Northwestern Confederacy


The Northwestern Confederacy, or Northwestern Indian Confederacy, was a loose confederacy of Native Americans in the Great Lakes region of the United States created after the American Revolutionary War. Formally, the confederacy referred to itself as the United Indian Nations, at their Confederate Council. It was known infrequently as the Miami Confederacy since many contemporaneous federal officials overestimated the influence and numerical strength of the Miami tribes based on the size of their principal city, Kekionga.
The confederacy, which had its roots in pan-tribal movements dating to the 1740s, formed in an attempt to resist the expansion of the United States and the encroachment of American settlers into the Northwest Territory after Great Britain ceded the region to the U.S. in the 1783 Treaty of Paris. American expansion resulted in the Northwest Indian War, in which the Confederacy won significant victories over the United States, but concluded with a U.S. victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. The Confederacy became fractured and agreed to peace with the United States, but the pan-tribal resistance was later rekindled by Tenskwatawa and his brother, Tecumseh, resulting in the formation of Tecumseh's confederacy.

Formation

The area making up the Ohio Country and the Illinois Country had been contested for over a century, beginning with the Franco-Iroquois Beaver Wars in the 1600s. The Iroquois competed with local tribes for control of the region and the lucrative fur trade, as did the European powers. The French and Indian War proved to be the largest and final Anglo-French contest for control in North America, ending with a British victory. In the Treaty of Paris which ended the war, the French ceded New France to Britain. That same year, a loose confederation of Native Americans united in Pontiac's War against British rule. The war ended with a peace treaty in 1766, and many of the participating Ohio and Great Lakes nations would later form the Northwestern Confederacy.
Shortly after Pontiac's War, Great Britain negotiated the 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix with its Iroquois allies. In the treaty, the Iroquois gave Britain control over the lands south of the Ohio River for settlement by Anglo-American colonists. This legitimized the Iroquois claim to the territory, and created a land rush of settlers from the Thirteen Colonies in the east. The Shawnee responded by demanding money from settlers, and formed alliances with other tribes that inhabited the region to prevent subsequent territorial losses. Early formal ties leading to the formation of the Northwestern Confederacy were made in 1774, in response to the Yellow Creek massacre and Lord Dunmore's War. Commissioners from the Continental Congress met with representatives from the Iroquois, Shawnee, Lenape, Wyandot, and Odawa in 1775 at Fort Pitt, urging them to remain neutral in the growing conflict with Great Britain. In response, Guyasuta urged Pennsylvania and Virginia to resolve their own differences. When Guyasuta asserted that the Iroquois were "the head" of the assembled nations, however, White Eyes declared that the Lenape now lived on land given to them by the Wyandot, and that the Iroquois were not permitted there.
In 1775, the American Revolutionary War broke out, and British forces soon abandoned control over several forts along the American frontier and redeployed those forces to the east, which removed an impediment to illegal American settlement. Native Americans had different reactions to the war, and many saw it as a "white man's war" in which they should play no role. However, numerous Native American peoples saw an opportunity to defend their lands by fighting alongside the British against the land-hungry Americans. In 1776, commissioners at Fort Pitt sent warning of a “General Confederacy of Western Tribes” planning to attack American settlers in their region. The Iroquois were also divided in response to the war, and extinguished their ceremonial flame of unity in 1777.
In the Treaty of Paris, Britain ceded their North American possessions below the Great Lakes to the United States without consulting their Native allies. According to Joseph Brant, a Mohawk chief who had fought alongside the British, Britain "sold the Indians to Congress." Brant worked to establish a pan-Indian confederacy which could negotiate with the new United States, and delegates from 35 "nations" gathered on the upper Sandusky River in September 1783. The conference was also attended by Sir John Johnson and Alexander McKee, who advocated for a strong confederation and an end to violent raids. The council declared that no agreements with the United States could be made without the consensus of the entire confederation. Congress passed the Proclamation of 1783, which recognized Native American rights to the land. The Indian Affairs Committee of Congress passed the Resolution of October 15, 1783, however, which claimed the land and called on the native nations to withdraw beyond the Great Miami and Mad rivers.
The council reconvened in August 1784 at Niagara-on-the-Lake, where US commissioners were to meet with them. The US commission was delayed, however, and many Native American representatives left before the commission arrived. The commissioners summoned the remaining Iroquois tribes to Fort Stanwix, where the Iroquois nations relinquished their claims to the Ohio lands in the 1784 Treaty of Fort Stanwix. The Iroquois Confederacy refused to ratify the treaty, saying that it had no right to give the United States rights to the land, and the western nations living in the territory rejected the treaty on the same grounds. The US commissioners negotiated the Treaty of Fort McIntosh in January 1785, however, in which a few Native American representatives agreed to grant to the United States most of present-day Ohio. A small US Army regiment under General Josiah Harmar arrived in the territory later that year.

