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.
By Lauren Shows
