Northwest Indian War - Postwar Tensions

Postwar Tensions

The Ohio territory was subject to overlapping and conflicting claims by the states of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and Virginia, and to those by the Shawnee, Mingo, Lenape and other actual inhabitants, who were no longer considered tributary to the Six Nations. While the British had suffered a major defeat at the Battle of Yorktown (1781), there had been no decisive defeat for their Indian allies in the Northwest Territories. The Indian tribes in the Old Northwest were not parties to the treaty. Many leaders, especially Little Turtle and Blue Jacket, refused to recognize United States claims to the area northwest of the Ohio River. The British remained in possession of their Great Lakes forts, through which they continued to supply Indian allies with trade items and weapons in exchange for furs. Some in the British government wished to maintain a neutral Indian territory between Canada and the United States, but most agreed that immediate withdrawal was not possible without sparking a new Indian war. The lingering British presence was not formally ended until their withdrawal from the Great Lakes forts pursuant to the Jay Treaty negotiated in 1794, and it would continue informally afterward until the War of 1812.

Through the public sale of western lands, the Continental Congress sought to stabilize the dollar and pay down some of its war debt. The Land Ordinance of 1785 gave encouragement to land speculators, surveyors, and settlers who sought to gain new land from the Indians who may or may not have had a claim to it. To acquire most of the eastern portion of the Ohio Country, Congress negotiated the Treaty of Fort McIntosh in 1785 with several Indian tribes. Settlers from Connecticut were already streaming into the Western Reserve, which extended into part of a reservation set aside for some of the tribes.

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787, passed by the US Congress under the Articles of Confederation, gave Indians title, under U.S. law, to enjoy whatever lands they lived on. It also encouraged the influx of U.S. settlers north of the Ohio River. Localized ambushes and engagements between those settlers and Indians continued. The failure of the 1789 Treaty of Fort Harmar to address underlying grievances between the two sides exacerbated the problems.