Bonds of Place or People: Wyandot Divisions and a Dirty Treaty

Title: “Bonds of Place or People: Wyandot Divisions and a Dirty Treaty”

Abstract: This paper covers the Wyandot community that resided in Ohio from the 1700s to their removal in 1843. The primary focus of this paper is the period between 1817 and 1843 when the Wyandot were confined to two (later one) reservations in present day Upper Sandusky, Ohio–The Big Spring Reservation and the Grand Reserve. The paper details cultural and political dynamics within the Wyandot community. The paper focuses on divisions between two groups of Wyandots and prominent individuals within those two groups that were divided on multiple issues. These issues were religious, racial, and political. The paper hones in on the most prominent division that being the politics behind Jacksonian era removal policy in the 1830s. This division culminated in a split within the Wyandot community that nearly tore their community apart due to a secret treaty negotiation between Bureau of Indian Affairs commissioners and a party of Wyandot separate from the tribal chiefs. This treaty and its subsequent trial regarding the conduct of the commissioners shows how removal era policy not only tore Indigenous peoples from their lands, but tore them apart. The Wyandot, however, are an example of a community that was able to weather the storm of division and more successfully negotiated a treaty years after all

other Indigenous groups had been removed from Ohio. What I hope to provide from this paper is a greater understanding of Indigenous adaptability to changing circumstances within their world and their ability to come together as a community in the face of attempted thievery of their lands and lives.