The Ohio Indian Wars were a series of struggles between settlers from the newly independent United States and American Indian residents of the Ohio Country in the years after the American Revolution.
During the first part of the eighteenth century, French and British colonists began to migrate to modern-day Ohio. Each group sought to form alliances with American Indians in the region. With France's defeat in the French and Indian War, Great Britain acquired this territory in 1763. The British government attempted to improve relations with the American Indians already residing in the Ohio territory by prohibiting white settlement in the Ohio Country. Great Britain's action resulted in part in the American Revolution. The Treaty of Paris (1783) brought the Revolution to a close and Great Britain recognized the independence of the United States. In addition, the new nation secured all of the land east of the Mississippi River except for British possessions in Canada and Spanish territory in Florida.
The American Indians in the Ohio Country took no formal part in the treaty negotiations. Great Britain made little effort to include their American Indian allies in the treaty's terms. Despite this, the British did not abandon the American Indians. They continued to trade guns and other European manufactured goods for native furs. The British hoped that the American Indians, with British weapons, would stop the westward expansion by the newly independent United States. Unfortunately for the American Indians, U.S. settlers moved quickly into the Ohio Country at the end of the Revolution. After the signing of Treaty of Paris, settlers faced few obstacles in moving to the Ohio Country other than from the American Indians themselves. The conflicts that followed became known as the Ohio Indian Wars.
With Tecumseh's death, American Indian resistance in Ohio came to an end. American Indians in the state agreed to abide by the terms of the Treaty of Greenville. Over the next several years, various groups signed additional treaties relinquishing their remaining territory. By 1843, the last large group of American Indians in Ohio had been made to give up their land.anation:
