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by Tom Jewell, Blade Staff Writer
The Blade (Toledo, OH)
04-15-99
An audience working to preserve the Fallen Timbers battleground was shown a view of the frontier last night from a different perspective.
Historian Larry Nelson, site manager for the Fort Meigs State Memorial in Perrysburg, shared his insights of the Ohio frontier before the battle in 1794.
More than 50 people attended the annual meeting of the Fallen Timbers Battlefield Preservation Commission.
The historian outlined some of the influences the Indians and whites had on each other's cultures, concentrating on the peaceful aspects of their relationship.
"The Indians and whites sized up each other shrewdly and when they saw something that could make their life better, they borrowed it," Dr. Nelson said.
He described two processes involving white settlers and Indians on the Ohio frontier. One revolved around control of land, and it almost always resulted in violence.
The battle of Fallen Timbers came near the end of bitter warfare that lasted for 60 years, he said.
During the same period, the two groups "Almost always encountered each other peacefully," when it came to trading, Dr. Nelson said.
He called the fur trade the engine that drove the cultural exchanges among Indians and Europeans.
The settlers went on "to reinvent themselves in response to intercultural contact," the historian continued. He read examples about the changes described in journals and diaries of frontiersmen.
Indians had become more "Europeanized," while settlers took up some ways of the Native Americans. It was often peaceful on the frontier, Dr. Nelson noted. "The great tragedy is that both sides had an opportunity to make choices during that period and unfortunately they almost always chose warfare," he said.
The preservation group, which met in Wildwood Metropark Hall, organized in 1995.
The 185-acre site of the battle of Fallen Timbers where Gen. "Mad" Anthony Wayne's federal troops defeated Indian forces is near the I-475 and U.S. 24 interchange in Maumee on land owned by the city of Toledo.
The victory is credited with opening much of the Midwest to white settlement.
Marianne Duvendack, president of the preservation commission, said the city last was seeking $7.2 million for the property. Appraisals have been commissioned. State funding for $2 million and a pledge of $500,000 by Maumee have been secured so far.
Meanwhile, proposed legislation has been introduced in the U.S. Senate and House to make Fallen Timbers a National Historic Site, and could bring some federal funding. The preservation committee has set a goal of raising $1 million in private funds.
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