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Indian Wars: Building the U.S. Army

Washington was deeply concerned about how to handle the frontier Indian tribes. He

blamed much of the problem on the “turbulence and disorderly conduct” of settlers

who would not wait for permission or protection to enter the new territories but then

who complained bitterly when Indians attacked them. Still, he needed to act with

caution because he wanted these new settlers to be loyal citizens despite his frustration

with them. On a personal level, he himself, like many members of Congress, had

speculated in western lands and stood to make money if the land could actually be

opened to white settlement. But given the poverty of the federal government—

including only 600 soldiers in the army when Washington became president—the

president hardly commanded a force that could make much of a diff erence in the vast

western territory.

Th e chief representative of the U.S. government on the western frontier, Arthur

St. Clair, was both the appointed governor of what were then the Northwest

Territories of the United States—lands Indians claimed—and a major general in

the army. Congress had ordered him to end all Indian titles to the lands between

the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. But St. Clair lacked the resources to do his job.

His strategy, as he wrote to Washington, was to divide and conquer—to seek many

treaties with individual tribes rather than one overall treaty with all the tribes.

But this strategy did not go well. In 1789, just before Washington’s inauguration,

St. Clair negotiated several treaties with one group of Indian leaders at Fort

Harmar, but most other leaders and most tribes rejected these treaties, making

them virtually useless.

In 1790, Washington asked Congress to expand the army so it could force the

tribes of the Ohio region to “sue for peace before a blow is struck at them.” Congress

agreed to expand the army to 1,000 men and added 1,500 state militia from Kentucky,

Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Th is increased force, however, was still not strong enough

to win the victories the president thought essential.

In September 1790, 1,450 troops under General Josiah Harmar marched into

the territory of the Miami and Shawnee to destroy villages and crops as a show of

force that might stop the attacks on frontier settlements. In October, Harmar’s army

was attacked by Shawnees, Miamis, and Pottawattamies, and 500 of the Americans

were killed before the rest retreated. Aft er this defeat, attacks on white settlements

continued, and attempts at negotiating peace failed. Although some Indians, led by

a Seneca named Cornplanter, sought to make a separate peace for their tribes, most

others rejected the government’s proposed treaties.

In 1791, President Washington ordered a new attack. General St. Clair himself

led 2,000 troops in a direct assault on the Miamis on the Wabash River in what

is now Indiana. On November 4, 1791, 1,500 Indians from several tribes led by

Mishikinakwa—or Little Turtle—of the Miami and Blue Jacket of the Shawnee

killed over 500 troops and most of the expedition’s female camp followers.

Washington was shocked that St. Clair had allowed his army “to be cut to pieces,

hacked, butchered, tomahawked,” and relieved St. Clair of his command. As 1792

began, most of the area the United States called its Northwest Territory was in

Indian hands.

The battles between the U.S. military and a

confederation of tribes that were fought between

1785 and 1795 were sometimes referred to as

the Northwest Indian War, or Little Turtle’s War, in

recognition of the central role of the Miami leader,

Little Turtle, in the early defeats of the U.S. forces.

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204 Part III A New Birth of Freedom—Creating the United States of America, 1754–1800

Th roughout 1792, the Washington administration and many of the Indians tried

to negotiate. In June 1792, Joseph Brant, the Mohawk leader who had earlier traveled

to London to meet with King George III, went to Philadelphia and met with President

Washington, becoming one of the few people to meet with both national leaders. Th e

meeting with Washington was cordial but did not lead to any fi nal agreements, and Brant

continued to strengthen his ties with Britain. Brant and most of the Iroquois, Shawnee,

and Miami leaders were determined to allow no white settlement west of the Ohio River

and demanded that the United States abandon its forts in that territory. But white set-

tlers continued to move across the Ohio River. Th ey and their government wanted more

land. Some of the negotiations were good faith eff orts. Some were a sham. All failed.

While some in Congress and the press argued for peace and an end to the waste of

money and lives in western military campaigns, Washington called for a full-scale war

on the Indians. Secretary of War Knox began to create a truly professional army of 5,000

men. In late 1793, he launched a third military campaign in the Northwest Territory.

In place of the disgraced St. Clair, Washington appointed Anthony Wayne

(known as “Mad” Anthony Wayne) as major general of the U.S. Army. Wayne trained

his army, and during the winter of 1793–94, they built a new base, Fort Recovery, on

the site of St. Clair’s defeat. In August 1794, Wayne’s army defeated a large Indian

force led by the Shawnee Blue Jacket at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, near present-day

Toledo, Ohio. Aft er fi erce fi ghting among twisted tree limbs and trunks, the Indians

broke ranks and retreated. British forces at the nearby Fort Miami did not support

their Indian allies, and Wayne decided not to attack the British fort (see Map 7-1 ).

A year later, the Treaty of Greenville ended major hostilities between Indians and

whites in the future states of Ohio and Indiana. Th e treaty established Indian reserves while ceding most of the remaining lands to white settlers. For the tribes of the

Northwest, the Battle of Fallen Timbers and the Treaty of Greenville were the end of

their control of the territory. Th e defeated Indian leader Little Turtle was blunt, telling

General Anthony Wayne, “You have pointed out to us the boundary line between

the Indians and the United States, but I now take the liberty to inform you, that the

line cuts off from the Indians a large portion of the country, which has been enjoyed

by my forefathers from time immemorial, without molestation or dispute.” But aft er

Fallen Timbers there was little that the tribal leaders could do. Many Indians moved

to British Canada or further west into the Louisiana Territory, still formally controlled

by Spain. Although groups of Indians and settlers continued minor skirmishes for

another 20 years, 1795 was the end of the Indian Wars in the Ohio region. Eff orts to

survey settlements and create local governments came quickly.

Washington’s goals for the Northwest Territory and for dealing with the Indians

were mostly accomplished. White settlers got the lands they wanted, the British lost

their most powerful ally in the region, and the power and prestige of the U.S. Army

were enhanced. Settlement continued long aft er Washington left offi ce, and Ohio was

admitted as a state in 1803. Indiana followed in 1816, Illinois in 1818, but Michigan

and Wisconsin much later in 1837 and 1848, respectively.