Ohio Country

Examples of Ohio Country in the following topics:

• French-British Rivalry in the Ohio Country

  • Colonial settlement in the Ohio Country became a primary cause of the French and Indian War.
  • The Ohio Country (sometimes called the Ohio Territory or Ohio Valley by the French) was the name used in the 18th century for the regions of North America west of the Appalachian Mountains and in the region of the upper Ohio River south of Lake Erie.
  • The Ohio Country remained largely uninhabited for decades, and was used primarily for hunting by the Iroquois.
  • In the 1720s, a number of Native American groups began to migrate to the Ohio Country.
  • After initially remaining neutral, the Ohio Country Indians largely sided with the French.

• The War in the West

  • When the American Revolutionary War began in 1775, the Ohio River marked a tenuous border between the American colonies and the American Indians of the Ohio Country.
  • Yet the first American expedition into the Ohio Country was a disaster, ending in a blundered attack on peaceful Delaware Indians.
  • Peace negotiations between the U.S. and Great Britain created a temporary respite in hostilities during The Year of Blood; but in November 1782, Brigadier General George Rogers Clark delivered the final blow in The Year of Blood, destroying several Shawnee towns in the Ohio Country.
  • In the final treaty between Great Britain and the United States, the Ohio Country was granted to the United States.
  • This map depicts the battles and massacres that occurred within Ohio Country between 1775 and 1794.

• The French and Indian War

  • The Ohio Country (sometimes called the Ohio Territory or Ohio Valley by the French) was the name used in the 18th century for the regions of North America west of the Appalachian Mountains and in the region of the upper Ohio River south of Lake Erie.
  • The Ohio Country remained largely uninhabited for decades and was used primarily for hunting by the Iroquois.
  • In the 1720s, a number of American Indian groups began to migrate to the Ohio Country.
  • Other bands of the scattered Shawnee tribe also began to return to the Ohio Country in the decades that followed.
  • A number of Senecas and other Iroquois also migrated to the Ohio Country, moving away from the French and British imperial rivalries south of Lake Ontario.

• The Seven Years' War: 1754-1763

  • Using trading posts and forts, both the British and the French claimed the vast territory between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, known as the Ohio Country.
  • The purpose of these expeditions was to remove British influence from the Ohio Country and to confirm and enforce the allegiance of the Native Americans inhabiting the area to the French crown.
  • Governor Robert Dinwiddie of Virginia responded to the French expeditions in 1753 by ordering Major George Washington of the Virginia militia to send a message to the commander of the French forces in the Ohio Country, Jacques Legardeur de Saint-Pierre.
  • Dinwiddie could not allow the loss of the Ohio Country to France since many Virginian merchants had invested heavily in fur trading in Ohio.
  • The French responded by explaining that France's claim to the region was superior to that of Britain since the French had explored the Ohio Country nearly a century earlier.

• The Year of Blood

  • In March 1782, 160 Pennsylvania militiamen under Lieutenant Colonel David Williamson rode into the Ohio Country, in search of Native American warriors responsible for ongoing raids against Pennsylvania settlers.
  • In May 1782, Colonel William Crawford led a campaign to destroy enemy Native American settlements along the Sandusky River in the Ohio Country with the hope of ending Native American attacks on American settlers.
  • Peace negotiations between the United States and Great Britain created a temporary respite from the escalation, but in November 1782, Continental George Rogers Clark delivered the final blow of the Year of Blood, destroying several Shawnee towns in the Ohio Country.

• Pontiac's Uprising

  • After the Seven Years' War, British troops proceeded to occupy the various forts in the Ohio Country and Great Lakes region that had been previously garrisoned by the French.
  • The second group was made up of the tribes of the eastern Illinois Country, which included the Miamis, Weas, Kickapoos, Mascoutens, and Piankashaws.
  • The members of the third group were the tribes of the Ohio Country: the Delawares (Lenape), Shawnees, Wyandots, and Mingos.
  • Shawnees and Delawares in the Ohio Country, especially, had been displaced by British colonists in the east, motivating their resistance along with food shortages and epidemic disease.
  • Senecas of the Ohio Country (Mingos) circulated messages calling for the tribes to form a confederacy and drive away the British.

• The Treaty of Fort Stanwix

  • In this treaty, the Iroquois Confederacy ceded all claims to the Ohio territory, a strip of land along the Niagara river, and all land west of the mouth of Buffalo creek.
  • The general Native confederacy also disavowed the treaty since most members of the Six Nations did not live in the Ohio territory.
  • Many of the Ohio Country natives, including the Shawnee, the Mingo and Delaware tribes rejected the treaty.
  • 1785 Treaty of Fort McIntosh with Wyandotte, Delaware, Chippewa and Ottawa leaders for lands in Ohio
  • 1786 Treaty of Fort Finney with Shawnee leaders for portions of Ohio

• The Northwest Territory

  • The Ohio territory became subject to overlapping and conflicting claims by the states of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and Virginia, which had little regard for the numerous American Indian tribes who already inhabited the land.
  • The Confederacy was renewed in 1786 when member tribes declared the Ohio River as the boundary between their lands and those of European American invaders.
  • In response to this escalation, President Washington and Secretary of War Henry Knox ordered General Josiah Harmar to launch a major western offensive into Shawnee and Miami country, beginning in October of 1790.
  • In exchange for goods valued at $20,000, the American Indian tribes were forced to cede most of the areas of Ohio and Indiana and to formally recognize the United States as the ruling power in the Old Northwest.
  • However, the war was a key part of a long offensive in the Ohio Country, which included the Beaver Wars (1650s), the Seven Years' War (1754–1763), Pontiac's Rebellion (1763–1764), Lord Dunmore's War (1774), and the American Revolution (1775–1783).

• Coxey's Army

  • Coxey's Army was a protest march by unemployed workers from the United States, led by Ohio businessman Jacob Coxey.
  • Coxey's Army was a protest march by unemployed workers from the United States, led by Ohio businessman Jacob Coxey.
  • The march originated with 100 men in Massillon, Ohio, on March 25, 1894.
  • Although larger at its outset, Kelly's Army lost members on its long journey; few made it past the Ohio River.
  • Various groups from around the country gathered to join the march, and its number had grown to 500 with more on the way from further west when it reached Washington on April 30, 1894.

• German Immigration

  • Many communities acquired distinctive names suggesting their heritage, such as the "Over-the-Rhine" district in Cincinnati and the "German Village" in Columbus, Ohio.
  • Milwaukee was once known as "the German Athens," and radical Germans trained in politics in the old country dominated the city's Socialists.
  • From Ohio to the Plains states, a heavy presence of German heritage persists in rural areas today.
  • This map shows the large number of German Americans in the United States and their concentration in the northern region of the country.