Native Nations in the Early Republic

The Early Republic and Native Nations

• native nations held power on the ground
  • multi-ethnic “western confederacy” in north
  • allied with britain
  • similar confederacies in south
  • allied with spain
• US government claimed exclusive right to conduct diplomacy with native people
  • treated them as independent nations with limited sovereignty
  • treaties became tools of dispossession

The Western Confederacy and the “Northwest Indian War”

• settlers often disregarded US laws/treaties, violating native rights
• encroachment led to violence
  • courts refused to convict white offenders
  • native leaders couldn’t stop reprisals
  • small-scale violence led to war
• native forces under Little Turtle defeat US military expeditions in 1790 and 1791
• 1794, another expedition
  • 80% of 1794 federal budget
  • Battle of fallen Timbers (August 20,1794)
  • Little Turtle’s army defeated
  • british refused to aid
• Treaty of Greenville, 1795
  • native nations ceded huge territory
  • relative calm for about 15 years
  • dispossession continued, deepening social and economic crises among native people