Lincoln Boyhood Historic Resource Study

EXPANSIONISM BY THE UNITED STATES (1785-1815)

Three major problems confronted the United States with regard to the disposition of the Northwest Territory: Indian resistance; a lack of an orderly and democratic system to transfer land ownership from government to private hands; and a system of government for the territory. The most immediate and critical of these issues was that of Indians' insistence that the land in question remained under their hegemony rather than that of the United States.

Following a series of poorly managed diplomatic missions and military adventures, the Indian tribes of Ohio and Indiana allied into the Miami Confederacy (led by Chief Little Turtle), in an effort to slow the influx of American settlers and defend against further military incursions. With British encouragement, fierce raids on American frontier settlements succeeded for a time in drastically reducing the influx of new settlers along the Ohio River. The defeat of an American force under the command of General Josiah Harmar by Shawnee and Miami warriors at the Maumee and St. Joseph rivers in 1790 bolstered the native confederacy's resolve. This was further enhanced by the route of American military forces led by General Arthur St. Clair near present-day Portland, Ohio, in 1791. [67]

Indian resistance to American incursions stemmed from a number of important cultural differences. First and foremost, the Americans appeared cheap compared to their predecessors, the British and French. Federal agents did not distribute gifts or engage in ceremonies that signaled recognition of Indians as equals. This was partially due to the fact that the newly formed government had little money, but more importantly, it reflected an American ideology with regard to the Northwest Territory. Americans had little interest in establishing relations or trade networks with resident tribes as the French and British had. Instead they sought to transform utterly land uses in the region. In American eyes, the territory was destined to be rearranged into an agrarian landscape peopled by independent farmers. If they wished to stay, Indians would have to surrender their traditional lifeways and mirror the customs and social organization of Americans. [68]

Americans also proved unable to bridge an ideological divide between themselves and Native Americans. They had little interest in assuming the paternalistic role undertaken by the French and, to a lesser degree, the British. The republican ideology born of the American Revolution rejected such ties of dependency. "Liberty" meant the ability to behave autonomously, independently and freely, without fealty owed to kings, priests, aristocrats, or any other ruling class. The inherent contradictions in the republican ideology, particularly with regard to the institution of slavery, were conveniently ignored, at least when it came to the Federal government's dealings with Indians. Ultimately, it was the unpredictability of the Americans that proved most unsettling to their Indian counterparts. Having no sense of the ritual of mutual obligation and personal reciprocity, which had defined Indian relations with European powers, the Americans posed a far greater threat to Indian sovereignty and society. Their rhetoric and behavior demonstrated that the future they planned for the Northwest Territory held little room for Indians in any role. [69] The various Indian tribes, particularly the Miami, Wea, Shawnee, Piankashaw, and Delaware, responded to this threat with military reprisals.

The momentum of Indian victories proved to be short lived. In the summer of 1794 an American force under the command of Anthony Wayne defeated the Indian confederacy at the Battle of Fallen Timbers on the Maumee River. The American triumph led to negotiation of the Treaty of Greenville in 1795. The defeated tribes ceded control of the southern two-thirds of present-day Ohio and a narrow strip of southeastern Indiana. Although the treaty clearly established the boundaries for legal settlement in Indiana, American squatters penetrated further west in increasing numbers, representing the first wave of a rising tide of immigration. [70]

In 1800, the U. S. Congress approved the division of the Northwest Territory into the territories of Ohio and Indiana. Indiana Territory encompassed an area bounded on the east by the Northwest (later Ohio) Territory, on the south by the Ohio River, on the west by the Mississippi River, and on the north by the Canadian border (Figure 6). Vincennes was designated the territorial capital. [71] This demarcation of boundaries was made in accordance with the terms of the 1783 Treaty of Paris despite the continuing refusal by Indian tribes to recognize the legitimacy of the treaty's terms.

Figure 6: 1800 and 1803 Maps of Indiana Territory (Buley, 1950:1:62)

LAND CESSIONS BY INDIAN TRIBES

Figure 7: Indian Treaties and Land Cessions (Sieber and Munson, 1994: 22) (click on image for an enlargement in a new window)

Subsequent to the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, President Thomas Jefferson conceived the idea of removing all Native American tribes to a "sanctuary" west of the Mississippi River. This notion had the added advantage of addressing the persistent problem of the tribes' rejection of the Treaty of Paris. William Henry Harrison, governor of the Indiana Territory, acted as the principal agent in negotiating a series of treaties with the Delaware, Shawnee, Potawatomi, and Miami tribes whose goal was the displacement of the Indians to western territories (Figure 7). Through "aggressive use of threats, trickery, and bribery, creating and capitalizing on tribal dissensions, Harrison, in treaty after treaty, gained the cession of millions of acres of Indian lands." [72] Negotiated in rapid succession over the next several years, these treaties included the 1803 Treaty of Fort Wayne, which granted the United States a portion of southwestern Indiana; the 1804 Treaty of Vincennes, which encompassed an area immediately north of the Ohio River; and the 1805 Treaty of Grousland, which took in territory in southeastern Indiana. Two years later, the 1809 Treaty of Fort Wayne further expanded American holdings in southeastern and southwestern Indiana.

