Prologue to 1791

Prologue to 1791. . For over ten thousand years, American Indian tribes called the land east of the Mississippi River their home. The 1783 Treaty of Paris ended the American Revolutionary War with Britain ceding to the U.S. all land east of the Mississippi River, north of Florida, and south of Canada. The subsequent Land Ordinance of 1785 and Northwest Ordinance of 1787 further established the surveying and settling of land in the Northwest Territory (now Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota). American Indians living in the Northwest Territory, including the Miami, Shawnee, Delaware, Illinois, Ojibwa, Ottawa, and Huron, did not consent to U.S. control of the area, leading to years of conflict and violence between settlers and the American Indians. The time period from 1785-1795 is known as the Northwest Indian War, pitting the U.S. against an alliance of numerous American Indian tribes who called the area their home. In 1790, President George Washington ordered Brigadier General Josiah Harmar to lead U.S. forces on a "punitive expedition" into Shawnee and Miami territory near Kiihkayonki (present-day Fort-Wayne, Indiana). In October 1790, Harmar burned the evacuated Miami, Shawnee, and Delaware communities at Kiihkayonki and took any food that over 3,000 community members left behind. A series of battles followed, all resounding victories by the American Indian alliance led by Mihšihkinaahkwa (Little Turtle, Miami) and Weyapiersenwah (Blue Jacket, Shawnee). Harmar retreated in defeat to Fort Washington (present-day Cincinnati) on November 3, 1790. Harmar's campaign only increased the anxiety among American Indian tribes over the further loss of their sovereignty and lands. Increased tension and conflict as Native groups sought to defend their homelands., "The army having burned five villages, besides the capital town, and consumed abd destroyed twenty thousand bushels of corn in ears, took up their line of march back to Fort Washington, and encamped eight miles from the ruins." --From Major Ebenezer Denny's diary, dated October 21, 1790 recounting Harmar's troops burning the Miami, Shawnee, and Delaware villages at Kiihkayonki