a few years of its establishment, the town became a key center in dealings between Native American tribes and Europeans.Gordon Calloway
''The Shawnees and the War for America''
The Penguin library of American Indian history; Penguin, 2007. The community was initially built on the south bank of the

Ohio River The Ohio River () is a river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing in a southwesterly direction from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to its river mouth, mouth on the Mississippi Riv ...

opposite its confluence with the

Scioto River The Scioto River ( ) is a river in central and southern Ohio more than in length. It rises in Hardin County, Ohio, Hardin County just north of Roundhead, Ohio, flows through Columbus, Ohio, where it collects its largest tributary, the Olent ...

, on floodplains and terraces, with later growth of a sub-community on the north bank of the Ohio, along the east and west banks of the Scioto. The Ohio community on the east side of the Scioto, where the village council-house was located, soon became significantly larger than the Kentucky community.

Composition

Historian Richard White characterizes Lower Shawneetown and other growing Native American settlements in the region, including

Logstown The riverside village of Logstown (1726?, 1727–1758) also known as Logg's Town, French: ''Chiningue'' (transliterated to ''Shenango'') near modern-day Baden, Pennsylvania, was a significant Native American settlement in Western Pennsylv ...

Pickawillany Pickawillany (also spelled Pickawillamy, Pickawillani, or Picqualinni) was an 18th-century Miami Indian village located on the Great Miami River in North America's Ohio Valley near the modern city of Piqua, Ohio.Kuskusky, and Kittanning as "Indian republics," multiethnic and autonomous, 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. According to historian Richard Warren, "It was a sprawling series of

wickiups A wigwam, wikiup, wetu (Wampanoag), or wiigiwaam (Ojibwe, in syllabics: ) is a semi-permanent domed dwelling formerly used by certain Native American tribes and First Nations people and still used for ceremonial events. The term ''wikiup'' ...

and

longhouses A longhouse or long house is a type of long, proportionately narrow, single-room building for communal dwelling. It has been built in various parts of the world including Asia, Europe, and North America. Many were built from timber and often re ...

... French and British-allied traders regarded Lower Shawneetown as one of two capitals of the Shawnee tribe." Although mainly a Shawnee village, the population included contingents of Seneca and

Lenape The Lenape (, , ; ), also called the Lenni Lenape and Delaware people, are an Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands, who live in the United States and Canada. The Lenape's historica ...

. After his visit to Lower Shawneetown in 1749, Céloron de Blainville wrote:

this village scomposed for the most part of Chavenois (
Shawnee The Shawnee ( ) are a Native American people of the Northeastern Woodlands. Their language, Shawnee, is an Algonquian language. Their precontact homeland was likely centered in southern Ohio. In the 17th century, they dispersed through Ohi ...
) and
Iroquois The Iroquois ( ), also known as the Five Nations, and later as the Six Nations from 1722 onwards; alternatively referred to by the Endonym and exonym, endonym Haudenosaunee ( ; ) are an Iroquoian languages, Iroquoian-speaking Confederation#Ind ...
of the Five Nations...men from the Sault St. Louis (
Kahnawake The Kahnawake Mohawk Territory (, in the Mohawk language, ''Kahnawáˀkye'' in Tuscarora) is a First Nations reserve of the Mohawks of Kahnawà:ke on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River in Quebec, Canada, across from Montreal. Establi ...
), there are also some from the
Lake of Two Mountains Lake of Two Mountains (French: ''Lac des Deux Montagnes'') is part of the river delta widening of the Ottawa River in Quebec, Canada, at its confluence with the St. Lawrence River. Lake of Two Mountains has four outflows: Rivière des Mille Îl ...
(
Mohawks of Kanesatake Mohawks of Kanesatake or Kanehsata'kehró:non are a Mohawk people, Mohawk First Nations in Canada, First Nation in Quebec, Canada. In 2016 the Band government, band has a registered population of 2,508 members. Their main Indian reserve, reserve ...
), some Loups from the
Miami Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...
(
Munsee The Munsee () are a subtribe and one of the three divisions of the Lenape. Historically, they lived along the upper portion of the Delaware River, the Minisink, and the adjacent country in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. They were prom ...
), and nearly all the nations from the territory of Enhault (
Pays d'en Haut The ''Pays d'en Haut'' (; ''Upper Country'') was a territory of New France covering the regions of North America located west of Montreal. The vast territory included most of the Great Lakes region, expanding west and south over time into the ...
, the territory of
New France New France (, ) was the territory colonized by Kingdom of France, France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Kingdom of Great Br ...
to the west of
Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...
)."

