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.[1] 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.
For the confederacy led by Tecumseh, see Tecumseh's confederacy.Northwestern Confederacy
United Indian Nations
- Blue Jacket
- Little Turtle
- others
1783–1795
- Cherokee
- Iroquois
- Lenape (Delaware)
- Miami
- Odawa
- Ojibwa
- Potawatomi
- Shawnee
- Wabash Confederacy
- Wyandot
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 (1785–1795), 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 (known as the Prophet) and his brother, Tecumseh, resulting in the formation of Tecumseh's confederacy.
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 (or an individual) rather than a nation.
The signatories of the 1786 Detroit letter to Congress were the Iroquois (the "Six Nations"), Cherokee, Huron, Shawnee, Delaware, Odawa, Potawatomi, Twitchee, and the Wabash Confederacy. Joseph Brant signed the letter as an individual.[26] Due to their residence in (or near) the Ohio Country, the confederacy mainly comprised the following tribes:[26]
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.[35]
End of the confederacy[edit]
The following year, the Northwestern Confederacy negotiated the Treaty of Greenville with the United States. Utilizing St. Clair's defeat and Fort Recovery as a reference point,[55] the treaty forced the northwest Native American tribes to cede southern and eastern Ohio and tracts of land around forts and settlements in Illinois Country; to recognize the United States as the ruling power in the Old Northwest, and to surrender ten chiefs as hostages until all American prisoners were returned. The Northwestern Confederacy ceased to function as an entity, and many of its leaders pledged peace with the United States. A new pan-Indian movement, led by Tecumseh, formed a decade later. According to historian William Hogeland, the Northwestern Confederacy was the "high-water mark in resistance to white expansion."[56]