Editing Fort Wayne, Indiana (section)

====American Revolution to the Old Northwest====
The British continued to monitor Kekionga and [[Fort Miami (Indiana)|Fort Miami]] throughout the [[American Revolutionary War]]. In 1780, [[French Canadians|French Canadian]] soldiers coming to assist the U.S. with the revolution were slaughtered in several nearby locations in what is known as [[La Balme's Defeat]]. At the end of the Revolutionary War, in the [[Treaty of Paris (1783)|Treaty of Paris]] in 1783, Britain ceded this area to the new United States, though they continued to maintain an influence on trading activity and the forts of Miami, with the primary objective of slowing American expansion into the [[Great Lakes region]]. The young United States formally organized the region in the [[Land Ordinance of 1785]] and negotiated treaties allowing settlement, but the [[Western Confederacy]] of Native American nations were not party to these treaties and did not cede their ownership of those lands.

American land speculators and pioneers began flooding down the [[Ohio River]] into the area, leading to conflict with an alliance of native tribes known as the [[Western Confederacy]]. It was headquartered at Kekionga, where the Miami had permitted two refugee tribes dislodged by white homesteaders, the Delaware and the Shawnee, to resettle. The confederacy—which included other Great Lakes and [[Algonquin people|Algonquin tribes]] as well—began sending war parties to raid settlers, hoping to drive them back across the [[Appalachian Mountains]], and refused to meet for negotiations over a possible treaty to instead cede land for white settlement. The growing violence led to the [[Northwest Indian War]].

In 1790, President [[George Washington]] ordered the [[United States Army|U.S. Army]] to subdue and pacify the tribes. The first expedition, led by General [[Josiah Harmar]] reached Kekionga and exercised [[scorched earth]] tactics on the village and crops. Miami war chief [[Little Turtle]], who had been long tracking the whereabouts of Harmar though the aid of various agents such as [[Simon Girty]], would quickly drive Harmar and the US troops away. The confederacy warriors attacked the second invading force, led in 1791 by General [[Arthur St. Clair]], before it could get that far and wiped it out, in a massacre known as [[St. Clair's Defeat]] at modern-day [[Fort Recovery, Ohio]]. It's known as the greatest defeat of the [[United States Army|U.S. Army]] by Native Americans in history. This defeat left the US army crippled and borders open to attacks from the British and allied native tribes. General [[Anthony Wayne]] was recalled from civilian life to lead a third expedition, defeating the confederacy's warriors at the Battle of [[Fallen Timbers]], near modern-day [[Toledo, Ohio]] on August 20, 1794. Wayne's men then marched up the [[Maumee River]], systematically burning evacuated native towns, crops, and winter food stores, until they reached its headwaters, where Kekionga remained in ruins. Wayne then confronted the British at Fort Miami, where the British debated an attack. Later, Wayne selected the site for construction of [[Fort Wayne (Fort)|Fort Wayne]]. He ordered a fort that could withstand heavy British artillery, especially a 24-pound cannon, along with attacks from their army or native allies.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hogeland |first1=William |title=Autumn of the Black Snake: the creation of the U.S. Army and the invasion that opened the West |date=2017 |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |location=New York |lccn=2016052193 |isbn=978-0-374-10734-5 |edition=First}}</ref>

The following year, Wayne negotiated a peace accord, the [[Treaty of Greenville]] with tribal leaders, in which they agreed to stop fighting, end support of the British, and ceded most of what is now Ohio along with certain tracts further west, including the area around Fort Wayne encompassing Kekionga and the land portage. Wayne promised the remainder would remain Indian lands, which is why the territory west of [[Ohio]] was named Indiana. Wayne would die one year later and a Spanish spy [[James Wilkinson]] would assume his role as General. In subsequent years, the government used Fort Wayne to hand out annual payments under the treaty. But in a recurring cycle, the tribes ran up debts to white traders who came there to sell them alcohol and manufactured goods, and the government pushed tribal leaders—including through bribes—to sell more reservation land to pay off those debts and, when the land was gone, then to agree to have the tribe removed to the Far West.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Savage |first=Charlie |date=July 31, 2020 |title=When the Culture Wars Hit Fort Wayne |url=https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/07/31/culture-wars-fort-wayne-373011 |magazine=Politico Magazine |access-date=September 4, 2020}}</ref>

In 1802, a [[United States Government Fur Trade Factory System|United States fur trade factory]] was established in Fort Wayne. It was burned by the local Indians at the beginning of the [[War of 1812]].<ref>Wesley, Edgar Bruce (1935). Guarding the frontier. The University of Minnesota Press, p. 38.</ref>