Treaty: First Treaty of Greenville, August 3, 1795

This treaty ended the Northwest Indian War (1785-1795).  It was signed at Fort Greenville, present-day Greenville, Ohio between the United States, represented by General "Mad" Anthony Wayne and several tribes of the Western Confederacy, including the Wyandot, Delaware, Shawnee, Ottawa, Chippewa, Potawatomi, Miami, Kickapoo, Wea and Kaskaskia.  Among the Native signatories were Blue Jacket and Little Turtle.  American witnesses included William Wells, who was appointed Indian Agent in Ohio, William Henry Harrison and William Clark, later of Lewis and Clark fame.  This Treaty did not involve the British, who had been dealt with in the separate Jay Treaty a year before.

The Treaty was an attempt to end the intense fighting over land that had characterized the war period.  In exchange for livestock and goods given to the Natives, they signed away large portions of land, including much of modern-day Ohio, the future site of downtown Chicago, the Fort Detroit area in Michigan, the Maumee, Ohio area, and the Lower Sandusky, Ohio area.  With the appointment of Wells as Indian Agent, the beginnings of the annuity system, whereby each tribe would be supplied with a yearly grant of federal money and allotments of calico cloth, known as trade cloth, the United States was becoming more involved in Native daily life and internal affairs.  Even before the Treaty was ratified, Settlers began crossing over the boundary line, which began at the mouth of the Cayuga River, in modern-day Cleveland, ran south to the Portage Lakes area between Akron and Canton, to the battle site at Fort Recovery on the Wabash River near the Ohio/Indiana border, then to the Ohio River near present-day Carrollton, Kentucky.  Ohio treats the signing of this treaty as the beginning of the history of their state.  But the stage would soon be set for more fighting in the Ohio Country when tensions between Britain and the United States heated up again prior to the War of 1812

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