THE MIGRATIONS OF THE TALLIGEWI
THE FORCED MIGRATION OF THE TALLIGEWI.
According to writings in the Delaware’ “Walam Olum”, the Delaware had migrated from the west to the east coast and encountered the Alligewi between 700 and 1100 AD. In time, the Delaware fought against the Alligewi over land or hunting rights and pushed the Alligewi west. The Delawares wrath fully drove the Talligewi southward beyond the Ohio River. (according to Leander Leitner, ed., The Walam Olum). The missionary Hecklewelder noted that in 1819 the Delawares, advanced from the west, found their further progress opposed by a powerful people called the Talligewi, who occupied the country upon a river which Hecklewelder believed to be identical to the Mississippi, but more likely was the upper Ohio. The word Ohio is of Iroquois origin, and of a far later period; having been bestowed by them after their conquest of the country, in alliance with the Lenapees. The term was applied to the entire river, from its confluence with the Mississippi, to its origin in the broad spurs of the Alleghanies, in New York and Pennsylvania; and the designation, to its sources, is still continued in use by that people. The fortifications that were built by the Talligewi and their fighting power were so strong that it took the war through many years until they were finally defeated, not without the help of the Iroquois and the Wyandot. and the Talligewi survivors fled and some history states that they drove the Talligewi south through Ohio. Other history states that the Talligawi spilt up at Lake Erie during the war which Hechewelder stated last through the terms of four successive chiefs of the Delaware. Some of the Talligewi went west and ended up on the banks of Lake Michigan. Heckewelder states that the chronicles go on to say that the Weyandot took the lands of northern Ohio, while the Delaware stayed south of the lakes. He stated that the chronicles said that everyone stayed in their section of lands through eleven more Delaware chiefs. Then twelve more chiefs followed in succession which went to the time Heckewelder believes was around 1609, or the seventeenth century when the Dutch landed in America.. THE PEACEFUL MIGRATION OF THE TALLIGEWI The Delaware do mention in the Walam Olum that there was a prehistoric migration of the Tallgewis throughout the reign of three Delaware chiefs at a time when the Delaware were inhabitants of the Eastern seaboard. According to John Haywood, who wrote in 1823 on information he was told by leading members of the Cherokee, they had a legend of long period of migration of the Talligewi people. Much of the story of that migration was long lost by 1823. However some migration legends were remembered by the elders and from what they said, the migration resembled that of the Delaware and the Creeks in beginning with genesis and a period of animal monsters which would mark the period of time to the historic period. This history further stated how they moved through a vast area of northern Ohio and Indiana where they lived for hundreds of years and built cities, homes, burial, effigy and ceremonial mounds. Throughout many years, maybe hundreds, some of the Talligewi migrated south through Ohio and Indiana towards the southern states. Further stories say that while the Talligewi traveled southward through Ohio and Indiana, they became friends with and married people of the Shawnee and several other tribes they met along the way. It is believed that they were also joined by people of other tribes on their migration path south, such as some Delaware, Dakota, Miami, Wea and possibly early Potawatomi explorers from Michigan into Indiana. Some historians also believe that the Talligewi may have encountered the Vikings who traveled throughout Lake Erie and Lake Michigan. This would also lead to the speculation that they interbred and married some of the Vikings. When explorers and settlers arrived in the area around the falls of the Ohio (and further west into Indiana), they heard frequent accounts of a nation inhabiting at a great distance west of the Alleghany Mountains, some three hundred years prior to the arrival of Christopher Columbus. Volumes IV and V of the Leni Lenape chronicle provide the important written evidence which supports the existence of the Talligewi and the great pre-Columbian battle at the falls of the Ohio River where the Talligewi were defeated by a confederation of the Iroquois and Delaware Historical sites where the Talligewi lived also included Fourteen Mile Creek and the Devil's Back Bone at Rose Island, Harrods Creek at the Ohio River, Wiggins Point in Jefferson County, KY, Marble Hill in Clark County, IN, Indian Fort Mountain near Bera, KY, the Falls of the Ohio River, Sand and Corn Islands in the Ohio River and Big Graham Creek near Deputy, IN. |
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- Where did the Talligewi come from?
- The Migrations
- Talligewi Citys, Fortifications, Mounds and Earthworks.
- Could The Talligewi Been The Early Welsh Explorers?
- Were the Talligewi the Mayans?
- Were the Talligewi Related to the Vikings?
- Did the Talligewi Become the Cherokee?
- Language of the Talligewi
- Baskets, Pottery, Art and Symbols of the Talligewi
- Talligewi Mounds - Pictures
- Talligewi Earthworks - Pictures
- New Information