The Treaty of Fort Harmar (1789) was an agreement between the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

government and numerous Native American tribes with claims to the

Northwest Territory The Northwest Territory, also known as the Old Northwest and formally known as the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio, was formed from unorganized western territory of the United States after the American Revolutionary War. Established in 1 ...

History

The Treaty of Fort Harmar was signed at

Fort Harmar Fort Harmar was an early United States frontier military fort, built in pentagonal shape during 1785 at the confluence of the Ohio River, Ohio and Muskingum River, Muskingum rivers, on the west side of the mouth of the Muskingum River. It was buil ...

, near present-day

Marietta, Ohio Marietta is a city in, and the county seat of, Washington County, Ohio, United States. It is located in southeastern Ohio at the confluence of the Muskingum and Ohio Rivers, northeast of Parkersburg, West Virginia. As of the 2020 census, Mar ...

, on January 9, 1789. Representatives of the Iroquois Six Nations and other groups, including the

Wyandot Wyandot may refer to: Native American ethnography * Wyandot people, also known as the Huron * Wyandot language * Wyandot religion Places * Wyandot, Ohio, an unincorporated community * Wyandot County, Ohio * Camp Wyandot, a Camp Fire Boys and ...

Delaware Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacent Del ...

Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...

, Chippewa,

Potawatomi The Potawatomi , also spelled Pottawatomi and Pottawatomie (among many variations), are a Native American people of the western Great Lakes region, upper Mississippi River and Great Plains. They traditionally speak the Potawatomi language, a m ...

and Sauk met with Arthur St. Clair, the governor of the

, and other American leaders such as

Josiah Harmar Josiah Harmar (November 10, 1753August 20, 1813) was an officer in the United States Army during the American Revolutionary War and the Northwest Indian War. He was the senior officer in the Army for six years and seven months (August 1784 to Ma ...

and Richard Butler. The treaty was supposed to address issues remaining since the 1784 Treaty of Fort Stanwix and the 1785

Treaty of Fort McIntosh The Treaty of Fort McIntosh was a treaty between the United States government and representatives of the Wyandotte, Delaware, Chippewa and Ottawa nations of Native Americans. The treaty was signed at Fort McIntosh (present Beaver, Pennsylvania ...

; but, the new agreement did little more than reiterate the terms of those two previous documents with a few minor changes. The negotiations and document failed to address the most important grievances of the tribes, namely, the settlement of

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

ers in the

Firelands The Firelands, or Sufferers' Lands, tract was located at the western end of the Connecticut Western Reserve in what is now the U.S. state of Ohio. It was legislatively established in 1792, as the "Sufferers' Lands", and later became named "Fire Land ...

portions of the

Western Reserve The Connecticut Western Reserve was a portion of land claimed by the Colony of Connecticut and later by the state of Connecticut in what is now mostly the northeastern region of Ohio. The Reserve had been granted to the Colony under the terms o ...

, an area that extended into the territory set aside for the tribes. Governor Arthur St. Clair had been authorized by Congress and

Secretary of War The secretary of war was a member of the U.S. president's Cabinet, beginning with George Washington's administration. A similar position, called either "Secretary at War" or "Secretary of War", had been appointed to serve the Congress of the ...

Henry Knox Henry Knox (July 25, 1750 – October 25, 1806), a Founding Father of the United States, was a senior general of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, serving as chief of artillery in most of Washington's campaigns. Following the ...

to offer back some lands reserved for American settlement in exchange for the disputed Firelands of the Western Reserve. St. Clair refused to give up these lands and instead, through threats and bribery, negotiated a treaty that simply reiterated the terms of previous treaties. Many Native American leaders met prior to the treaty negotiations to determine an appropriate strategy.

Joseph Brant Thayendanegea or Joseph Brant (March 1743 – November 24, 1807) was a Mohawk people, Mohawk military and political leader, based in present-day New York (state), New York, who was closely associated with Kingdom of Great Britain, Great B ...

offered a compromise position which moved the boundary line to the

Muskingum River The Muskingum River (Shawnee: ') is a tributary of the Ohio River, approximately long, in southeastern Ohio in the United States. An important commercial route in the 19th century, it flows generally southward through the eastern hill country o ...

. Some hardline leaders rejected Brant's compromise, so Brant sent St. Clair a letter asking for early concessions; St. Clair refused, and accused Brant of acting for the British. Brant decided to boycott negotiations with the United States, and suggested others do the same. To make matters worse, white settler

Lewis Wetzel Lewis Wetzel (1763 (reference: C. B. Allman 1931) – 1808) was an American scout, frontiersman, and indian fighter in the United States. Raised in what is now the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia, his exploits once hailed as similar to those o ...

murdered

Seneca Seneca may refer to: People and language * Seneca (name), a list of people with either the given name or surname * Seneca people, one of the six Iroquois tribes of North America ** Seneca language, the language of the Seneca people Places Extrat ...

Chief Tegunteh on his way to Fort Harmar. (Wetzel was twice arrested for his crimes, but never otherwise punished.) Several regional tribes, such as the

Shawnee The Shawnee are an Algonquian-speaking indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. In the 17th century they lived in Pennsylvania, and in the 18th century they were in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, with some bands in Kentucky a ...

and

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...

, refused to participate when St. Clair refused to attend or sign the treaty, and therefore refused to abide by the treaty. The new treaty did almost nothing to stop the rash of violence along the frontier from confrontations between settlers and Indians. Many native nations were infuriated at the treaty, which recognized native rights to sell their lands, while claiming U.S. sovereignty and forcing native tribes to sell their lands immediately. The failure of the treaty led to an escalation of the

Northwest Indian War The Northwest Indian War (1786–1795), also known by other names, was an armed conflict for control of the Northwest Territory fought between the United States and a united group of Native American nations known today as the Northwestern ...

as a new

Western 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 it ...

fought against settlement and invasion from the United States. The war would continue for six years and see thousands killed, including some of the worst defeats in U.S. Army history, until the United States defeated the tribal alliance at the

Battle of Fallen Timbers The Battle of Fallen Timbers (20 August 1794) was the final battle of the Northwest Indian War, a struggle between Native American tribes affiliated with the Northwestern Confederacy and their British allies, against the nascent United States ...

in 1794. In the 1795

Treaty of Greenville The Treaty of Greenville, formally titled Treaty with the Wyandots, etc., was a 1795 treaty between the United States and indigenous nations of the Northwest Territory (now Midwestern United States), including the Wyandot and Delaware peoples, ...

, the tribes were forced to give up claims to most of what is now the state of

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

. This treaty divided the Northwest Territory into two parts; one for the Native Americans and one for the United States settlers.

References

* Laurence M. Hauptman, ''Conspiracy of Interests: Iroquois Dispossession and the Rise of New York State'' (2001).

External links

Text of the Treaty
{{DEFAULTSORT:Treaty Of Fort Harmar Harmar Harmar Harmar Harmar, Treaty of Fort Marietta, Ohio Harmar Aboriginal title in New York

History

See also

References

External links