Anthony Wayne: Encyclopedia II - Anthony Wayne - Northwest Indian War

Anthony Wayne - Northwest Indian War

President George Washington recalled Wayne from civilian life in order to lead an expedition in the Northwest Indian War, which up to that point had been a disaster for the United States. Many American Indians in the Northwest Territory had sided with the British in the Revolutionary War. In the Treaty of Paris (1783) that had ended the conflict, the British had ceded this land to the United States. The Indians, however, had not been consulted, and were now resisting annexation of the area by the United States. A confederation of Miami, Shawnee, Delaware (Lenape), and Wyandot Indians had achieved major victories over U.S. forces in 1790 and 1791 under the leadership of Blue Jacket of the Shawnees and Little Turtle of the Miamis. They were encouraged (and supplied) by the British, who had refused to evacuate British fortifications in the region, as called for in the Treaty of Paris.

Washington placed Wayne in command of a newly-formed military force called the "Legion of the United States." Wayne established a basic training facility at Legionville to prepare professional soldiers for his force. He then dispatched a force to Ohio to establish Fort Recovery as a base of operations.

On August 20, 1794, Wayne mounted an assault on Blue Jacket's confederacy at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, just south of present-day Toledo, Ohio, which was a decisive victory for the U.S. forces, ending the war. Soon after, the British abandoned their Northwest Territory forts in the Jay Treaty. Wayne then negotiated the Treaty of Greenville between the tribal confederacy and the United States, which was signed on August 3, 1795.

Wayne died of complications from gout during a return trip to Pennsylvania from a military post in Detroit, and was buried at Presque Isle (now Erie), Pennsylvania. His body was disinterred in 1809 and after boiling the body to remove the remaining flesh where the modern Wayne Blockhouse stands, was relocated to the family plot in St. David’s Episcopal Church Cemetery in Radnor, Pennsylvania. A legend says that many bones were lost along the roadway that encompases much of modern PA-322, and that his ghost wanders the highway searching for his lost bones.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Northwest Indian War", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki