Volume 14 , Issue 28

Pendleton County, (West) Virginia - Before White Man Came

This week we continue our history of Virginia by moving to Pendleton county, West Virginia. The History of Pendleton County, Virginia is written in 1917 or around there by Oren Frederic Morton, the author of the History of Highland County Virginia. The image on the left shows the county of Pendleton, West Virginia highlighted in red. Pendleton county was thought to have been named for Edmund Pendleton, a Virginia statesmen and jurist.

It was before the white man, when the Valley of Virginia became known to the white immigrants. The Valley of Virginia was an almost uninhabited land. On the South branch of the Potomac was a clan of the Shawnees, only about 150 strong. In Berkeley county were a few of the Tuscaroras. On the Susquehanna, a hundred miles to the northeast, was the Mingo tribe. Much farther to the south was the Catawbas, dwelling on the river in North Carolina which bears their name. The long intervening distance did not keep these red men from warring upon one another, though. They made of the valley a military highway, their trails taking advantage of its leading watercourses. The weak tribe of the Senedos, living near the forks of the Shenandoah, had lately been crushed between these upper and nether millstones. Westward of the Alleghanies was an unoccupied forest reaching to the very banks of the Ohio.

The whole Shawnee tribe, which committed so much havoc for half a century, counted only a thousand souls. To the red man in 1725 the valley of the Shenandoah and the intricate hills of West Virginia were little else than one immense game preserve. The lowlands of the Shenandoah, a region which takes naturally to a forest growth, were then an open prairie, the result of buying the grass at the end of each hunting season. The "indian old field" in Hardy was another of these prairies.

The word "Shawanogi" means "Southerners." In the mouth of the white immigrants the word became "Shawanoes," or "Shawnees." These Indians were of Algonquin stock and therefore related to the tribes of New England and the Middle States. They had pushed southward from their early home in the far North, until turned back by the Catawbas and other tribes in the South Atlantic region. In the eighteenth century they claimed ownership of the valleys of Pendleton. In mental attributes and general ability, the Shawnees stood above the average of the Indian race. In the person of Tecumseh they gave the world one of the ablest Indians known to history. They could very often converse in several tongues, and before they left the South Branch they could generally talk with the pioneers.

The Shawnee were active, sensible, manly and high-spirited. They were cheerful and full of jokes and laughter, but in deceit and treachery they were not outclassed by any tribe. They despised the prowess of other Indians, and ti became their boast that they killed for carried into captivity ten white persons for every warrior that they lost. According to the Indian standard, the Shawnees were generous livers and their women were superior housekeepers.

No tribe was more restless than the Shawnee, yet it was not correct to suppose it was in the nature of the red man tone ever on the go. His sense of inhabitiveness was strong. He would make a long and even dangerous journey to see the place where his tribe used to live and to gaze upon the graves of his forefathers. The roving of the Indian was only in response to pressure from without.

Each tribe claimed a definite territory, and for another people to disregard the boundary line was a cause of war. Nevertheless, he had no knowledge of territorial citizenship. He always thought of himself as a member of his tribe, wherever that tribe might chance to dwell. Consequently it never occurred to a Shawnee to speak of himself as a Virginian or an Ohian. As a natural result there was no such thing as individual ownership of the soil. The land of the tribe belonged to the tribe as a people and could be sold only by the rice. The right of the individual to his truck patch was respected, but his claim ceased when he quit using the ground.

The Indian never counted relationships as we do. The tribe was made up of clans, or groups, each with its own distinctive name, and each living in a village by itself. The members of a clan counted themselves as brothers and sisters, and the Indian no more thought of marrying within his clan than of marrying his blood sister. The clan looking upon itself as a family, an injury to a member thereof was held as an injury to the family as a whole, and any warrior thought it his duty to avenge the hurt. If the injure came from another time, vengeance was inflicted upon any member of that tribe. There was no thought of punishing the innocent for the guilty, since the members of the offending clan were likewise brothers and sisters. And as the Indian meted out redress against people of his won race, so did he meet it out upon the white immigrant.

