Editor's Note: The names Wyandot and Wyandotte are used throughout the story, each in a different context. Wyandotte refers to the present day tribal nation in Oklahoma, while Wyandot refers to the tribe and its peoples at the time of their settlements in Ohio and Kansas. Wyandot and Wyandotte are both corruptions of the traditional name of the tribe, Waⁿdát – which tribal citizens use internally to identify themselves.
Today, there are no federally recognized tribes headquartered within Ohio’s borders. The Wyandot were the last American Indian tribe to leave the state.
In 1843, over 600 Wyandots made the arduous passage on foot from Upper Sandusky to Cincinnati to board steamboats heading west.
To memorialize the loss the Wyandot peoples endured, the first of 13 historic markers was unveiled in Upper Sandusky on Saturday. The other markers will be placed over the next seven years across Ohio.
The first contact
The University of Cincinnati partnered with the federally recognized Wyandotte Nation to document the 150-mile trail the Wyandots traveled after the U.S. government forced them off of their reservation land in the Sandusky River Valley. They refer to the project as the Wyandot Removal Trail.
Rebecca Wingo, associate professor of history at UC and its director of public history, said she first thought of reaching out to the nation after she saw a photo of the previous marker in Upper Sandusky put up in 1999. It described their removal as a “journey” and “departure.”
“I read it and I thought to myself, ‘This sign could be better.’ And I wondered if the Wyandotte Nation thought the same,” Wingo explained. "So I emailed the head of the cultural division, Kim Garcia, and I said, ‘You don't know me, but I'm sure you're aware of this marker. And if you are willing to kind of take a leap of faith with me, I think my students and I could produce something that y'all could use.’”
Wingo and her students worked with the tribal nation and its citizens for four years to create these markers and portray a more accurate account of what happened.
Changing the narrative
The new marker in Upper Sandusky represents the starting point of the removal trail. It’s located next to the historic Wyandot Mission Church — the first Methodist mission in the United States. It was built by Wyandots and Methodist missionaries on the Grand Reserve, the former Wyandot settlement founded nearly a century before Ohio’s statehood.
The church was deeded back to the Wyandotte Nation in 2019.
The marker describes how the Wyandots at Grand Reserve cultivated land, built homes and invested into their schools and roads.
Kim Garcia, cultural preservation officer for the Wyandotte Nation, said her ancestors signed 19 treaties with the U.S., making every attempt to stay. But after decades of encroachment by the state and U.S. government, tribal leaders reached a breaking point.
“The truth is that we signed many treaties … agreeing to forfeit more and more of our lands with each and every one of those treaties, with the belief that this land would continue to be our home for many, many generations,” Garcia said.
“Yet each treaty we honored, the U.S. government broke," Garcia said. "Eventually, in 1843, with heavy hearts, our ancestors had to leave their homes, their businesses, their church, and all of their friends.”
The Wyandots were told they would settle in Kansas, but no land was available when they arrived. The Wyandot people were removed again to Oklahoma, where the Wyandotte Nation is headquartered today.
Garcia looped in the nation’s Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) Coordinator Heather Miller in the trail project. She also had a chance to see the previous marker.
“To see someone else's voice telling something about our communities that's a monumental piece of our history just didn't seem right," Miller said.
The Wyandotte Nation has the final say on the language used on each marker.
“So being able to change that narrative, to put our story in our own words up in now a large monument, is an incredible opportunity. And finally, we get to change the tide in terms of how these stories are being presented out to the larger Ohio community,” Miller said.
Stories on the trail will continue
The remaining markers will be placed along the trail in cities like Bellefontaine, Urbana, Lebanon and Cincinnati.
The ones in Lebanon and North Bend will go up by next year. The markers won’t be whitewashed to make communities feel comfortable, Garcia said.
“This marker project represents truth. We're excited that the community will be able to hear the truth, not just the adults, but all the children, are going to start learning the truth from a young age and they'll be able to start researching themselves about what actually happened,” Garcia said. “To have a new generation come up being told the truth from the beginning is very exciting to me.”
