Northwest Indian War

Where we are now was once the site of a war between white settlers and Native Americans.  At the end of the American Revolution, were already feeling the pressure to move west into the Ohio Country.  In 1785, only two years after the Treaty of Paris, the United States began its first war as an independent nation.  It waged the war against the Western Confederacy, a unification of many tribes including the Iroquois, Wyandot, Shawnee, Miami, and many, many more.

At first, the Western Confederacy had a few, very significant victories.  The first was defeating General Josiah Harmar's campaign into the Ohio Territory (specifically, where Fort Wayne, Indiana is today) in October 1790.  Harmar lost about one third of his force killed and many more wounded.  The second, and more famous, was the defeat of General Arthur St. Clair near Fort Recovery in November 1791.  Of St. Clair's 1,000 men, nearly two-thirds of them were killed and even more wounded.  The defeat was so severe, that George Washington used the first executive order in the history of the United States to ask for St. Clair's resignation.

A few years later, the tide changed against the Native Americans.  In 1794, General "Mad" Anthony Wayne led the newly formed Legion of the United States to a crushing Native American defeat near modern day Maumee, Ohio.  In 1795, the war came to an end when representatives of the Western Confederacy signed the Treaty of Greenville, opening the southern half of Ohio to white settlement.