Battle of Fallen Timbers

August 20, 1794:

The Battle of Fallen Timbers (August 20, 1794) was the final battle of the Northwest Indian War, a struggle between American Indian tribes affiliated with the Western Confederacy and the United States for control of the Northwest Territory (an area bounded on the south by the Ohio River, on the west by the Mississippi River, and on the northeast by the Great Lakes). The battle, which was a decisive victory for the United States, ended major hostilities in the region until Tecumseh's War and the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811.
Wayne's new army, the Legion of the United States, marched north from Fort Washington (Cincinnati, Ohio) in 1793, building a line of forts along the way. Wayne commanded more than 4,600 men, with some Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians serving as scouts.
Blue Jacket's army took a defensive stand along the Maumee River (in present-day Maumee, Ohio and not far from present-day Toledo, Ohio), where a stand of trees ("fallen timbers") had been blown down by a heavy storm. They reckoned that the trees would hinder the advance of the army, if they came. Nearby was Fort Miami, a British outpost from which the Indian confederacy received provisions. The Indian army, about 3,000 strong, consisted of Blue Jacket's Shawnees and Buckongahelas's Delawares, Miamis led by Little Turtle, Wyandots, Ojibwas, Ottawas, Potawatomis, Mingos, and even some Canadian militia.
The battle did not last long. Troops closed quickly and pressed with the bayonet. The Indians were outflanked by American cavalry and quickly routed. They fled back to Fort Miami, only to find the gates closed. The British commander, not authorized to start a war with the Americans, refused to give shelter to the fleeing Indians. The American troops destroyed Indian villages and crops in the area, and then withdrew. Thirty-three of Wayne's men were killed and 100 were wounded. The victorious Americans claimed to have found 30–40 enemy dead on the field. According to Alexander McKee of the British Indian Department, the Indian confederacy had 19 men killed. McKee's figure may or may not include the casualties of a group of Canadian volunteers under Captain Alexander McKillop, who fought alongside the Indians.
The defeat of the Indians led to the signing of the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, which ceded much of present-day Ohio to the United States. Before withdrawing from the area Wayne began the construction of a line of forts along the Maumee, from its mouth at present day Toledo to its origins in present day Indiana. After Wayne had returned to his home in western Pennsylvania the last of these forts was named Fort Wayne in his honor. Its location is the site of the present day city. Behind this line of forts, Americans [of European ancestry] settled the Ohio country, paving the way for the creation of the state of Ohio in 1803. One veteran of Fallen Timbers who did not sign the Greenville treaty was a young Shawnee war leader named Tecumseh, who would renew Indian resistance in the years ahead.

Notably, the the terms of the Greenville Treaty were as follows:

• The tribes agreed to surrender their claims to lands in the southeastern portion of the Northwest Territory (mostly present-day southern and eastern Ohio)
• The tribes also gave up additional defined areas that were used by the whites as portages and fort locations. This category included Fort Detroit and the site of the future town of Chicago on Lake Michigan
• The United States government agreed to make an immediate payment of to $20,000 in goods to the tribes, as well as annual payments of $9,500 in goods to be divided among specified tribes
• The tribes retained the right to hunt throughout the area.

The Native Americans scrupulously abided by the terms of the treaty; American settlers did not. New white settlements outside of the treaty area were established almost immediately. Resistance would emerge in the early years of the next century in lands slightly farther west under the auspices of Tecumseh and his brother, The Prophet.