Files
Abstract
A THOUSAND SLAIN: ST. CLAIRS DEFEAT AND THE EVOLUTION OF A NATIONbyKURT WILLIAM WINDISCH(Under the Direction of Claudio Saunt)ABSTRACTOn November 4, 1791, Indian warriors defeated the US Army under Arthur St. Clair at present-day Fort Recovery, Ohio. It was the worst defeat US soldiers ever incurred at the hands of Natives, three times more deadly than Custers Last Stand, wiping out over half of the entire US Army. Its importance is often overlooked, however. It was not merely a singular event in the Northwest Indian War, but rather the culmination of one hundred eighty-four years of English colonialism in North America. The US government was unable to effectively manage the difficult conditions that it faced after the American Revolution. The national economy was mired in a depression, the national and state governments owed large debts, and the central government created by the Articles of Confederation did not have the power to effectively manage foreign and domestic policy. The lands acquired from England in the Treaty of Paris were seen as a potential remedy, but the possibility achieving of peaceful westward expansion was undermined by a flawed Indian policy, a weak army, and the aggressive actions of white frontier settlers. The Indians who lived east of the Mississippi River also faced an uncertain future after American independence. The United States saw the Natives as conquered people because of their alliance with Great Britain during the late war, and demanded massive land cessions in the Ohio Country as indemnification. To protect their lands, Indians formed a pan-Indian resistance movement that vexed US government for the next decade both militarily and diplomatically. The Northwest Indian War played a significant role in the creation of a strong federal government under the Constitution. But the new republic found that its western problems were intractable, especially Indians, protecting federal sovereignty, and peaceful territorial expansion, all of which required a strong US Army to bring to completion. It was only after the Battle of a Thousand Slain that US politicians and citizens realized a standing army was not a threat to liberty and self-government, but perhaps the only thing that could save it.