Pickawillany (also spelled Pickawillamy, Pickawillani, or Picqualinni) was an 18th-century Miami Indian village located on the Great Miami River in North America's Ohio Valley near the modern city of Piqua, Ohio. In 1749 an English trading post was established alongside the Miami village, selling goods to neighboring tribes at the site. In 1750, a stockade (Fort Pickawillany) was constructed to protect the post. French and English colonists were competing for control of the fur trade in the Ohio Country as part of their overall struggle for dominance in North America. In less than five years, Pickawillany grew to be one of the largest Native American communities in eastern North America. The French decided to punish Miami chief Memeskia (also known as La Demoiselle or Old Briton), for rejecting the French alliance and dealing with the English traders, which threatened what had previously been a French monopoly over local commerce. On 21 June 1752, the village and trading post were destroyed in the raid on Pickawillany, also known as the Battle of Pickawillany, when French-allied Indians attacked the village, killing Memeskia and at least one English trader and burning the English stockade and the trading post. Following the attack, the village of Pickawillany was relocated about a mile to the southeast. The city of Piqua, Ohio, was established later near this site. Pickawillany's destruction directly encouraged greater British fortification and military presence at other outposts in the Ohio Valley, and has been seen as a precursor to the wider British-French conflict that would become the French and Indian War. Etymology The English term Pickawillany derives from , the Shawnee word for the Miami people – literally, "foreigner". The Miami name for the village () is a direct translation of the Shawnee or "ash people." Establishment and early history In the two decades preceding the French and Indian War, France struggled to maintain military and economic control of the Ohio Country, which was strategically crucial to lines of supply and communication between Canada and Louisiana. French dominance largely depended on the continued favorable relations between the government of New France and the Native American tribes living in the region, primarily the Miamis (Twightwees), the Wyandots (Hurons), and the Shawnees. English traders from Pennsylvania were able to supply cheaper goods in larger quantities than the French traders could, attracting a greater share of the fur trade and influencing many Ohio tribes to shift