On July 1, 1794, after repeated attacks on Fort Recovery, the Indian army ended the siege and returned north to the Glaize. Wayne wasted no time and pursued the Indian army north and ultimately defeated them for good at the Battle of Fallen Timbers on August 20, 1794, which was two mile from Fort Miamis. The Battle of Fallen Timbers led many in the Northwest Indian Confederacy to the realization that they could not defeat the United States in a war and so they voted to make peace with the Americans. On August 3, 1795 the Northwest Indian Confederation and the United States signed the first Treaty of Greenville, which effectively ended the Northwest Indian War. The Indians ceded most of Ohio and part of Indiana to the United States and agreed to cease their hostilities. The direct result was that 150,000 American settlers entered the territory within five years, which led to Ohio attaining statehood in 1803. The end of the Northwest Indian War also brought the British to the negotiating table with the Americans.
British agents, or advisors, played at least a peripheral role in the Defeat of St. Clair as they supplied Little Turtle’s army with muskets and gun powder and some were probably actually present as they were documented in many other battles during the Northwest Indian War. As discussed above, the British hoped to keep as much influence in North America as possible after their defeat in the American Revolution and so used the Northwest Indian Confederation as their proxy against the United States. The Indian proxy war was just one of the unresolved issues that the young country had with the British; other issues included the impressment of American sailors and the recognition of American trading rights in the West Indies. Wayne’s victorious campaign in the Northwest was clearly one of the factors that brought the British to the negotiating table with American diplomat John Jay, who crafted the treaty between the two nations that was given his name. On June 24, 1795 the American Congress ratified Jay’s treaty, which among other things officially ended the British presence in the Northwest. Although the Jay Treaty was not popular with most Americans at the time, it postponed war between Britain and the United States for another seventeen years. By the terms of the agreement the British agreed to withdraw all their forces from American soil and decommission their forts by June 1, 1796. Truly, the Defeat of St. Clair had far ranging geo-political implications, but it also determined the personal fortunes of those involved.
American and Indian Leaders after the Defeat of St. Clair
General St. Clair
After the Defeat of St. Clair, both St. Clair and the Indian leaders found themselves with increased notoriety and for St. Clair, infamy. Although Washington forced St. Clair to resign his military post, the general refused to admit wrongdoing and even requested a court martial to prove his innocence. Ultimately St. Clair was exonerated by the inquest, the second court martial he successfully defended during his life, but his name was forever tied to one of the worst military defeats in American history. Perhaps some of the criticism leveled at St. Clair is unfair, but Wayne’ later expedition proved how a capable commander could defeat the same enemy. After his military career was over, St. Clair continued to serve as the governor of the Northwest Territory. St. Clair lobbied congress to divide the territory into two states, but he was relieved of his position one year before Ohio statehood in 1802, by President Thomas Jefferson. St. Clair was an ardent Federalist and at odds with Jefferson and the rest of the status quo, which was controlled by the Democratic-Republicans. Although St. Clair lived until his eighties, he died a penniless and truly tragic figure in American history. Perhaps St. Clair’s life and especially his defeat at the hands of Little Turtle, offer a lesson on the inherent problems that accompany leadership. For the most part, St. Clair appears to have possessed the requisite intelligence to be a good leader, but he lacked charisma, was too myopic, and possessed too much hubris to be effective. In the end, St. Clair proved to be his own worst enemy.
The Indians
The trajectory of Little Turtle’s and Blue Jacket’s careers after the Defeat of St. Clair followed a decidedly different path than that of St. Clair. After the two chiefs defeated St. Clair they were praised by their people for their military prowess and given the ability to keep waging war against the Americans. But the success the two men found as a result of the Defeat of St. Clair was short-lived when Anthony Wayne entered the picture. Wayne pursued the two Indian leaders and their warriors unrelentingly from southern Ohio to the area near Fort Miamis, winning every major battle along the way. Central to Wayne’s strategy was building a series of forts that the Indians found difficult to breach. Once the war ended in the Americans’ favor, Blue Jacket and Little Turtle found themselves in unfamiliar territory. Both men lived through the Northwest Indian War and proved to be voices of moderation as they urged their people to seek peace with the Americans. Little Turtle even met George Washington in 1797 and would later become a respected and somewhat revered part of American history. In fact, Little Turtle was given a military funeral in Fort Wayne when he died in 1812 and in the years after his death towns, counties, and other landmarks in the region were named after him. Because of their stances towards appeasement, both Little Turtle and Blue Jacket were shunned by more militant Indian leaders and played little role in Indian politics leading up to the War of 1812. A new generation of Indian warriors took the mantle of leadership and continued the fight against the Americans.
Where Blue Jacket’s and Little Turtle’s military careers precipitously rose and fell after the Defeat of St. Clair, one of Blue Jacket’s lieutenants, Tecumseh (1768-1813), saw his prospects rise steadily. Tecumseh distinguished himself among his people during the Northwest Indian War by being involved in numerous engagements with the Americans. As the young Tecumseh became known for his fighting abilities, he gained more respect with the Northwest Indian Confederation and eventually became a leader. After the first Treaty of Greenville, Tecumseh stepped into Little Turtle’s moccasins and reorganized the Northwest Indian Confederacy in 1805.
Tecumseh’s Northwest Indian Confederacy was different from the first in two major ways: firstly, it was located much further west in an Indian community called Tippecanoe, near present day Lafayette, Indiana and secondly the new Confederation took a much more militant and religious approach. Tecumseh’s brother Tenskwatawa – referred to as “the Prophet” by whites – wove an anti-American ideology into the spiritual beliefs of the confederated tribes. Tenskwatawa said to his people about their creator god:
The Americans I did not make. They are not my children but the children of the Evil Spirit. They grew from the scum of the great water when it was troubled by the Evil Spirits and the froth was driven into the woods by a strong east wind. They are very numerous but I hate them. They are unjust – they have taken away your lands which were not made for them. (Willig, 135)
The militant attitude that Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa promoted, permeated that Indian village of Tippecanoe, which like the Glaize was comprised of several different tribes.
