Excerpt from "Treaty with the Wyandot, etc., 1795"

Known historically as "Treaty of Greenville"
Published in Law and Treaties, edited by Charles J. Kappler, 1904

In the early eighteenth century, a number of Native American tribes with distinct histories and often speaking distinct languages lived north of the Ohio River in the Great Lakes region. Among them were the Miami, Potawatomi, Shawnee, Ottawas, Wyandot, and Chippewa. They maintained a well-established fur trade relationship with the British. Facing the expansion of U.S. settlements onto their lands, they took the side of the British during the American Revolution (1775–83), the war the colonies waged for independence from Britain.

Warfare between white American settlers and Native Americans in the area reached a climax in August 1782, when some 200 Wyandot and other Native Americans defeated a Kentucky militia force that had ventured north across the Ohio River; in the battle, 146 militiamen...