The Gore is an area in southeastern Indiana, lying between the western border of Ohio and the Treaty of Greenville Line, which demarcated regions controlled by the young United States and indigenous nations. It was the first territory in what is now the state of Indiana ceded by treaty to the United States, and it was one of its earliest sites of settlement by European Americans.
The Gore includes all of contemporary Dearborn and Ohio counties and portions of Switzerland, Franklin, Union, Wayne, Randolph, and Jay counties.
Early history
editBefore European colonization, evidence indicates the Gore had been occupied in turn by the Adena, Hopewell, and Fort Ancient Native American cultures.[1][2][3][4][5] The State Line Archeological District, on the Ohio border, is the site of a Fort Ancient village circa 1200s AD.[6] At the time of European arrival, the area was occupied by several Native American tribes, most significantly the Miami, Shawnee, and Delaware.[7][8]
With passage of the Northwest Ordinance in 1787, the Gore became part of the Northwest Territory. On June 20, 1790, it became part Knox County, the fourth county created in the territory. Knox County included all of present-day Indiana and portions of Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, and Wisconsin.[9]
The ordinance laid out guidance on how the Northwest Territory should be divided into states when they had achieved the population and other requirements for statehood. It called for a state boundary that was "a direct line, drawn due north from the mouth of the Great Miami," which is the current Indiana–Ohio state line.[10] But it also left room for future Congresses to alter those lines.
Creation of the Gore
editThe Gore's unique status is the result of the Treaty of Greenville, signed August 3, 1795. The treaty concluded the Northwest Indian War (1785–1795), an armed conflict for control of the Northwest Territory between the United States and a loose confederation of Native American nations known today as the Northwestern Confederacy. A year earlier, General Anthony Wayne had led the Legion of the United States to a major victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, prompting negotiations for peace.
At the time, no area of what is now Indiana had been formally ceded by Native Americans to the United States. White settlers were clustered in two areas: near Vincennes, an area on the Wabash River that had been occupied by the French before the Seven Years War, and in Clark's Grant, an area on the Ohio River that the state of Virginia had given to George Rogers Clark and his soldiers for their service in the American Revolutionary War. But neither settlement had been formally recognized by treaty.
In negotiations with tribal leaders — including Little Turtle, Blue Jacket, and Tarhe — Anthony Wayne mostly sought confirmation of previous boundary lines in modern Ohio, which had assigned about two-thirds of Ohio (in the east and south) to the United States, leaving tribes with most of northwest Ohio. Those lines had been set in the Treaty of Fort McIntosh (1785) and Treaty of Fort Harmar (1789), but several tribes had opposed the lines, fueling the conflict.
But farther west, Wayne sought new land for white settlement. He proposed a line that would run, in part, from Fort Recovery — about a mile east of the modern Indiana–Ohio border — "thence southwesterly in a direct line to the Ohio [River], so as to intersect that river opposite the mouth of Kentucke or Cuttawa river" (the Kentucky River). That would end Indian claims to much of the Whitewater River valley and make the land available to sell to Americans.
Little Turtle (Mihšihkinaahkwa), the Miami war chief, objected to the proposal, saying the lands of the Gore were too valuable for hunting. He countered with an offer of a line from Fort Recovery to modern Hamilton, Ohio, and then along the Great Miami River to the Ohio River.
You have told us to speak our minds freely, and we now do it. This line takes in the greater and best part of your brothers' hunting ground, therefore, your younger brothers are of opinion, you take too much of their lands away, and confine the hunting of our young men within limits too contracted.
Your brothers, the Miamies, the proprietors of those lands, and all your younger brothers present, wish you to run the line as you mentioned, to fort Recovery, and to continue it along the road; from thence to fort Hamilton, on the great Miami river. This is what your brothers request you to do, and you may rest assured of the free navigation of that river, from thence to its mouth, forever.
