June 22, 2021

June 22, 2021

From Dayton, OH we drove southeast to the nearby town of Wilberforce, home to two historically black colleges, Wilberforce and Central State. It is also the site of Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument. Designated by Obama proclamation in 2013, it commemorates Charles Young, the first successful black West Point graduate and military officer. This park recently reopened so we received a private tour. The ranger reviewed Young’s life and onerous rise to Colonel in the Army. The site is also dedicated to the post Civil War black army units. They were given the nickname of Buffalo Soldiers. One of their early duties was guarding and developing the early National Parks. Young was the first superintendent at Sequoia, one of my favorites.

Afterwards we drove north past Toledo, OH to Monroe, MI straddling the River Raisin that flows into Lake Erie. The river was named after the grape vines planted by early French settlers. We are here to visit River Raisin National Battlefield Park. In the early days of the War of 1812, the small Frenchtown settlement here was the site of a huge defeat of American forces by the British and their Indian allies. The day after the battle the Indians systematically killed prisoners and the wounded. ‘Remember the Raisin’ became a rallying cry for American forces (led by William Henry Harrison) in subsequent battles to secure the Northwest territories.

We watched two park films. One older free one and a newer ticketed one. The original was mostly ‘matter of fact’ while the new version, sadly, was a recently produced ‘woke’ film that tried to minimize and rationalize the slaughter of helpless Americans. A lot of facts were left out. The Indian situation was sad but not unexpected when an advanced civilization meets a hunter-gather one. World history is filled with similar examples.

We returned to the Toledo area to visit Fallen Timbers Battlefield and Fort Miamis National Historic Site. It consists of three sites along the Maumee River that runs through Toledo into Lake Erie. All the rivers that fed into the Great Lakes were sites of early settlements and forts because of their ease of transportation and proximity to the Indian fur trade.

Our first stop, Fort Miamis, is a small green park situated within an upscale neighborhood of riverside mansions. Only the earthwork outlines of the fort remain. After the Revolutionary War the British ceded the rights to the Northwest territory to the US. Unfortunately the lucrative fur trade made them reluctant to leave. The British built this fort in violation of the Treaty of Paris to support and supply the Indian resistance to American expansion.

A few miles away we visited the Fallen Timbers Memorial. Early efforts by the Americans to secure the area were soundly defeated by the British-supplied Indians. George Washington then called on retired General ‘Mad Anthony' Wayne to recruit and train a large force to ensure US sovereignty over the region. Wayne marched north and defeated the Indian Confederacy near Fort Miamis in an area where a stand of storm-felled trees formed a natural defense. As a result the Northwest remained largely peaceful until the War of 1812.

After viewing the large memorial we checked out the battlefield. It was a brisk walk through a nice forest interrupted with a dozen storyboards. A great alternative to our normal daily neighborhood walk. And the temperature is 40 degrees cooler!

We spent the night in Maumee, OH eating at Carrabba's Italian Grill for dinner.