Victory and Honors

Following Anthony Wayne's victory at Fallen Timbers, he marched his men back to Fort Defiance and then to the juncture of the St. Mary's and St. Joseph's rivers.  There he built a fort and gave it the name that stayed with the thriving frontier city that grew up around it - Fort Wayne.  Everywhere Wayne and his men went they burned crops and villages while the inhabitants fled. 

At last the Americans had the upper hand.  The British were no longer trusted to protect the native tribes and the Americans weapons were feared.  It was easy for Wayne to convince the chiefs that their best interest lay with the United States. 

In 1795, a treaty with the British finally gave up their remaining posts on United States soil.  Wayne announced that the Indians ceded all the land in southern Ohio and southeastern Indiana along with the posts at Fort Wayne, Detroit and Michilimackimac. The United States recognized the Indian title to all the lands not ceded and promised the tribes annual subsidies.  For 15 years both sides held faithfully to the treaty, while the pioneer and Indian lived in peace.

Meanwhile, General Wayne became a national hero.  He returned to Philadelphia in 1796 where he was hailed with ringing bells, a 15 gun salute and dazzling fireworks.  He had one last task - to receive the posts relinquished from the British.  Back to forest country and  that summer he took back Detroit.  On the return journey, Wayne suffered another attack of gout and died at Presquisle (Erie).  His final resting place is marked by a blockhouse modeled after the one he built at Fort Wayne and bears the flag he planted in the heart of the Old Northwest.

Next time...settling the Old Northwest
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Today in Pioneer History:  "On March 25, 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York burns down killing 144 workers, most of them women.  The fire led to better laws and regulations regarding protection of the safety of factory workers.

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.