pictured words

Photo from HMbd.org

There is a distance
of point eight miles from my home
to “Indian Hills,”

our name for the site
of The Indian Wars, on
the Maumee River.

Seventeen Ninety
to Seventeen Ninety Five:
The “savages” fought

To save their homes from
American Pioneers
aiming to settle.

Nineteen Fifty Five:
An historical marker
was erected, and

continues to stand
regally, as visitors
are enlightened to

the proclamation
of “peaceful white settlement.”
And there’s not enough

Witeout on hand to
to cover our ignorance,
and there will never

be enough distance
between Seventeen Ninety
and my property.

© Marie Elena Good, 2020

Historical Marker of The Indian Wars. 1790-1795, erected in 1955 by the Historical Society of Northwestern Ohio

The marker begins, “When American pioneers attempted to settle the area north and west of the Ohio River, following the ordinance of 1787, the Indians, aided by the British in Canada, fought valiantly and fiercely for their homes in the Ohio country. It required the efforts of three American armies to break the Indian resistance.” It goes on to say, “ … the Indians signed the Treaty of Green Ville August 3, 1795. They were thereby placed under the control of the United States, and the Northwest Territory was opened, in part, to peaceful white settlement.”

And it makes me shudder.