Archaeological Research at Revolutionary War Battle of Peckuwe (1780)

Summary

This is a poster submission presented at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Ball State University and Wright State University are conducting archaeological research at the site of the Revolutionary War Battle of Peckuwe (1780) located in Springfield, Ohio. The largest American Revolution conflict west of the Alleghenies, the ~1200 residents of the Shawnee town of Peckuwe struggled to thwart the attack of a large Kentucky militia force of 1,050 troops led by General George Rogers Clark. US forces won the battle and the Shawnee abandoned the village, which was torched by Clark’s troops. This attack foreshadowed a pattern of US transgression in the Northwest Territory where American forces violated Native territory, ultimately culminating in land cessions and eventual forced removal of American Indians. Our ongoing archaeological research is gathering new data from the battlefield, while our partnership with several tribes indigineous to the Northwest Territory helps incorporate this data into new narratives of settler colonialism’s cruel effects on American Indians.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• 2021 SHA Poster Submissions   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2021

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology