Northwest Indian War
| Northwest Indian War | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the American Indian Wars | |||||||||
This depiction of the Treaty of Greenville negotiations may have been painted by one of Anthony Wayne's officers. | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
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United States Chickasaw Choctaw |
Province of Quebec (until 1791) Upper Canada (1791–1795) | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
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George Washington Henry Knox Josiah Harmar Arthur St. Clair Anthony Wayne James Wilkinson |
Blue Jacket Little Turtle Buckongahelas Egushawa William Campbell William Caldwell | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
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1,221 killed 458 wounded |
1,000+ killed Unknown wounded | ||||||||
The Northwest Indian War was an armed conflict for control of the Northwest Territory between the United States and a loose confederation of Native American peoples who called themselves the United Indian Nations but are better known today as the Northwestern Confederacy. The United States Army considers the conflict to be the first of the American Indian Wars.
Following centuries of conflict involving Native Americans and Europeans for control of the region, the lands comprising the Northwest Territory were ceded by Great Britain to the newly formed United States in the 1783 Treaty of Paris. The treaty used the Great Lakes as a border between British North America and the US, and led to the Americans assuming control over the Ohio Country and Illinois Country, which had previously been prohibited to American settlement. As US settlers moved into the Northwest Territory, they were resisted by local Native Americans, and a Huron-led confederacy was formed in 1785 to resist American expansion onto their lands.
Four years after the confederacy was formed, the Constitution of the United States went into effect; George Washington was sworn in as president, which made him the commander-in-chief of all U.S. military forces. Washington subsequently directed the United States Army to enforce American sovereignty over the Northwest Territory. The U.S. Army, mainly consisting of untrained recruits and bolstered by volunteer militiamen, suffered a series of significant defeats, including the 1790 Harmar campaign and St. Clair's defeat in 1791, which are among the worst defeats ever suffered in the history of the United States Army.
St. Clair's defeat destroyed most of the U.S. Army and left white settlers on the American frontier vulnerable to attack. Washington appointed General Anthony Wayne to rebuild the U.S. Army, with Wayne reorganizing it into the Legion of the United States in 1792 and spending a year training and supplying the Legion. He proceeded to lead a methodical campaign up the Great Miami and Maumee river valleys in the Ohio Country before leading the Legion to a decisive victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers near the Lake Erie in 1794. Wayne subsequently established Fort Wayne at the Miami capital of Kekionga, and the defeated Northwestern Confederacy was forced to cede extensive territory, including much of present-day Ohio, to the US in the 1795 Treaty of Greenville. The war confirmed American control over the Northwest Territory, although the region would be invaded by British forces during the War of 1812.