Not long after I started writing my weekly column, I realized the late Uncle Bunky loved talking about local history. We enjoyed trading stories and items such as artifacts and books. I would often tell him the stories I was working on and he would later give me illustrations he had drawn to use with those stories.

One day he said someone had given him a metal arrowhead that had been found in the Cedar Creek area of southern Lowndes County. He asked if I had ever found one. I told him I had not only never found one but had never heard of one being found in Lowndes County. He smiled one of his mischievous smiles and said, “Then you need this one and I’m giving it to you.”

When I got home, I closely examined the arrowhead and noticed a small HBC stamped into one side. I looked the mark up and was surprised to find it was the Hudson Bay Company. Hudson Bay was a Canadian company that entered into the Great Lakes and Ohio River Valley Indian trade in the late 1600s, and beginning in the 20th century opened department stores in Canada. The company survived until last year.

Research revealed no company records mentioning trade with either the Mississippi Chickasaw or Choctaw Nations. I asked several friends who are archaeologists if they had ever heard of Hudson Bay arrowheads associated with Chickasaw or Choctaw sites. They had not heard of any being found or any reference to trade between the tribes in Mississippi and Hudson Bay. That raises a question of where the arrowhead came from. Did it come through trade with an Ohio River Valley Indian, or maybe a local Indian had traveled north and brought it home? Considering where Bunky said the arrowhead had been found, I let my imagination run wild. There was another possibility. There was extensive trade between the Shawnee Nation in the Ohio Valley and the Hudson Bay Co.

One of the famous figures in early American history was the great leader of the Shawnee Nation, Tecumseh. At an 1810 council of the Shawnee Nation, Tecumseh objected to Indian lands being sold to intruding Anglo-American settlers. With his brother Ten-squat-a-way (Open Door), who was called “The Prophet,” at his side Tecumseh spoke to the assembly saying, “What sell a country; why not sell the air, the clouds, and the great sea, as well as the earth? Did not the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his children?”

In 1811, he traveled through the Indian nations of present-day Alabama and Mississippi in an attempt to propose a grand union of Native American peoples to counter the ever-increasing expansion of Euro-American settlers. It was probably in the late spring of 1811 that he entered the Mississippi Territory. He met first with the Chickasaws. He sought the help of the influential Chickasaw George Colbert. Colbert, however, rejected Tecumseh’s overture and responded that the Chickasaws were at peace with the whites and wished to remain so.

Tecumseh then traveled south to the Choctaw Nation. Veering westerly off the road from the Chickasaws to the Choctaw Nation, he crossed Tibbee Creek a little west of where present-day Highway 45 Alternate crosses Tibbee below West Point. He did so to avoid passing close to John Pitchlynn’s residence at Plymouth Bluff. Pitchlynn was the U.S. interpreter for the Choctaw who had been appointed by George Washington.

Tradition says Tecumseh was met at his crossing by Choctaw Capt. Tisha Homa, who was called “Red Pepper.” Red Pepper was known as a man of peace and lived about 10 miles southwest of present-day Columbus. The first night he was in the Choctaw Nation, Tecumseh and the 20 Shawnee warriors who accompanied him camped in a grove of trees on a hill in the southwest corner of present-day Lowndes County. The next day he arrived at the home of Moshulitubbee, the chief of the Northern District of the Choctaw Nation (present-day Mushulaville). The Choctaws held several councils in their nation with Tecumseh but the Shawnee was not well received. There was to be one last national council at Moshulatubbee’s other residence, his prairie village.

In 1903, William Love, a historian whose farm was in southern Lowndes County, wrote that, “Major Thomas G. Blewett, bought the home (Moshulatubbee’s) and two sections of land of Moshulitubbee at some time in the early in 1832. Major Blewett often stated to various persons that he was informed by Moshulitubbee that the council was held there (now just below Noxubee Lowndes County line north east of Brooksville) and that he was present and an eyewitness to everything that occurred; that Moshulitubbee called his attention more than once to the large red oak tree under which the council was held and to the several small lakes in the lowlands around which encamped the large number of Choctaws who attended the council.”

Tecumseh arrived at the council site after some of the most important figures in the Choctaw Nation had already assembled. Those assembled included Pushmataha, Hoentubbee, Puckshenubbee, John Pitchlynn, David Folsom and Moshulitubbee. At the council, Tecumseh spoke first, followed the next day by Choctaw Southern District Chief Pushmataha. In an impassioned response, Pushmataha spoke of the Choctaw’s long friendship with the white people and stated that any Choctaw who joined with Tecumseh, if not killed in battle, would be put to death if he returned home. The council ended with Tecumseh being ordered to leave the Choctaw Nation and David Folsom was directed to escort him to the Tombigbee River.

Tecumseh departed and proceeded to the Creek Nation where he was more warmly received. The Creek Nation was divided as to whether to support Tecumseh’s proposal, and a Creek civil war ensued. In the summer of 1813 American settlers in the Tombigbee/Alabama River Valley got involved in the Civil War, which led to fighting between the settlers and the Red Stick Creek faction. It was the start of the Creek War phase of the War of 1812.

Tecumseh was killed in October 1813, fighting alongside the British against United States troops at the Battle of Thames in Canada. It was said in 1850 that in his last battle he displayed “a degree of courage and sagacity beyond that of the British commander, whose ally he was.”

I can’t help but wonder if the metal Hudson Bay arrowhead might have been lost by Tecumseh or one of the other Shawnee warriors. Cedar Creek, where Bunky said it was found, flows only about 2 miles north of that last council site.

Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].

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