By this date Native American resistance to American expansion had become more organized than at any time since the early 1790s. Beginning in 1806, elements of the Shawnee, Wyandotte, Potawatomi, and other tribes began gathering at Prophet's Town on the north bank of the Wabash River, creating a geographic focus for the growing unease with which the Native American population held the United States. Indian resistance was organized by the visionary Shawnee leader Tecumseh, aided by a revitalization movement led by his half-brother Tenskwatawa (the Prophet). In 1811, Tecumseh traveled through the mid-south attempting to garner support for a united native opposition to American encroachment. While Tecumseh was gone, Prophet's Town became a target for an American military incursion under orders from President James Madison. The invasion culminated in the Battle of Tippecanoe, fought November 7, 1811. [73] Although the Americans won the battle and destroyed Prophet's Town, the Native American resistance continued with British aid throughout the period known as the War of 1812.

Indian raids on frontier settlements continued, coupled with the outbreak of armed conflict between the United States and Great Britain. Of the major Indian tribes residing in the Northwest Territory, only the Miami chose to remain neutral. The United States suffered a series of military defeats during 1812, including the loss of Detroit and Fort Dearborn. Indian assaults against settlers took place throughout Indiana and forced the abandonment of outlying (illegal) American settlements. Attacks against Fort Harrison and Fort Wayne also took place. Harrison resigned his commission as governor of the Indiana Territory and took command of the northwestern American army. In October 1813, his forces defeated the British and their Indian allies at the Battle of the Thames. [74] The war continued for two more years, culminating in United States victory against the British at the Battle of New Orleans. In negotiating the peace treaty, the United States and Great Britain agreed to restoration of the status quo antebellum with regard to territorial relations. Longstanding matters of dispute concerning claims to territory that dated back to the 1780s also were resolved, thus securing American rights to exploit the Northwest Territory without interference from European powers. [75]

As for Indian resistance to American expansionism, Tecumseh was among those killed at the Battle of the Thames. Meanwhile, Tenskwatawa's credibility had largely been destroyed by his loss at the Battle of Tippecanoe and he ultimately migrated to Canada. The loss of the two Indian leaders spelled the end of organized, united Indian resistance to American expansion into the Northwest Territory. Aside from their military and technological advantage, the sheer scale of the environmental, economic, and demographic transformations the Americans brought to the region proved overwhelming. [76] In the two decades following the War of 1812, the Shawnee, Miami, and Delaware were forced to surrender their remaining claims in Indiana. The fact that, unlike other tribes, the Miami had remained neutral during the War of 1812 was given little credence by the United States.

The trend of major land cessions by Indians began with the Maumee Treaty of 1817, in which a small area of northeastern Indiana, adjacent to the Ohio border, was ceded. The following year, a treaty signed at St. Mary's in Ohio by representatives of the Delaware, Miami, Wea, and Potawatomi surrendered title to about 8 million acres and became known as the "New Purchase." The lands of the New Purchase included most of what is now central Indiana, and these lands were legally opened to settlement in 1820. Thereafter, smaller tracts in northern Indiana were signed over in a succession of treaties: the Chicago Treaty of 1821, the Mississinewa Treaties of 1826, the Carey Mission Treaty of 1828, the Tippecanoe Treaties of 1832, and the Wabash Treaties of 1834 and 1840.

The first American settlement in southern Indiana was near the modern site of Clarksville. It was sited on Virginia military grant lands provided to the officers and men who had participated in the battle at Vincennes under Clark's command. Legal settlement in the remainder of southern Indiana became possible as a result of the treaties of Greenville (1795), Vincennes (1804), and Grouseland (1805). Spencer County was part of the territory ceded by the Miami, Shawnee, and Delaware tribes with the Treaty of Vincennes. The first federal land survey of this area took place in 1805-1806, and the first legal land entry at the federal office in Rockport was made by Daniel Grass in May 1807. [77] Hostile relations with resident Indian tribes remained problematic for more than a decade thereafter. Additional issues facing settlers in the Northwest Territory were the need to create a method for administering land sales on a large scale and of establishing a system of governance for the area. Addressing these problems required an intensive effort on the part of the Federal government equivalent to that applied to relations with Indians.