Early Westward Migration &
the Native American Resistance
Presentation created by Robert Martinez
Primary 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.imdb.com
www.mantorque.com.au
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 Knox
Secretary 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.
memory.loc.gov
www.ohiohistorycentral.org
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.
www.rainsongmusic.com
tahsmithtown.blogspot.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/