Peter Chartier (1690—c.1759) (Anglicized version of Pierre Chartier, sometimes written Chartiere, Chartiers, Shartee or Shortive) was a fur trader of French and Shawnee parentage who became a tribal chief and was an early advocate for Native American civil rights, speaking out against the sale of alcohol in indigenous communities in Pennsylvania. He first attempted to limit the sale of rum in Shawnee communities in the Province of Pennsylvania, then launched a movement to prohibit it altogether. Conflict with the colonial government motivated him to lead his community of over 400 Pekowi Shawnees on a four-year odyssey through Ohio, Kentucky, Alabama and Indiana, eventually resettling in Illinois. He later fought on the side of the French during the French and Indian War.
Two communities (Chartiers Township and Chartiers (Pittsburgh)), several rivers including Chartiers Creek, Chartiers Run (Allegheny River) and Chartiers Run (Chartiers Creek), and two school districts (Chartiers-Houston School District and Chartiers Valley School District) are named after him.
Peter Chartier, son of Martin, followed his father's model, and married a Shawnee woman. After his father's death in 1718, he was granted 300 acres on the Susquenna River, land that his father had settled on. He traded with the Shawnee and later settled with them at the mouth of Shawnee (now Yellow Britches) Creek. He later removed to Conococheague. In 1730, he was licensed as an Indian Trader. He removed to the Allegheny after 1734.[1]
After an unsuccessful effort to convince Pennsylvania to limit the unlicensed traders from selling their wares (including undesirable rum) to the Shawnee, and by April 1745, Chartier appears to have switched allegiance from the "English" to the French:
In July 1745, Chartier, apparently with a commission from the King of France, and a group of armed Shawnee reportedly took a few traders as prisoners, and stole furs and skins worth 1,600 pounds.
From Wikipedia:
"Pierre [Peter] Chartier was born in 1690 at French Lick on the Cumberland River in northeastern Tennessee, near the present-day site of Nashville, where his father [Martin] ran a trading post.
His mother gave Pierre the Shawnee name of Wacanackshina, meaning "White one who reclines". Around 1697 his family moved to Pequea Creek in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
Pierre Chartier married his first cousin, Blanceneige-Wapakonee Opessa (1695-1737), daughter of Opessa Straight Tail and his wife, about 1710. They had three children together:
In 1717, Governor William Penn granted his father Martin a 300-acre tract of land along the Conestoga River in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. (One source says the grant was for 500 acres). Together the father and son established a trading post in Conestoga Town. In 1718 they moved to Dekanoagah on Yellow Breeches Creek near the Susquehanna River.
Peter Chartier was last seen in 1758 in a village on the Wabash River.
There is some evidence that Chartier [and his mother Sewatha Straight Tail] died in an outbreak of smallpox that had originated in 1757 in Quebec. It spread through Native American communities across North America.
See also:
Historical Register: Notes and Queries, Biographical and Genealogical. VOl 2 N.p., n.p, 1884. Accessed December 2022, Google Books https://www.google.com/books/edition/Historical_Register/wdIUAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0
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