Councils and treaties

Brant toured Canada, London, and Paris in 1785 to obtain British and French support. A council held that year at Fort Detroit declared that the confederacy would deal jointly with the United States, forbade individual tribes from dealing directly with the United States, and declared the Ohio River as the boundary between their lands and those of the American settlers. Nevertheless, a group of Shawnee, Lenape, and Wyandot agreed to allow U.S. settlement on a tract of land north of the Ohio River in the January 1786 Treaty of Fort Finney. This treaty sparked violence between native inhabitants and U.S. settlers. American trader David Duncan warned that the treaties had "done a Great injury to United States," and tribal leaders warned that they could no longer stop their young men from retaliating.
The Treaty of Fort Finney was rejected by a September 1786 council of 35 native nations who met at a Wyandot village on the upper Sandusky River. Logan's raid into Shawnee territory occurred weeks later, hardening native views of the U.S. That December, Brant returned from Europe to address a council on the Detroit River. The council sent a letter to the U.S. Congress which was signed by eleven native nations, who called themselves "the United Indian Nations, at their Confederate Council." The confederacy assembled again on the Maumee River in the fall of 1787 to consider a reply from the U.S., but adjourned after not receiving one.
Congress appointed Arthur St. Clair as governor of the new Northwest Territory, directing him to make peace with the native peoples. He did not arrive until summer 1788, when he invited the nations to a council at Fort Harmar to negotiate terms by which the United States could purchase lands and avoid war. The sight of Fort Harmar and nearby Marietta, both north of the Ohio River boundary, convinced some that the United States was negotiating from a position of strength. At pre-negotiation meetings, Joseph Brant suggested a compromise to other Native American leaders: allow existing U.S. settlements north of the Ohio River, and draw a new boundary at the mouth of the Muskingum River. Some at the council rejected Brant's compromise. A Wyandot delegation offered a belt of peace to the Miami delegation, who refused to accept it; a Wyandot delegate placed it on the shoulder of Little Turtle, a Miami military leader, who shrugged it off. Brant then sent a letter to St. Clair asking that treaty negotiations be held at a different location; St. Clair refused, and accused Brant of working for the British. Brant then declared that he would boycott negotiations with the United States, and suggested that others do the same. About 200 of the remaining moderates came to Fort Harmar in December and agreed to concessions in the 1789 Treaty of Fort Harmar, which moved the border and designated U.S. sovereignty over native lands. To those who had refused to attend, however, the treaty sanctioned the U.S. appetite for native lands in the region without addressing native concerns.

Composition

The composition of the confederacy changed with time and circumstances, and a number of tribes were involved. Because most nations were not centralized political units at the time, involvement in the confederacy could be decided by a village rather than a nation.
The signatories of the 1786 Detroit letter to Congress were the Iroquois, Cherokee, Huron, Shawnee, Delaware, Odawa, Potawatomi, Twitchee, and the Wabash Confederacy. Joseph Brant signed the letter as an individual. Due to their residence in the Ohio Country, the confederacy mainly comprised the following tribes:
  • The Wyandot, the confederacy's honorary sponsors, hosted the first gathering of native nations at their villages on the upper Sandusky River after the 1783 Treaty of Paris.
  • Shawnee
  • Lenape
  • Miami
  • Council of Three Fires : their southern families were involved with the Confederacy, but northern and western villages were occupied at the time with a war with the Sioux.
  • The Wabash Confederacy allied with the Northwestern Confederacy, until it signed a 1792 treaty with the United States.
The Northwestern Confederacy also received support from more-distant nations, including:
The confederacy was periodically supported by communities and warriors from west of the Mississippi River and south of the Ohio River, including the Dakota, Chickamauga Cherokee and Upper Creek.
By 1790 the Northwestern Confederacy was broadly divided into three large divisions. The Iroquois formed a moderate camp who advocated diplomacy with the United States. The Three Fires advocated resistance, but were farther removed from the immediate threat of U.S. invasion. The Miami, Shawnee, and Kickapoo were immediately threatened by U.S. settlements, and pushed for a hard line against U.S. encroachments.