The Indian village of Tippecanoe was located on the banks of the confluence of the Wabash and Tippecanoe Rivers near present day Lafayette, Indiana. The village was established in 1808 as the center of the reorganized Northwest Indian Confederacy and as a cultural center along the lines of the Glaize. By all accounts the village of Tippecanoe was impressive not just in terms of it being an Indian cultural center, but also in its defensive attributes. The territorial governor of Indiana and future U.S. president, William Harrison, wrote about the village’s impressive defensive works:
It is impossible that a more favorable situation could have been chosen, than the one he [Tecumesh] occupies: it is just so far off as to be removed from immediate observation, and yet so near as to enable him to strike us [at Vincennes]. . . It is nearly central with regard to the tribes which he wishes to unite. . . It is immediately in the centre of the back line of that find country which he wishes to prevent us from settling – and above all, he has immediately in his rear a country that had been but little explored, consisting principally of
barren thickets, interspersed with swamps and lakes, into which our cavalry could not penetrate, and our infantry, only by slow laborious efforts. (Willig, 123)
The defensive attributes of Tippecanoe were dwarfed by the militant messages that were emanating from its wigwams in the eyes of American authorities.
Tecumseh and his brother’s militant, anti-American rhetoric soon became the focus of American hostility towards the Indians of the Northwest. Every raid on American settlers was blamed on the two Indian leaders, who were often quite willing to take credit as it gave them more medicine and respect from their people. As a result of Tippecanoe’s association with the Northwest Indian Confederacy, Harrison targeted the village for destruction on November 7, 1811. As the future American president led a force of nearly 1,000 men, he was ambushed by Tenskwatawa and about 700 Shawnee. The Americans were prepared and easily repulsed the surprise assault, which led to the destruction of the village and the nullification of the first Treaty of Greenville. Tecumseh survived the destruction and would go on to lead his people initially against the Americans in the War of 1812 until he was killed at the Battle of Thames River on October 5, 1813.
A Little Known Battle with Major Historical Implications
In the annals of military history, or even just American military history for that matter, the Defeat of St. Clair is rarely covered and if it is, it is usually an afterthought. Most see the battle as little more than a thrashing that a possibly arrogant and definitely over his head American commander took from a foe that he underestimated. Although at face value this may be true, and examination of the battle reveals that it was much more than a footnote in American history. The Defeat of St. Clair proved that an Indian army could stand toe to toe with a modern Western army if it had the right leaders and in the proper situation. More importantly, the Defeat of St. Clair had long-term and far ranging historical implications in the United States. The defeat paved the way for a vigorous and ultimately victorious military campaign by the United States that although pushed Indian resistance further west, also galvanized and made the resistance more militant, which placed a number of the tribes on the side of the British. Wayne’s victorious campaign after St. Clair’s defeat also led to massive American immigration into the old Northwest and the creation of the state of Ohio. Truly, Little Turtle and the Northwest Indian Confederation won a great battle at the Defeat of St. Clair, but it ultimately led to them losing the war.
Bibliography
Berkhofer, Robert F. Jr. “Americans versus Indians: The Northwest Ordinance, Territory Making, and Native Americans.” Indiana Magazine of History 84 (1988): 90-108.
Bradford, John. The Voice of the Frontier: John Bradford’s Notes on Kentucky. Edited by Thomas Dionysius Clark. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1993.
Byrd, Cecil K. “The Northwest Indians and the British Preceding the War of 1812.” Indiana Magazine of History 38 (1942): 31-50.
Duffey, Denis P. “The Northwest Ordinance as a Constitutional Document.” Columbia Law Review 95 (1995): 929-968.
Durham, Walter T. “The Southwest and Northwest Territories, a Comparison, 1787-1796.” Tennessee Historical Quarterly 49 (1990): 188-196.
Edmunds, R. David. Tecumseh and the Quest for Indian Leadership. New York: Pearson Longman, 2007.
Eid, Leroy. “American Indian Military Leadership: St. Clair’s 1791 Defeat.” Journal of Military History 57 (1993): 71-88.
Horsman, Reginald. “American Indian Policy in the Old Northwest, 1783-1812.” William and Mary Quarterly 18 (1961): 35-53.
Hurt, R. Douglas. “Historians and the Northwest Ordinance.” Western Historical Quarterly 20 (1989): 261-280.
Kanon, Tom. “The Kidnapping of Martha Crawley and Settler-Indian Relations Prior to the War of 1812.” Tennessee Historical Quarterly 64 (2005): 2-23
Millet, Allan R., and Peter Maslowski. For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States of America. New York: Macmillan, 1994.
Nelson, Paul David. “General Charles Scott, the Kentucky Mounted Volunteers, and the Northwest Indian Wars, 1784-1794.” Journal of the Early Republic 6 (1986): 219-251.
Purvis, Thomas L. A Dictionary of American History. London: Blackwell, 2002.
Smith, Dwight L. From Greene Ville to Fallen Timbers: A Journal of the Wayne Campaign, July 28 – September 14, 1794. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1952
Tanner, Helen Hornbeck. “The Glaize in 1792: A Composite Indian Community.” Ethnohistory 25 (1978): 15-39.
Wilentz, Sean. The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006.
Willig, Timothy D. “Prophetstown on the Wabash: The Native Spiritual Defense of the Old Northwest.” Michigan Historical Review 23 (1997): 115-158.
True Crime Stories Volume 4: 12 Shocking True Crime Murder Cases (True Crime Anthology) Page 50