Early Westward Migration & the Native American Resistance

Presentation created by Robert MartinezPrimary Content Source: America’s History (Henretta, Brody, Dumenil)Images as cited.

In the Treaty of Paris of 1783, Great Britain relinquished claims to the trans-Appalachian region.

www.izaak.unh.edu

Many white Americans wanted to destroy native communities and

even the native people themselves.

www.mantorque.com.auwww.imdb.com www.treefrogtreasures.com

“Cut up every Indian Cornfield and burn every Indian town,” proclaimed William

Henry Drayton, a congressman from South Carolina, so that their “nation be extirpated and other lands become the

property of the public.”

etc.usf.edu

Other leaders, including Henry Knox, Secretary of War, favored assimilating

the Indians into Euro-American society. Knox proposed the division of commonly held tribal lands among individual Indian families, who would become citizens in

the various states.

Henry KnoxSecretary of War

The major struggle between Indians and whites centered on land. Invoking the

Treaty of Paris and classifying Britain’s Indian allies as conquered peoples, the U.S. government asserted its ownership

of the trans-Appalachian west.

www.americanrevolution.org

Native Americans rejected that claim, insisting that they had not signed the Treaty of Paris treaty and had not been conquered.

www.ohiohistorycentral.orgmemory.loc.gov

Brushing aside those arguments, the U.S. commissioners threatened military action to force the pro-British Iroquois peoples, the Mohawks, and Senecas, to

relinquish much of their land in New York and Pennsylvania in the Treaty of Fort

Stanwix (1784).

nativeamericanencyclopedia....

New York officials and land speculators used liquor and bribes to take title to millions of additional acres, confining the once powerful

Iroquois to relatively small tribal reservations.

http://www.iroquoisdemocracy.pdx.edu/html/furtrader

In 1785, U.S. negotiators persuaded the Chippewas, Delawares, Wyandots, and

Ottawas, to sign away most of the future state of Ohio. The tribes quickly recanted the agreements, claiming they were made

under duress.

http://www.mountaingulltrading.com/griffing/PreparingtoMeetEnemy

To defend their lands, they joined the Shawnee, Miami, and Potawatomi peoples in the Western Confederacy. Led by Miami

chief Little Turtle, confederacy warriors crushed U.S. forces sent by President

Washington in 1790-91.

tahsmithtown.blogspot.comwww.rainsongmusic.com

Fearing an alliance between the Western Confederacy and the British in Canada,

Washington ordered a new expedition. In 1794, they defeated the Indians in the

Battle of Fallen Timbers, but the resistance

continued.

http://www.kollewin.com/blog/battle-of-fallen-timbers-1794

In the Treaty of Greenville (1795), the U.S. acknowledged Indian ownership of land; in

return, the Indian peoples ceded most of Ohio and various lands along the Great

Lakes, including Detroit and the future site of Chicago.

http://shawnee-bluejacket.com/Bluejacket_Folders/Treaty_of_Green_Ville

The members of the Western Confederacy also agreed to place

themselves “under the protection of the United States.”

http://shawnee-bluejacket.com/Bluejacket_Folders/Treaty_of_Green_Ville

These U.S. advances prompted Britain to change its policies in North America. It reduced its trade with the Indians and, following Jay’s Treaty,

began to remove its military garrisons from the region.

http://www.xtimeline.com/evt/view.aspx?id=58010

The Greenville Treaty sparked a wave of white migration. By 1805,

Ohio, a state of just two years, had more than 100,000 residents.

http://mjcpl.org/rivertorail/beforesteam/pioneers-go-west

Thousands more farm families moved into the future states of Indiana and Illinois, igniting new conflicts with

native peoples over land and hunting rights.

http://mjcpl.org/rivertorail/beforesteam/pioneers-go-west

The U.S. government encouraged Native Americans to assimilate into white society. The goal was to make the Indian “a farmer, a citizen of the

United States, and a Christian.”

http://thingaboutskins.wordpress.com/2010/02/22/hairspolitics1

But most Indians rejected assimilation choosing to

embrace their ancestral values.

http://ed101.bu.edu/StudentDoc/current/ED101fa10/cmmac/Content3.html

To preserve their traditional cultures, many Indian communities expelled

white missionaries and forced Christianized Indians to participate in

tribal rites.

http://www.museum.state.il.us/exhibits/athome/1700/timeline/index.html

Among the Senecas, the Indian prophet Handsome Lake encouraged traditional

animistic ceremonies that gave thanks to the sun, the earth, water, plants, and

animals.

http://xoomer.virgilio.it/vminerva/Cornpl2.jpg

But he also included some Christian elements to his teachings, the

concepts of heaven and hell, for example, to deter his followers from alcohol, gambling, and witchcraft.

http://nativeamericanencyclopedia.com/handsome-lake-2/

Handsome Lake’s doctrines divided the tribe into hostile factions. More

conservative Senecas, led by Chief Red Jacket, condemned Indians who

accepted white ways and demanded a

return to ancestral customs.

Chief Red Jacket

Most Indians rejected the efforts of American missionaries to turn warriors into farmers and women

into domestic helpmates.

http://www.iroquoisdemocracy.pdx.edu/html/iroquoisman.htm http://www.uwo.ca/museum/terminalWoodland.html

Native American resistance slowed the advance of white

farmers and planters but did not stop it.

http://educatedteacher.wordpress.com/2010/04/26/westward-expansion-a-la-summer-school/