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Full Size Tabby wrote an interesting post about the hypocritical land acknowledgement that Valerie Jarrett delivered at the Obama Presidential Center opening. It got me wondering about the actual means by which the US acquired the land where the Obama Center is located.
During the Revolutionary War, Britain gathered Indian tribes as allies against the patriot side, resulting in small, brutal battles and raids in the backcountry. When Britain signed the Treaty of Paris in 1783 to end the war, it made no mention of these Indian allies. Britain essentially abandoned them.
The federal government wanted a peaceful and orderly settlement of the Northwest Territory that would not require many US troops in the region. It wanted to prevent white settlers from moving into Indian territory and to prevent Indian raids on white settlers. The federal government's strategy was to organize Indian councils that would sell or cede land to the federal government, which could then be settled peacefully. But white settlers often ventured deeper into Indian territory than they were allowed under treaties between the government and Indians. Raiding inevitably developed between the two groups, setting off the Northwest Indian War of 1785-1795. Gen. "Mad" Anthony Wayne defeated the Indian confederacy of Shawnees, Delawares, Miamis, Wyandottes, and a company of British volunteers from Canada at the Battle of Fallen Timbers near present-day Toledo, Ohio, in 1794.
That year, when Britain and the US signed the Jay Treaty, Britain agreed to withdraw from the Western territories it had ceded to the US in the 1783 Treaty of Paris. The Treaty gave the Indians freedom of trade and of movement, but Britain did nothing else to support its former allies. Their defeat at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, combined with a lack of support from the former British allies, convinced many Indian leaders that they had to deal with the federal government.
In 1795 the Indian confederacy was forced to sign the Treaty of Greenville. They sold large parts of Ohio and other territories for $20,000 in goods and an annual annuity. Included in the land sale was a 36-square-mile tract at the mouth of the Chicago River on Lake Michigan for the construction of Fort Dearborn. This area is now downtown Chicago and includes the land that the generous taxpayers of Illinois donated to the Obama Presidential Center.
The Obama Center land acknowledgement obscures a lot of history that matters.
Discussion (6)
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Thanks for a great post; I’m really enjoying it!
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I wonder if the annuity has been paid regularly as specified in the treaty
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For Obama and his acolytes, history began when he
was borndeigned to walk among us peasants. Also, leftists in general abhor reality, especially that represented by American history.To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
No, I don't think so. One source gave the annuity as $9300/yr. Gen. Wayne personally guaranteed to the Indians that the treaty would be enforced. It's interesting how some of the best Indian fighters also had integrity and great respect for their cultures. But Wayne died a year later in 1796 under suspicious circumstances, probably poisoned by his deputy James Wilkinson when Wayne discovered that he was spying for Spain. Wilkinson didn't care about the Indians or the treaty, and he failed to enforce it.
For a few years the treaty kept the Indians and the settlers separated, but the settlers continued to encroach on Indian land. And Indian pro-war chiefs attacked settlers. Eventually the Shawnees Tecumseh and the Prophet led another coalition of Indians against settlers, and they were defeated at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811 by William Henry Harrison.
Wilkinson swore allegiance to the King of Spain in 1787 and worked to expand Spanish influence in the Trans-Appalachian region. He was paid large amounts in gold by Spain, even when he was the most senior general in the American army. He was involved in Aaron Burr's treason conspiracy and was court-martialed three times for various suspicious activities, but he got off all three times. His treason was proven in 1854, three decades after his death, when his correspondence with his Spanish paymasters was published.
Theodore Roosevelt said of him, "In all our history, there is no more despicable character." If there had been more men like Anthony Wayne and fewer like James Wilkinson, our relations with the Indians would have been much different.
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