Editing Piqua, Ohio (section)

===Early settlements===
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In 1749, [[Pickawillany|Fort Pickawillany]] was constructed by the British to protect their trading post at a [[Miami people|Miami]] village of the same name. It was located at the confluence of [[Loramie Creek]] and the [[Great Miami River]].

In 1752, [[Charles Michel de Langlade|Charles de Langlade]], an [[Odawa]] war chief of partial French Canadian descent, attacked the fort. He led more than 240 Odawa and [[Ojibwe]] warriors allied with French forces against the British and the Miami village in the [[Raid on Pickawillany|Battle of Pickawillany]]. The Miami chief and a British trader were killed in the conflict.

After the battle, the British and Miami abandoned this site. The Miami rebuilt Pickawillany, and Piqua later developed near their village. The British soon took over the area after defeating the French in the [[French and Indian War]].

Until 1780, Piqua had been the capital town of the Shawnee located on the [[Mad River (Ohio)|Mad River]] about 23 miles southeast of the modern town (near Springfield). That year, an expedition by Gen. [[George Rogers Clark]] culminated in the [[Battle of Piqua]], after which the town and surrounding fields were burned. The Shawnee relocated north and west to the Great Miami River. Piqua was settled as two separate Shawnee villages late in 1780, known as Upper Piqua and Lower Piqua.

In 1790, General Harmar found the site on the Great Miami River abandoned and in ruins, as did General Wayne in 1794.

As Gen. Anthony Wayne's [[Legion of the United States|Legion]] was returning to Greenville via Loramie's trading post and Piqua at the termination of their Indian Country campaign in fall 1794, Wayne wrote a letter to Henry Knox dated October 17, 1794, in which he recommended that forts be built at those two locations as waystations along the Miami River.  A detachment of Wayne's forces from Greenville built or repaired a small fort and supply depot named Fort Piqua in Upper Piqua on the same site as the (later) farm of Col. [[John Johnston (Indian agent)|John Johnston]] in winter 1794–95. Capt. J.N. Visher was made commander of the garrison. The fort was garrisoned through 1794 and 1795, and abandoned after the signing of the [[Treaty of Greenville]] in 1795.

By 1795, most of Ohio's Shawnee had moved to Missouri and those that remained migrated north to the Auglaize - the southwestern Indian towns were no more.  Piqua itself was well below the Greenville Treaty line and would remain abandoned until white settlers arrived.