The War Coninues in the Old Northwest

While Spain was scheming in the lower Mississippi Valley, Britain was plotting in the Old Northwest.  The British still held the forts they had promised to relinquish to the United States at the end of the Revolutionary War.

Britain also encouraged the Iroquois Indian chief, Joseph Brant, to take measures against the US by not ceding any land to the Americans.  While Brant was doing that, Kentuckians were attacking Indians in the Ohio Valley, and the Indians were retaliating.

In 1790 General Josiah Harman's militia was defeated disastrously, losing 183 men.  The following year, General Arthur St. Clair, the first governor of the Northwest Territory, led the army into an ambush, suffering the loss of more than 900 men.

Then 1794 the Americans came back under General Anthony Wayne.  He revisted the defeated army and won the decisive battle at Fallen Timbers.  With 3000 troops, Wayne was able to attack an Indian force of some 2000 warriors who were supplied by the British.  Fort Miami, on the Maumee River in northwestern Ohio, had recently been built.

General Anthony Wayne was a prosperous tanner before the Revolutionary War, gained the name "Mad Anthony Wayne" during the Revolution because of his "dashing" behavior.   Washington called him out of retirement to lead the army in the Northwest. Ironically, in the Battle of Fallen Timbers, General Wayne was patient, waiting for just the right time to attack.


Leading the Indians was Blue Jacket, a powerful Shawnee noted for bravery in battle.  He was believed to be a white man who had been kidnapped by the Shawnee early in life.  With the Indians on the run from General Wayne, the British suddenly decided to close the gate of Fort Miami (claiming a policy of neutrality) and the fleeing Shawnee, who were supposed to be protected by the British, instead found themselves alone and defeated both in battle and morally.

The Treaty of Greenville in 1791 which ended the Battle of Fallen Timbers, was represented by Miami chief Little Turtle for the Indians.  Ceded to the Americans was most of the Ohio Territory.  In 1794 in Jay's Treaty, the British finally agreed to give the forts back (again!) in exchange for the payment of debts owned to British merchants .  They retained their trading rights with the Indians in the territory which was a bad mistake for the settlers living there.  (The government continued to care less about the "western settlers" and their struggles to make a life among
the Indians.)

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Today in Pioneer History: "On November 24, 1876, William Marcy “Boss” Tweed, leader of New York City’s corrupt Tammany Hall political organization during the 1860s and early 1870s, is delivered to authorities in New York City after his capture in Spain.