Northwest Indian War

The War of the Wabash Confederacy (1785-1795) was a so-called Indian War fought between the United States and a large confederation of Native American nations of the Old Northwest.

Parties to the Wabash Confederacy

• Huron/Wyandot nation
• Shawnee nation
• Council of the Three Fires
  • Potawatomi nation
  • Ottawa nation
  • Ojibwe nation
• Delaware nation
• Miami nation
• Six Nations of the Grand River
  • Mohawk nation
  • Cayuga nation
  • Onondaga nation
  • Seneca nation
  • Tuscarora nation
  • Oneida (only dissidents)
• Kickapoo nation
• Kaskaskia nation

Context of the War

Co-operation among the nations forming the Confederacy had gone back to the French colonial era and was renewed during the American Revolutionary War.

The Treaty of Paris (1783) had given the United States government control, on paper, of all the land east of the Mississippi river and south of the Great Lakes; but the Native American nations actually living in this region were not party to the talks. And while the British Crown had suffered a major defeat at the Battle of Yorktown (1781), there had been no decisive defeat for their Native American allies in the west. Furthermore, the British remained in possession of the Great Lakes forts through which they continued to supply their Native American allies with trade items (including weapons).

Finally, Congress sought to stabilize the dollar and pay down its war debt through the sale of western lands under Native American occupation. The Land Ordinance of 1785 gave encouragement to land speculators, surveyors, and so on, who sought to gain Native American land - sometimes through bribery or deceit - for resale to Anglo settlers.

History of the Conflict

The Wabash Confederacy first came together in the autumn of 1785 at the British fortress at Detroit, proclaiming that the parties to the Confederacy would deal jointly with the United States, rather than individually. This determination was renewed in 1786 at the village of the Hurons, where the Confederacy further insisted on the Ohio river as the boundary between their lands and those of the American settlers. The Hurons were the nominal "fathers" or senior guaranteeing nation of the Confederacy, but Shawnees and Miamis provided the greatest share of the fighting force.

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 gave Native Americans title, under US law, to enjoy whatever lands had not been taken from them, but it continued to encourage the influx of US settlers beyond the Ohio. Localized engagements between those settlers and Native Americans continued to rage.

In 1790, the US government launched a major western offensive. Under Josiah Harmar, the Americans burnt Kekionga, the main village of the Miamis, but were ambushed by Confederates under Little Turtle and fell back.

The governor of the Northwest Territory, Arthur St. Clair, was given command of a second offensive in 1791. St Clair built a number of forts along the same general route as Harmar had taken, but at a battle at what is now Fort Recovery, Indiana, Confederates from the Shawnee, Delaware, and Huron nations among others ambushed the Americans and killed many hundreds of them. St Clair withdrew in defeat.

"Mad Anthony" Wayne was given command of the new Legion of the United States late in 1793. He advanced into Indian country and built Fort Recovery on the site of St Clair's defeat. In June 1794 Little Turtle again led the attack on the Americans at Fort Recovery, but without success, and Wayne's Legion advanced deeper into the territory of the Wabash Confederacy. Blue Jacket replaced Little Turtle in overall command, but could not prevent the Native American's defeat at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in August 1794.

Fleeing from the battlefield to regroup at the British-held Fort Miamis, Blue Jacket's forces found that the British had locked them out of the fort. The British and Americans were reaching a close rapprochement at this time to counter Jacobin France. Two treaties in 1795 sealed the new state of affairs. The Treaty of Greenville required the Confederates to cede most of Ohio and a slice of Indiana to the US; to recognize the US, rather than Britain, as the suzerain powers in the Old Northwest; and to give ten chiefs to the US as hostages in guarantee. Jay's Treaty, which had already been signed, provided for the British withdrawal from the western forts.

Commanders

For the US

• Josiah Harmar, general
• Arthur St. Clair, governor of the Northwest Territory, major general
• Anthony Wayne, major general

For the Wabash Confederacy

• Little Turtle (Miami)
• Blue Jacket (Shawnee)
• Buckongahelas (Lenape)