Great Indian Warpath

The Great Indian Warpath (GIW)—also known as the Great Indian War and Trading Path, or the Seneca Trail—was that part of the network of trails in eastern North America developed and used by Native Americans which ran through the Great Appalachian Valley. The system of footpaths (the Warpath branched off in several places onto alternate routes and over time shifted westward in some regions) extended from what is now upper New York to deep within Alabama. Various Native peoples traded and made war along the trails, including the Catawba, numerous Algonquian tribes, the Cherokee, and the Iroquois Confederacy. The British traders' name for the route was derived from combining its name among the northeastern Algonquian tribes, Mishimayagat or "Great Trail", with that of the Shawnee and Delaware, Athawominee or "Path where they go armed".^{[citation needed]}

History

The age of the Great Indian Warpath is unknown. Many of the trails were first broken by animals traveling to the salt licks in the region, especially by the herds of buffalo in the Valley of Virginia. These animal trails were later used by Native Americans.^[1] Certainly the trails were used for commerce, trading and communication between tribes before the land was explored by Europeans. In Virginia during November 1728, William Byrd II commented while passing a branch of the Indian trail what would later be called the Great Wagon Road in what would eventually be Henry County, Virginia, that "The Indians, who have no way of traveling except on the Hoof, make nothing of going 25 miles a day, and carrying their little Necessities at their backs, and Sometimes a Stout Pack of Skins into the bargain."^[2]

While archaeology shows that the Valley of Virginia was inhabited before the arrival of the Europeans, by the 18th century most of the region was abandoned. Only smaller villages and settlements of different tribes occupied the valley, which was used as a hunting ground, a travel route, and a warpath between the two great clusters of Eastern Indians in the 17th and 18th centuries.^[3]

European colonizers

In the north, the line of the Seneca Trail formed the boundary of "the frontier" by the time of the

In the south, the GIW began at the Gulf of Mexico in the Mobile area and proceeded north by northeast, bisecting another trail known as the Upper Creek Path and crossing the Tennessee River near Guntersville. It then followed roughly the same route as the Tennessee upriver until reaching the vicinity of the modern Bridgeport. There it crossed the Tennessee once again at the Great Creek Crossing just below the foot of Long Island on the Tennessee, intersecting another path, the Cisca and St. Augustine Trail, which ran from the area of St. Augustine, Florida to that of Nashville, Tennessee.

Tennessee

Several miles upriver from Long Island, the GIW passed through the Nickajack area, so-called by the Cherokee (from Ani-Kusati) because it had once inhabited by the Koasati.

After following the south bank of the Tennessee River, the path proceeded through Running Water Valley to Lookout/Will's Valley, where it met the Cumberland Trail. From present-day

The east bank of that site is where Dragging Canoe and his Chickamauga Cherokee faction established their base after leaving the Overhill Cherokee towns on the Little Tennessee River. From there, it proceeded north along the modern-day Chickamauga Road until reaching the main route again. Its path was later followed by the improved Chattanooga-Cleveland Pike. From the area of present-day Cleveland, Tennessee, the path has been followed by Lee Highway until reaching the Little Tennessee River.

From Old Chickamauga Town, a third branch of the path passed across Hickory Valley, where it intersected a path from the Cisca and St. Augustine Trail in North Georgia to the Tennessee River. This intersected the main route of the path before fording the stream at Harrison, Tennessee, to reach the Middle Mississippian town which archaeologists call the Dallas site. After crossing that valley, the branch from Chickamauga passed east to Parker's Gap through Whiteoak Mountain and turned northeast, eventually rejoining the main route.

In the Overhill Cherokee country, the path ran from the north to the town of Chota on the Little Tennessee. Here, another important trail, the Warriors' Path, continued south to the town of Great Tellico (present-day Tellico Plains), following Ball Play Creek and the Tellico River. At Great Tellico, the Warrior's Path intersected the Trading Path (later called the "Unicoi Turnpike"), which ran east over the mountains. From Great Tellico, the Warrior's Path followed Conasauga Creek to its confluence with the Hiwassee River, where the town of Great Hiwassee stood.^[4]

Virginia

In Virginia, U.S. Route 11 (parallel to Interstate 81) was built along the GIW route. From the Cumberland Gap and Appalachian mountains at the Tennessee border, the fork called the Chesapeake Branch led northeast, passing 3 miles (5 km) west of what is now Bristol, then through the sites of present-day Abingdon, Glade Spring, Marion, Rural Retreat, Fort Chiswell (another possible westward gap route), Draper, Ingle's or Pepper's ferry, Salem, Roanoke and Amsterdam, then up the Shenandoah Valley through Buchanan, Lexington, Staunton, Harrisonburg, Winchester. From Winchester, most GIW routes briefly enter West Virginia, then continue northward into Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Various forks led up (or down) rivers from Chesapeake Bay through the coastal plain and Piedmont. One Chesapeake branch cut off at present Ellett, Virginia, went up the North Fork of the Roanoke River, down Catawba Creek to Fincastle or Amsterdam. The Richmond fork of the Chesapeake branch led off from Salem, and continued southwest of Lynchburg, and thence northeast to the future site of Richmond.^[5]

Another branch turned south from Big Lick, near present-day Roanoke, and turned south toward the Catawba country in South Carolina. Later this trading path would be called part of the Great Wagon Road or the Carolina Road. William Byrd II mentioned it during his survey of the dividing line between North Carolina and Virginia in November 1728. "The Trading Path above mentioned receives its name from being the Route the Traders take with their caravans, when they go to traffick with the Catawbas and other Southern Indians... The Course from Roanoke to the Catawbas is laid down nearest Southwest, and lies through a fine country, that is watered by Several beautiful Rivers.^[6]

The Ohio branch led up the Holston Valley to the north fork of the

Most GIW branches cross West Virginia, although one more eastern route skips the state entirely, following U.S. Route 15 from Winchester to Frederick, Maryland. The Winchester Pike (now U.S. 11) passes through Berkeley County, West Virginia (including Martinsburg) before crossing the Potomac River near Hagerstown, Maryland.

