Northwest Indian War in the context of "Northwest Territory"

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⭐ Core Definition: Northwest Indian War

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.

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Northwest Indian War in the context of Ohio

Ohio (/ˈh./ oh-HY-oh) is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the west, and Michigan to the northwest. Of the 50 U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area. With a population of nearly 11.9 million, Ohio is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated state. Its capital and most populous city is Columbus, with other major metropolitan centers including Cleveland and Cincinnati, as well as Dayton, Akron, and Toledo. Ohio is nicknamed the "Buckeye State" after its Ohio buckeye trees, and Ohioans are also known as "Buckeyes".

Ohio derives its name from the Ohio River that forms its southern border, which, in turn, originated from the Seneca word ohiːyo', meaning "good river", "great river", or "large creek". The state was home to several ancient indigenous civilizations, with humans present as early as 10,000 BC. It arose from the lands west of the Appalachian Mountains that were contested by various native tribes and European colonists from the 17th century through the Northwest Indian Wars of the late 18th century. Ohio was partitioned from the Northwest Territory, the first frontier of the new United States, becoming the 17th state admitted to the Union on March 1, 1803, and the first under the Northwest Ordinance. It was the first post-colonial free state admitted to the union and became one of the earliest and most influential industrial powerhouses during the 20th century.

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Northwest Indian War in the context of Fort Vincennes

During the 18th and early 19th centuries, the French, British and U.S. forces built and occupied a number of forts at Vincennes, Indiana. These outposts commanded a strategic position on the Wabash River. The names of the installations were changed by the various ruling parties, and the forts were considered strategic in the French and Indian War, the American Revolutionary War, the Northwest Indian War and the War of 1812. The last fort was abandoned in 1816.

The settlement around the forts was best known as the territorial capital of the Northwest Territory (later, the Indiana Territory). The best known event was Gen. William Henry Harrison's mustering of forces at Vincennes just prior to his campaign against the Indian capital at Prophetstown in Tippecanoe, culminating in the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811. This battle was one of the factors that contributed to the start of the War of 1812.

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Northwest Indian War in the context of William Henry Harrison

William Henry Harrison (February 9, 1773 – April 4, 1841) was the ninth president of the United States, serving from March 4 to April 4, 1841, the shortest presidency in U.S. history. He was also the first U.S. president to die in office, causing a brief constitutional crisis, since presidential succession was not then fully defined in the U.S. Constitution. Harrison was the last president born as a British subject in the Thirteen Colonies. He was a member of the Harrison family of Virginia, and a son of Benjamin Harrison V, who was a U.S. Founding Father. His own son John Scott Harrison was the father of Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd U.S. president.

Harrison was born in Charles City County, Virginia. In 1794, he participated in the Battle of Fallen Timbers, an American military victory that ended the Northwest Indian War. In 1811, he led a military force against Tecumseh's confederacy at the Battle of Tippecanoe, for which he earned the nickname "Old Tippecanoe". He was promoted to major general in the Army during the War of 1812, and led American infantry and cavalry to victory at the Battle of the Thames in Upper Canada.

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Northwest Indian War in the context of Northwest Ordinance

The Northwest Ordinance (formally An Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States, North-West of the River Ohio and also known as the Ordinance of 1787), enacted July 13, 1787, was an organic act of the Congress of the Confederation of the United States. It created the Northwest Territory, the new nation's first organized incorporated territories between British North America and the Great Lakes to the north and the Ohio River to the south. The upper Mississippi River formed the territory's western boundary. Pennsylvania was the eastern boundary.

In the 1783 Treaty of Paris, which formally ended the American Revolutionary War, Great Britain ceded the region to the United States. However, the Confederation Congress faced numerous problems gaining control of the land such as the unsanctioned movement of American settlers into the Ohio Valley; violent resistance from the region's indigenous peoples; the continued presence of British outposts in the region and an empty U.S. treasury. The ordinance superseded the Land Ordinance of 1784, which declared that states would one day be formed within the region, and the Land Ordinance of 1785, which described how the Confederation Congress would sell the land to private citizens. Designed to serve as a plan for the development and settlement of the region, the 1787 ordinance lacked a strong central government to implement it. That need was addressed shortly with the formation of the U.S. federal government in 1789. The First Congress reaffirmed the 1787 ordinance and, with slight modifications, renewed it with the Northwest Ordinance of 1789.