Size and housing

In 1749, Joseph Pierre de Bonnecamps estimated that the entire town had about 60 cabins,Joseph Pierre de Bonnecamps
"Relation du voyage de la Belle Rivière faite en 1749, sous les ordres de M. de Céloron,"
in Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., ''The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents,'' 73 vols. Cleveland: Burrow Brothers, 1896-1901, vol. 69 but by 1751, the town consisted of 40 houses on the Kentucky side located along bluffs above the floodplain, and 100 houses on the Ohio side atop a forty-foot river bank lined with sycamores and willows. In the town center on the Ohio side there was a long

council house A council house, corporation house or council flat is a form of British Public housing in the United Kingdom, public housing built by Local government in the United Kingdom, local authorities. A council estate is a building complex containing ...

and a large open area or plaza for public events. Houses were clustered together according to kinship, interspersed with gardens, trash heaps and family burial plots. The remains of 23 individuals have been recovered from 16 graves at the Bentley site, among which there were 19 children and adolescents and four adults. Including its 300 warriors, the town may have had a total population of between 1,200 and 1,500. In 1753, after a flood destroyed part of the town which had been on the Scioto River's west bank, some residents relocated to the east bank, and others moved to the Kentucky side of the Ohio River.David Pollack and A. Gwynn Henderson
"A Preliminary Report on the Contact Period Occupation at Lower Shawneetown (15GP15), Greenup County, Kentucky."
Paper presented at the 58th Annual Meeting of the Central States Anthropological Society on April 9, 1982.James Everett Seaver, Charles Delamater Vail
''A Narrative of the Life of Mary Jemison: The White Woman of the Genesee,''
American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society, 1918. According to A. Gwynn Henderson, eighteenth-century homes in this community would have resembled those of the

Fort Ancient The Fort Ancient culture is a Native American archaeological culture that dates back to . Members of the culture lived along the Ohio River valley, in an area running from modern-day Ohio and western West Virginia through to northern Kentucky ...

inhabitants (a Native American culture that occupied the region from about 1000-1750 CE):

...Long rectangular buildings with rounded corners constructed of frameworks of wooden posts set singly into the ground and covered with either thatch, bark, mats or skins. Trade blankets or skins provided "doors" at the ends of the houses. Interior partitions broke up the space within each house, and hearths were located in the center of earthen floors. Pits for storage lined the walls; trash was disposed in outdoor pits or on the ground in heaps behind the house. Bundles of dried food hung from the rafters. However, Europeans described some buildings as huts, cabins or houses--structures with squared logs and covered with bark or clapboard. A few even had chimneys.

Surrounding countryside

Lower Shawneetown was surrounded by fertile, alluvial flatlands that were ideal for growing corn, beans, squash, gourds, tobacco, and sunflowers. The remains of charred Northern

flint corn Flint corn (''Zea mays'' var. ''indurata''; also known as Indian corn or sometimes calico corn) is a variant of maize, the same species as common corn. Because each kernel has a hard outer layer to protect the soft endosperm, it is likened to bein ...

have been documented archaeologically.A. Gwynn Henderson
"Dispelling the Myth: Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Indian Life in Kentucky,"
''The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society,'' Vol. 90, No. 1, ''The KentuckyImage'' (Bicentennial Issue), pp. 1-25, Kentucky Historical Society The area around the town contained abundant resources: hardwood forests, grasslands, canebrakes, nut-bearing trees, freshwater springs and some with brine. Wildlife included bear, deer, elk, and

bison A bison (: bison) is a large bovine in the genus ''Bison'' (from Greek, meaning 'wild ox') within the tribe Bovini. Two extant taxon, extant and numerous extinction, extinct species are recognised. Of the two surviving species, the American ...

. Tools and pottery could be made from

chert Chert () is a hard, fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline quartz, the mineral form of silicon dioxide (SiO2). Chert is characteristically of biological origin, but may also occur inorganically as a prec ...

-bearing bedrock and clay riverbanks. In a journal entry from February, 1751,

Christopher Gist Christopher Gist (1706–1759) was an explorer, surveyor, and frontiersman active in Colonial America. He was one of the first white explorers of the Ohio Country (the present-day states of Ohio, eastern Indiana, western Pennsylvania, and nort ...

describes the Ohio country in the area of Lower Shawneetown:

All the Way from the Shannoah Town...is fine, rich, level, Land, well timbered with large Walnut, Ash, Sugar Trees, Cherry Trees, &c; it is well watered with a great Number of little Streams or Rivulets, and full of beautiful natural Meadows, covered with
wild Rye Wild rye is a common name used for several grasses. Wild ryes belong to any of three genera: * ''Elymus (plant), Elymus'' (wheatgrasses) * ''Leymus'' * ''Psathyrostachys'' Poaceae {{Short pages monitor