Because the people of his tribe were brothers he thought the whites were brothers among themselves. He could not at first comprehend customs or thought which were unlike his own. He judged the white immigrant by his own measuring stick.

The families of a clan never lived in isolated homes but always in a single village. A limited agriculture was carried on in an open space around the village. Subsistence however was mainly upon game and fish. A people living in this manner required a very large area from which to draw its support. Asa natural result the Indian never butchered game out of sheer wantonness, after the manner of some people who style themselves civilized.

A shawnee hut was made of long poles bent together and fastened at the top and a covering of bark laid on. The only openings were a place to go in or out and a crevice for the smoke. The art of weaving was unknown to this tribe. clothing was made of skins tanned by a simple process. Until there was contact with white traders the only aspens or other implements were of stone or bone. There were baskets, but the pottery was not fireproof, water being boiled by dropping heated stones into a vessel.

Custom took the place of law and was rigidly enforced. An offense against custom was punished by a boycott. Government was nearly a pure democracy. Matters of public interest were settled in a council, where there was a general right to speak and to vote. The speeches were often eloquent, but the long winded orator was not tolerated. Men of address and daring were of course influential, and without uncommon ability no person might be a chief or military leader.

In his own way and to the extent of the light given him the Indian was religious. After death he believed the soul of the warrior took its flight to a happy hunting ground in the region beyond the setting sun. Here the departed one followed the chase without limit of days. But no coward and no deformed person might enter this abode of bliss. In mutilating a slain enemy he was simply following out this belief.

The Indian commonly had but one wife. Children were treated with kindness. They belonged to the clan of the mother, and were under authority of the chief of that clan.The father had particular authority over his own children, yet exercised control over the children of sisters. The red man was called lazy because his wife cared for the truck patch as well as the cabin. This charge was not altogether just. The braves spent many long and toilsome hours in making their weapons and in stalking game. To pursue wild animals and follow the warpath requires supple limbs, and supple limbs do not go with hard labor.

The Indians large fund of folklore and tribal history was passed down from father to son in the form of oral tradition. The Indian had a keen sense of humor, as his proverbs bear witness. The following are some of these:

1. No Indian ever sold his daughter for a name.
2. A squaw's tongue runs faster than the wind's legs.
3. The indian scalps his enemy; the paleface skins his friends.
4. Before the paleface came, there was no poison in the Indian's corn.There will be hungry palefaces so long as there is any Indian land to swallow.
5. There are three things it takes a strong man to hold; a young warrior, a wild horse, and a handsome squaw.

Several families secured permission from the red men to settle and hut on the Monogahela. In 1774 Governor Dunmore sent a messenger to warn them to return because of an impending Indian war. An Indian heard the message delivered and sent this reply, "Tell your king he damned liar. Indian no kill these men." Nor did they. These frontiersmen stayed where they were and lived in safety throughout the Dunmore war.

The Indian was no more cruel than the religious zealots of Europe, who in the very same century that the colonies were founded, were skinning and disemboweling the heretics under the hideous misbelief that they were saving their souls. In his own way the Indian was no less logical or consistent. He sought to make his foe incapable of harming him again. If possible the Indian made sure of killing his adversary. He scalped and mutilated, not merely to preserve a trophy of his victory, but in accordance with his belief that no man may enter the future world who is disfigured in body or limb. If he speed a life, it was to adopt the captive into his own tribe in order to increase its strength.

The red man was in some degree a teacher to the white. He had many ways of preparing corn as food, and he imparted these methods to the newcomer. He taught the pioneer how to make deer-skin sieves; how to utilize cornhusks; how to recognize medicinal herbs; and how to clear farm land by deadening the trees.

The red man had great skill in finding how way through an unbroken forest, yet during their centuries of occupancy the tribes had established a network of footpaths, with the help of their stone tomahawks. In Pendleton the paths usually follow the rivers, travel thus being easier and game more plentiful. The rivers ran parallel with the mountain ridges. But in crossing from one valley to another the Indian preferred following a ridge.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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