awnee river, while the Tennessee was called the Cherokee river. This
Cumberland division is said to have become engaged in war with both the
Cherokees and Chickasaws, and to have fled to the north to receive the
protection of the powerful nations of the Wabash.

Notwithstanding the magnanimous conduct of the Miamis, however, they,
together with the Wyandots of Ohio, always regarded the Shawnees with
suspicion and as trouble makers. The great chief of the Miamis told
Antoine Gamelin at Kekionga, in April, 1790, when Gamelin was sent by
the government to pacify the Wabash Indians, that the Miamis had
incurred a bad name on account of mischief done along the Ohio, but that
this was the work of the Shawnees, who, he said, had "a bad heart," and
were the "perturbators of all the nations." To the articles of the
treaty at Fort Harmar, in 1789, the following is appended: "That the
Wyandots have laid claim to the lands that were granted to the Shawnees,
(these lands were along the Miami, in Ohio), at the treaty held at the
Miami, and have declared, that as the Shawnees have been so restless,
and caused so much trouble, both to them and to the United States, if
they will not now be at peace, they will dispossess them, and take the
country into their own hands; for that country is theirs of right, and
the Shawnees are only living upon it by their permission."

From the recital of the above facts, it is evident that the Shawnees
could never justly claim the ownership of any of the lands north of the
Ohio. That, far from being the rightful sovereigns of the soil, they
came to the valleys of the Miamis and Wyandots as refugees from a
devastating war, and as supplicants for mercy and protection. This is
recognized by the Quaker, Henry Harvey, who was partial to them, and for
many years dwelt among them as a missionary. Harvey says that from the
accounts of the various treaties to which they were parties, "they had
been disinherited altogether, as far as related to the ownership of land
anywhere." Yet from the lips of the most famous of all the Shawnees,
came the false but specious reasoning that none of the tribes of the
northwest, not even the Miamis who had received and sheltered them, had
a right to alienate any of their lands without the common consent of
all. "That no single tribe had the right to sell; that the power to sell
was not vested in their chiefs, but must be the act of the warriors in
council assembled of all the trib