Western Pennsylvania Indians

Native Indians were the first residents of western Pennsylvania. Originally, a group known

as the Paleo-Indians populated the area well before 10,000 BCE, and various native cultures

continuously occupied western Pennsylvania down to 1600. Recorded history shows that around

1600 the Erie tribe lived in the region, but by 1656 they had been defeated by the Iroquois, and

western Pennsylvania became an unoccupied hunting ground. In the early 1700s the pressures of

white settlement forced the Delawares and the few remaining Shawnees from the east to migrate to

western Pennsylvania, where they remained under Iroquois domination. Around 1730 the Mingos,

a Seneca subtribe, settled at points along the Beaver and Ohio rivers.

After 1750 the Indians increasingly were caught up in the conflicts of the white man. During the

French and Indian war, the Delawares and the Shawnees attacked Pennsylvania outposts, and, in

1763, with the Senecas, they took up the hatchet in Pontiac's war. Despite efforts by some natives

to keep peace, the Shawnees, Senecas, and most of the Delawares sided with the British during

the American Revolution, and again attacked settlements in western Pennsylvania. After that war,

the native tribes, by then mostly removed to central and western Ohio, continued to resist white

encroachments. Only after Anthony Wayne's victory at the battle of Fallen Timbers (20 Aug. 1794,

near present-day Toledo, Ohio) did hostilities in western Pennsylvania cease.

Western Pennsylvania Genealogical Society Quarterly, Volume 11 Number 1 Aug. 1984, pg.66

This McAninch Family History Newsletter is Published by Frank and Jan (Mauk) McAninch

USPS: 17531 Montbury Circle, Huntington Beach, California 92649, (Frank) 714-846-5134

emails: frank (at) mcaninch.net, frankmcaninch (at) gmail.com (both email addresses work)

____________________________________________________________________________

McA. Family Hist. NL v.XXXII (32) n.1 / June 2024 / Copyright Frank McAninch / p.2024-01

Permission granted to copy freely for non-commercial purposes except copyrights owned by others

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