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Northwest Indian War in the context of George Rogers Clark

George Rogers Clark (November 19, 1752 – February 13, 1818) was an American military officer and surveyor from Virginia who became the highest-ranking Patriot military officer on the northwestern frontier during the Revolutionary War. He served as leader of the Virginia militia in Kentucky (then part of Virginia) throughout much of the war. He is best known for his captures of Kaskaskia in 1778 and Vincennes in 1779 during the Illinois campaign, which greatly weakened British influence in the Northwest Territory (then part of the British Province of Quebec) and earned Clark the nickname of "Conqueror of the Old Northwest". The British ceded the entire Northwest Territory to the United States in the 1783 Treaty of Paris.

Clark's major military achievements occurred before his thirtieth birthday. Afterward, he led militia forces in the opening engagements of the Northwest Indian War, but was accused of being drunk on duty. He was disgraced and forced to resign, despite his demand for a formal investigation into the accusations. Clark left Kentucky to live in the Indiana Territory but was never fully reimbursed by the Virginian government for his wartime expenditures. During the final decades of his life, he worked to evade creditors and suffered living in increasing poverty and obscurity. He was involved in two failed attempts to open the Spanish-controlled Mississippi River to American traffic. Following a stroke and the amputation of his right leg, he became disabled. Clark was aided in his final years by family members, including his younger brother William, one of the leaders of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. He died of a stroke on February 13, 1818.

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Northwest Indian War in the context of Hardin County, Illinois

Hardin County is a county located in the U.S. state of Illinois. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 3,649, making it the least populous county in Illinois. Its county seat is Elizabethtown. Hardin County is located in the part of the state known as Little Egypt. Hardin County was named for Hardin County, Kentucky, which was named in honor of Colonel John Hardin, an officer in the American Revolutionary War and the Northwest Indian War.

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Northwest Indian War in the context of Battle of Fallen Timbers

The Battle of Fallen Timbers (20 August 1794) was the final battle of the Northwest Indian War, a struggle between the Northwestern Confederacy and United States for control of the Northwest Territory. The battle took place amid trees toppled by a tornado near the Maumee River in northwestern Ohio at the site of the present-day city of Maumee, Ohio.

Major General Anthony Wayne's Legion of the United States, supported by General Charles Scott's Kentucky militia, were victorious against a combined Native American force of Shawnee under Blue Jacket, Ottawas under Egushawa, and many others. The battle was brief, lasting little more than one hour, but it scattered the confederated Native American forces.

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Northwest Indian War in the context of Western Confederacy

The Northwestern Confederacy, or Northwestern Indian Confederacy, was a loose confederacy of Native Americans in the Great Lakes region of the United States created after the American Revolutionary War. Formally, the confederacy referred to itself as the United Indian Nations, at their Confederate Council. It was known infrequently as the Miami Confederacy since many contemporaneous federal officials overestimated the influence and numerical strength of the Miami tribes based on the size of their principal city, Kekionga.

The confederacy, which had its roots in pan-tribal movements dating to the 1740s, formed in an attempt to resist the expansion of the United States and the encroachment of American settlers into the Northwest Territory after Great Britain ceded the region to the U.S. in the 1783 Treaty of Paris. American expansion resulted in the Northwest Indian War (1785–1795), in which the Confederacy won significant victories over the United States, but concluded with a U.S. victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. The Confederacy became fractured and agreed to peace with the United States, but the pan-tribal resistance was later rekindled by Tenskwatawa (known as the Prophet) and his brother, Tecumseh, resulting in the formation of Tecumseh's confederacy.

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