Fort McIntosh 1776 The Frontier

Fort McIntosh 1776 The Frontier. . In the early years of the American Revolution, while British and American armies battled along the east coast, the western frontier was relatively quiet. Sporadic raids by both whites and Indians had been climaxed by "Lord Dunmore's War" in 1774, in which Shawnees were defeated at Point Pleasant at the mouth of the Kanawha River, forcing the release of many settlers held prisoner by the Indians., This portion of the frontier was bordered by the Iroquois on the north, and the Delaware, Ottawa, Wyandot, Shawnee, Chippewa and various groups of Mingos to the north and west. Congress attempted to keep these nations neutral by a series of treaties made at Fort Pitt, and by a promise from the Americans that the Ohio River would forever be the boundary between the whites and the Indians., By 1776, while the British were not yet ready for all-out war, this promise was put to the test. In the west, the British at Fort Detroit began to enlist the Indians for a war on the white settlements by paying for scalps. The raids by the British and their Indian allies began to increase and reached within the old boundaries of the Ohio River, with many settlers being killed or taken prisoner. As these raids increased, it became apparent that the Revolutionary War would have to be won in the west as well as in the east.