Lola Purvis, second from left, is featured in episode two of the new WYSO podcast, “The Ohio Country.” On it, she talks about how coming to Ohio on a bus tour with fellow Eastern Shawnee citizens was a powerful experience. To her left stands daughter Heather Devine, and to her right are sister Margaret Devine and the late Larry Dushane. (Photo Courtesy of the Eastern Shawnee tribe of Oklahoma)
91.3 WYSO’s ‘The Ohio Country’ centers Indigenous history
- Published: August 14, 2024
On July 9, WYSO released the first episode of its new podcast, “The Ohio Country.” The planned 12-part series aims to expand its listeners’ understanding of Ohio’s history by providing a perspective that has often been overlooked or obscured — the history of Ohio’s Tribal Nations.
“The Ohio Country,” written by Neenah Ellis and Chris Welter, released its fifth episode this week; new episodes are released weekly on Tuesdays.
The News spoke with Welter last week about the production of the new podcast, which he said follows three years of research, and a year of reporting within that time. According to Welter, the podcast was spurred by the nonprofit Ohio Humanities, which provides support for the series, and which initially reached out to WYSO with the idea that would eventually grow into “The Ohio Country.”
“They said, ‘Essentially what we want you to do is a series about how the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 changed the landscape of what would become Ohio,’” Welter said, referring to the federal act that incorporated, and later subdivided, the Northwest Territory as part of the United States. The eastern portion of the territory, south of Lake Erie and west of the Appalachian Mountains, was known as The Ohio Country.
“The way we’re divided now, into Township plots, and acres and acres of farmland — even where some of the older schools and churches are located — were largely determined by the Northwest Ordinance,” Welter said. “But the thing that’s sort of unspoken is that, in order for the Northwest Ordinance to work, they were disregarding the Shawnee, Miami, Wyandotte and other people who were already living here.”
Most Ohio school children learn about ancient Indigenous cultures that flourished in and around what would become the state, such as the Hopewell and Adena. But “The Ohio Country” makes the case that very few of Ohio’s youth grow into adulthood knowing about the later tribes who built homes and societies in what would become Ohio before being removed by the growing American federal government.
“There are a lot of misconceptions people have about Shawnee people, Miami people, in a state like Ohio, because there’s not a huge Native American presence here,” Welter said. “Their removals were really systematic — there are Native American people here today, but not in large numbers. Their governments aren’t located here and they don’t have reservation lands here.”
As “The Ohio Country” points out, although towns and geological landmarks around the state bear the names of some of the tribes who can trace their histories here, Ohio is one of 14 states with no federally recognized tribes left within its borders. The Shawnee, for example, are now recognized as three distinct tribes, the Shawnee Tribe, the Absentee-Shawnee Tribe and the Eastern Shawnee Tribe — all of which are headquartered in Oklahoma.
Welter traveled to Oklahoma to report for “The Ohio Country,” and at the time of his interview with the News, was set to return to the state for additional reporting. The podcast features the voice of Chief Glenna Wallace of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma in Ottawa County, Oklahoma in its inaugural episode. Wallace has spearheaded a number of business, healthcare, cultural and community-building initiatives for the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, some of which are detailed in the podcast.
Wallace was also instrumental in the creation of the newly opened Great Council State Park in Oldtown, the site of a former Shawnee village, just down the road from Yellow Springs. Also crucial to the foundation of the new state park was Talon Silverhorn, a citizen of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe — known to area residents as the cultural programs manager for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources — who is featured in the podcast’s third episode.
Welter said introducing listeners to Wallace and Silverhorn, their tribe and the work of that tribe early in the podcast was intentional — a way to remind folks that, although Ohio forced the Shawnee out of the state, they’re still around, not just living, but often thriving.
“They’re not a people of the past, and I hope that as people listen to the podcast, they’ll understand that we try to talk a lot about the modern-day initiatives and novel ideals they have that are related to their historic culture,” Welter said.
Ultimately, Welter and the rest of the production team and contributors for “The Ohio Country” hope that the podcast will help bring awareness not only to the historical facts of the people who lived in The Ohio Country before being forced out, but the importance of that history, and of the voices of their descendants.
“The state of Ohio would be very different if [the tribes that were removed] had stayed here, but the good news is that those communities still exist today,” Welter said. “I think the biggest thing that could happen in 20 years is making sure that historical organizations are working with the tribes and inviting them back — and a lot of places are already starting to do that.”
Jeremy Turner of the Shawnee Tribe, who is featured in episode three of WYSO’s “The Ohio Country” podcast, points to where he suggested a longhouse once stood during an event in 2022 sponsored by Xenia-based nonprofit Caesar’s Ford Theatre; Turner is a member of the nonprofit’s board of directors. Turner gave a tour of an 18th-century Shawnee village near modern-day Springfield, and in the background are fields of row crops along the Mad River floodplain; it’s where corn has been planted for hundreds, if not thousands of years — first by Shawnee, then Europeans. (Photo by Chris Welter)
“The Ohio Country” acknowledges that Ohio’s history is complex, and that the long road to understanding it in full will be, too. Part of moving forward down that road will be unraveling the misconceptions prevalent in Ohio about the tribes that were forcibly removed from the area, with myth and legend cropping up in place of historical fact.
“The Ohio Country” notes in its second episode that a wealth of writing over several decades from popular historical novelist Allan W. Eckert often blurred the lines between fact and fiction. Among other things, Eckert’s work was the basis for the script for the now-defunct outdoor drama “Blue Jacket.” The drama, and Eckert’s writing, made the claim that the titular Shawnee war chief was a white man — a claim not based on any historical fact, but which was nevertheless believed and repeated by many.
“We know that some people have bad information, and some people have none at all,” Welter said. “At the same time, we’re not trying to call people out — we’re trying to be sensitive and to be guided by how the tribal governments want to approach it.”
He added: “There have been times when I’ve thought, ‘We really need to point out people who have spread bad history and how they benefited from it’ — but that’s really not how the tribes want to approach it. As a non-native person, it’s not my place to go further than the tribes do on that.”
Chief Glenna Wallace said it best herself in the podcast: “The story is not a pleasant story, but all of us alive today, we weren’t responsible for that, so why put the guilt on people? I don’t intend to do that. I just say, ‘I come willing to speak to you, but I will always try to have a message of hope, I will always try to have history in there … so that you can make the decision for yourself: Do I really know the history of Ohio?’”
“The Ohio Country” is available for streaming on all major podcast services, with new episodes released on Tuesdays. The podcast is also available at http://www.wyso.org/podcast/the-ohio-country, where additional companion material is made available to accompany each episode.
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