Another more western Seneca Trail branch crossed West Virginia along routes that became

From crossing the Potomac River at Hagerstown, Maryland, the Seneca Trail (U.S. Route 11) continued northward toward the Cumberland Valley and modern Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.

Since the terrain in Virginia and West Virginia was the most difficult to cross east to west (or vice versa), along the Appalachian mountain range, due to numerous north–south ridges, most hunters (and later settlers) crossed the mountains between the Ohio River watershed and Chesapeake Bay watershed either in Tennessee to the south of that region, or via what was once called

The Great Indian Warpath continued its south–north route through Pennsylvania toward New York along three major paths, pushed westward by development. The easternmost route followed the Appalachian foothills in what became U.S. Route 15 (from the Potomac River at Point of Rocks through Frederick, Maryland and Gettysburg to the Susquehanna River at Camp Hill, Pennsylvania).

Another route followed Pennsylvania's

The northernmost major east–west branch in Pennsylvania connecting to the GIW became the track of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad; a part has recently been converted back to pedestrian use as the Susquehanna Warrior Trail in Luzerne County.

The easiest and most traveled east–west route of the pre- and colonial era became the Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike (first used in 1795), which even later became the Main Line of the Pennsylvania Railroad and U.S. Route 30, which meets Route 15 at Gettysburg and Route 11 at Chambersburg.

James Veech described the Catawba Trail in The Monongahela of Old:^{[full citation needed]}

The most prominent, and perhaps the most ancient of these old pathways across our county, was the old Catawba or Cherokee Trail, leading from the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, &c., through Virginia and Western Pennsylvania, on to Western New York and Canada. We will trace it within our limits as well as we can. After crossing and uniting with numerous other trails, the principal one entered

Turtle creeks, to the forks of the Ohio, at Pittsburgh

, by the highland route. This branch, and the northern part within our county [Fayette], of the main route, will be found to possess much interest in connection with Braddock's line of march to his disastrous destiny.

This Cherokee or Catawba Indian trail, including its Warrior branch, is the only one of note which traversed our county northward and southward. Generally, they passed eastward and westward, from the river, to and across the mountains.

The trails northward from Virginia and Pennsylvania converged at the junction of the Susquehanna River and the Chemung River; these led to where the Seneca Trail started/ended in western New York near present-day Niagara Falls, used for centuries by the Seneca of the Iroquois and previous peoples around the Great Lakes. In 1775 the twelve united colonies entered into an agreement concerning the use of Native American paths and the roads:

Brothers: It is necessary, in order for the preservation of friendship between us and brothers of the

Six Nations (Iroquois) and their allies, that a free and mutual intercourse be kept between us; therefore we, Brothers: The road is now open for our brethren of the Six Nations and their allies, and they may now pass as safely and freely as the people of the Twelve United Colonies themselves. And we are further determined, by the assistance of God, to keep open and free for the Six Nations and their allies, as long as the earth remains.^[7]

The Iroquois Confederacy's central trail had its western terminus at the site of present-day Buffalo on Buffalo Creek. It crossed to the Onondaga Valley at the foot of Seneca and Cayuga Lakes, met the Mohawk River at the "great carrying place" (the site of present-day Rome), then followed the river to site of Schenectady and had its eastern terminus at the site of Albany (in the vicinity of Castle Island, where the Dutch built Fort Nassau).^[8] Modern-day New York State Route 5 largely follows this path.

Afterwards, the GIW crossed the Hudson River into New England, taking the Mohawk Trail (largely followed by modern-day New York State Route 2, Massachusetts Route 2, and Massachusetts Route 2A). From there, the Great Trail network eventually went into Newfoundland, where it reached its northern terminus.

Notes

References

• Clabough, Casey. The Warrior's Path: Reflections Along an Ancient Route. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2007. Contents: Maryland; Monocacy River Valley; Catoctin Mountain and Potomac River Valley; West Virginia; Virginia Shenandoah Valley; New River and southern valleys; Tennessee Holston River Valley; Smoky Mountains; Epilogue. App. I. Brief timeline of Appalachian geology and human culture—App. II. Selected traversed places with latitude, longitude, and elevation.
• Duncan, Barbara R. and Riggs, Brett H. (2003). Cherokee Heritage Trails Guidebook. University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill.
  ISBN 0-8078-5457-3
  .
• Maxwell, Hu (1924). "The Seneca Indian Trail". The Tucker Democrat (Tucker County, West Virginia).
• Mooney, James (1982). Myths of the Cherokee and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokee. Nashville: Charles and Randy Elder—Booksellers. pp. 206–207.

External links

• Traveling 219: The Seneca Trail
• Traveling 219: The Seneca Trail History