Here is the road we wish to be the boundary between us. What lies to the east, we wish to be yours; that to the west, we would desire to be ours.[11]
Wayne rejected Little Turtle's proposal, saying his boundary would be "very crooked, as well as a very difficult line to follow," and that the United States would protect Indians' hunting rights in the area. Defeated, the assembled chiefs agreed to both Wayne's line and the treaty.[12]
White settlement
editAfter statehood
editTwo areas
The Treaty of Greenville, signed August 3, 1795 at Fort Greenville (current Greenville, Ohio), ceded
In Ohio, the treaty line divided the state into two regions — one reserved for Native Americans and one open to European American settlement. The portion reserved for Native Americans made up about a third of the modern state, the northwest and north central areas west of the Cuyahoga River.
The treaty also formalized white settlement in the Vincennes and Clark's Grant areas.[13]
Property in the Gore did not go on public sale until 1801, in Cincinnati, but settlers began squatting on its land in large numbers after the treaty was signed.[14]
Settlement patterns
editdistance from Fort Recovery stake to Indiana/Ohio border: 1.24 miles from the stake to the michigan border: 88.58 miles 109.8392 square miles added to Ohio in that sliver
communities within the Gore:
Bright, Indiana Hidden Valley, Indiana
In
Hamilton County, with its seat at Cincinnati, was proclaimed on January 2, 1790
Knox County, with its seat at Vincennes, was proclaimed on June 20, 1790, and encompassed the majority of the territory's land area – all land between St. Clair County and Hamilton County
originally Knox County in the Northwest Territory, proclaimed June 20, 1790
then Hamilton County from June 22, 1798: The western boundary of Hamilton shall begin at the spot on the bank of the Ohio, where the general boundary line between the lands of the United States and the Indian tribes, established at Greenville, August 3, 1795, intersects the bank of that river, and run with that general boundary line to Fort Recovery; by a line to be drawn north from Ft. Recovery until it intersects the said line from the Ohio to Fort Recovery; thence to the southern boundary of the County of Wayne, shall also be the eastern boundary of the County of Knox. (Chase, Statutes of Ohio, III, p. 2097.)
from "From Charter to Constitution":
The next act in the work of dividing the Territory into counties, was changing the boundaries of the counties of Hamilton, Wayne, and Knox. In 1795, General Wayne had made a treaty with the Indians, at Greenville, by which the line of the lands of the United States had been extended from Loramie's, westward to Fort Recovery, and thence southward to the mouth of the Kentucky river. The boundary of Hamilton county was extended westward, June 22, 1798, to make it correspond with this change in the boundary of the government territory. The line between Hamilton and Knox counties then became:
"The western boundary of the county of Hamilton shall begin at the spot, on the bank of the Ohio river, where the general boundary line of the United States and the Indian tribes, established at Greenville the third day of August, 1795, intersects the bank of that river, and run with that general boundary line to Fort Recovery, and from thence by a line to be drawn due north from Fort Recovery, until it intersects the southern boundary line of the county of Wayne, and from thence to the southern boundary of the county of Wayne, shall also be the eastern boundary of the county of Knox."
Hamilton county in this way got a part of Knox county, and a part of what is now Indiana
when Indiana Territory created on July 4, 1800, its eastern border puts the Gore NOT in Indiana Territory — still in NWT, which is otherwise now just Ohio (and E Michigan)
https://web.archive.org/web/20080619174831/http://www.in.gov/history/6214.htm
"all that part of the territory of the United States north-west of the Ohio river, which lies to the westward of a line beginning at the Ohio, opposite to the mouth of Kentucky river, and running thence to fort Recovery, and thence north until it shall intersect the territorial line between the United States and Canada, shall, for the purposes of temporary government, constitute a separate territory, and be called the Indiana Territory."
The government of Ohio, its history and administration, by Wilbur H. Siebert: seems like the reason for the ind terr was creating more local govt — so maybe the thing was that the Gore was populated and thus closer to the seat of govt in chillicothe than vincennes, ind terr?
"Until the Twelve Mile Purchase, acquired in 1809 from the Indians, was surveyed and opened for settlement in 1811-1813, the only land that could be acquired from the government was the area east of the Greenville Boundary line." https://www.newspapers.com/article/palladium-item/125391338/
So only legit settlement in current indiana from 1795 to 1811?
BUT: the very same act said if it becomes a state, use the Miami! "That whenever that part of the territory of the United States which lies to the eastward of a line beginning at the mouth of the Great Miami river, and running thence due north to the territorial line between the United States and Canada, shall be erected into an independent state and admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original states, thenceforth said line shall become and remain permanently the boundary line between such state and the Indiana territory; any thing in this act contained to the contrary notwithstanding."
Enabling Act of 1802 — outlines future boundaries of Ohio, but ALSO immediately attaches the Gore to Indiana Territory
Sec.3. And be it further enacted, That all that part of the territory of the United States northwest of the river Ohio, heretofore included in the eastern division of said territory, and not included within the boundary herein prescribed for the said State, is hereby attached to, and made a part Of, the Indiana Territory, from and after the formation of the said State, subject, nevertheless, to be hereafter disposed of by Congress, according to the right reserved in the fifth article of the ordinance aforesaid, and the inhabitants therein entitled to the same privileges and immunities, and subject to the same rules and regulations in all respects whatever, with all other citizens residing within the Indiana Territory.
(BUT: the thin border sliver north of Fort Recovery is still Indiana Territory until statehood?)
March 1, 1803: Ohio becomes a state
cincy bedroom community
Northwest Ordinance in 1787 defined what the boundary would be: "a direct line, drawn due north from the mouth of the Great Miami"
so weird that indiana teritory ignored?
In modern English, "gore" is used most often to refer to blood shed in violence, but it also means a triangular piece of land, especially one wedged between larger divisions.[15]
The Gore became Dearborn County, Indiana in March 1803
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File:Indiana_Indian_treaties.svg
- ^ Byers, A. Martin (2004). The Ohio Hopewell Episode: Paradigm Lost and Paradigm Gained. The University of Akron Press. ISBN 978-1-931968-00-3. Retrieved 28 May 2023.
- ^ Roza, Greg (15 December 2004). The Adena, Hopewell, and Fort Ancient of Ohio. The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc. ISBN 978-1-4042-2874-0. Retrieved 28 May 2023.
- ^ Griffin, James B. (April 1937). "The Chronological Position and Ethnological Relationships of the Fort Ancient Aspect". American Antiquity. 2 (4): 273–276. doi:10.2307/275464. ISSN 0002-7316. Retrieved 28 May 2023.
- ^ Griffin, James Bennett (1 January 1966). The Fort Ancient Aspect. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-1-949098-17-4. Retrieved 28 May 2023.
- ^ Webb, William Snyder; Snow, Charles Ernest (1988). The Adena People. Univ. of Tennessee Press. ISBN 978-0-87049-568-7. Retrieved 28 May 2023.
- ^ Gosman, James Howard. Patterns in Ontogeny of Human Trabecular Bone from Sunwatch Village in the Prehistoric Ohio Valley. Diss. Ohio State University, 2007. Accessed 2010-04-14.
- ^ Voegelin, Erminie W. (1940). "Indians of Indiana". Proceedings of the Indiana Academy of Science. 50: 37–32. ISSN 2380-7717. Retrieved 28 May 2023.
- ^ Smith, Marvin T. (2002). The Transformation of the Southeastern Indians, 1540-1760. Univ. Press of Mississippi. pp. 115–134. ISBN 978-1-60473-955-8. Retrieved 28 May 2023.
- ^ Carter, Clarence Edwin; Bloom, John Porter (1934). The Territorial Papers of the United States. U.S. Government Printing Office. Retrieved 28 May 2023.
- ^ Confederation, Congress of the. "The Northwest Ordinance". Retrieved 28 May 2023.
- ^ "A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774–1875". memory.loc.gov. Retrieved 28 May 2023.
- ^ "A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774–1875". memory.loc.gov. Retrieved 28 May 2023.
- ^ "The Treaty of Greenville 1795". The Avalon Project. Yale University. Retrieved 28 May 2023.
- ^ Lawlis, Chelsea L. (1947). "Settlement of the Whitewater Valley, 1790-1810". Indiana Magazine of History. 43 (1): 23–40. ISSN 0019-6673. Retrieved 28 May 2023.
- ^ "gore, n.2". www.oed.com. Retrieved 28 May 2023.