Western Theater of The American Revolutionary War - Peace and Legacy

Peace and Legacy

The war in the Northwest, in the words of historian David Curtis Scaggs, "ended in a stalemate". In the war's final years, each side could destroy enemy settlements, but could not stay and hold the territory. For the Shawnees, the war was a loss: the Americans had successfully defended Kentucky and increased settlement there, so that prime hunting ground was now lost. Although the Indians had been pushed back from the Ohio River and were now settled primarily in the Lake Erie basin, the Americans could not occupy the abandoned lands for fear of Indian raids.

News of the pending peace treaty arrived late in 1782. In the final treaty, the Ohio Country was signed away by Great Britain to the United States, even though "not a single American soldier was north of the Ohio River when the treaty was signed". Great Britain had not consulted the Indians in the peace process, and the Indians were nowhere mentioned in treaty's terms. For the Indians, the struggle would soon continue as the Northwest Indian War, though this time without the explicit support of the British.