Big Bottom Massacre

Big Bottom Massacre Site
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Plaque at the site of the Big Bottom massacre
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Coordinates	39°31′58″N 81°46′26″W / 39.53278°N 81.77389°W / 39.53278; -81.77389Coordinates: 39°31′58″N 81°46′26″W / 39.53278°N 81.77389°W / 39.53278; -81.77389
Built	1791
NRHP Reference #	70000512
Added to NRHP	November 10, 1970

The Big Bottom massacre occurred on January 2, 1791, near present-day now in Morgan County, Ohio, United States. It is considered part of the Northwest Indian Wars, in which Native Americans in the Ohio Country confronted American settlers, regular soldiers and militia, seeking to expel them from their territory.

Following the American Revolutionary War, the United States government was selling land in the Ohio Country, mostly to companies that promised to develop it. A group of American squatters had moved up to this area and settled along flood plain, or "bottom" land, of the Muskingum River, some 30 miles north of an Ohio Company of Associates settlement at Marietta, Ohio. The settlement was raided by Lenape and Wyandot warriors seeking to expel the interlopers. They stormed the incomplete blockhouse and killed eleven men, one woman, and two children. (Accounts vary as to the number of casualties.) The Indians captured three settlers, with at least one dying later, while four others escaped into the woods.

The Ohio Company of Associates sought to provide greater protection for settlers in the Northwest Territory, as the conflicts became more widespread. A coalition of Native American tribes fought to expel the newcomers and preserve their lands. The war did not end until 1794.

The Ohio History Connection manages the three-acre Big Bottom Park site, which has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In addition to the markers noted below, the site features a twelve-foot marble obelisk, picnic tables, and information signs about the site's history.

In the Gnadenhutten Massacre of 1782, Revolutionary militia forces had killed 96 unarmed Christian Lenape men, women and children, although this group were considered friendly and were neutral in the war. The attack took place at their Gnadenhutten settlement on the northern part of the Muskingum River. The terminus of this river was south at the Ohio. Later in 1787, the Treaty of Fort Harmar was signed between the United States and what an American recorded as an "...unrepresentative gathering of undistinguished chiefs..." The land of the Wyandot was reduced by the treaty, but in Ohio control of their and other tribal lands was still under dispute.