Editing Ohio River (section)

===={{anchor|Arnout Viele, 1693}}Arnout Viele (1693)====
In early autumn 1692, loyal English-speaking [[New Amsterdam|Dutchman]] Arnout Viele and a party of eleven companions from [[Esopus, New York|Esopus]]<ref name=Hanna2>{{cite book |last=Hanna |first=Charles Augustus |title=The Wilderness Trail |volume=2 |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |location=New York |date=1911 |url={{google books|1k4zAQAAMAAJ|plainurl=yes}}}}</ref>—Europeans, [[Shawnee]], and a few loyal Delaware guides—were sent by the governor of New York to trade with the Shawnee and bring them into the English sphere of influence.<ref name=buck>{{cite book |last1=Buck |first1=Solon J. |last2=Buck |first2=Elizabeth |title=The Planting of Civilization in Western Pennsylvania |url={{google books|eHz4jgmAhMIC|plainurl=yes|page=47}} |publisher=University of Pittsburgh Press |date=1995 |orig-year=1939 |page=47 |edition=third |isbn=978-0-8229-7405-5}}</ref><ref name=allen>{{cite book |editor-last=Allen |editor-first=John Logan |title=North American Exploration |volume=2: A Continent Defined |publisher=University of Nebraska Press |location=Lincoln, Nebraska |date=1997 |page=311 |url={{google books|8N4ckSmAiL0C|plainurl=yes|page=311}} |isbn=978-0-8032-1023-3}}</ref> Viele understood several Native American languages, which made him valuable as an interpreter. He is credited with being the first European to travel and explore [[western Pennsylvania]] and the upper Ohio Valley. Viele made contact with Native American nations as far west as the [[Wabash River]], in present-day Indiana.<ref name=allen/>

He and his company left [[Albany, New York|Albany]], traveling southbound and crossing portions of present-day New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania. They apparently followed the [[Susquehanna River#West Branch Susquehanna|west branch of the Susquehanna River]] into the mountains, traversing the [[Tioga River (Chemung River tributary)|Tioga River]] and reaching a tributary of the [[Allegheny River]] before floating down to the Shawnee towns along the Ohio River.<ref name=allen/> Viele and his expedition spent most of 1693 exploring the Ohio River and its tributaries in northern Kentucky with their Shawnee hosts.<ref name=allen/> Gerit Luykasse, two of Viele's Dutch traders, and two Shawnee reappeared in Albany in February 1694 "to fetch powder for Arnout [Viele] and his Company";<ref name=allen/> their party had been gone for fifteen months, but Viele was away for about two years.<ref name=ricebrown>{{cite book |last1=Rice |first1=Otis K. |last2=Brown |first2=Stephen W. |title=West Virginia: A History |publisher=University Press of Kentucky |location=Lexington |edition=Second |date=1993 |orig-year=1985 |url={{google books|zlVw7sa3jocC|plainurl=yes|page=13}} |page=13 |isbn=978-0-8131-3766-7}}</ref> He and his companions returned from the Pennsylvania wilderness in August 1694, accompanied by diplomats from "seven Nations of Indians" who sought trade with the English (or peace with the powerful Iroquois nations of New York and Pennsylvania), and hundreds of Shawnee who intended to relocate in the [[Minisink]] country on the upper [[Delaware River]].<ref name=buck/><ref name=allen/>