Appendix H - Historical Archaeological and ... - CBP.gov

prosperous land. Many of the settlers were Revolutionary War soldiers, who received land for
their services.
Confrontations between the settlers and the Indians resulted, as Indian resistance to American
settlement was being fueled by an alliance with the British. A fierce battle occurred in August
1794 at Fallen Timbers in northwestern Ohio, west of Lake Erie. Despite the American victory
under the command of General Anthony Wayne and the subsequent Treaty of Greenville (1795),
hostilities continued in the face of increased American settlement. Moses Cleaveland landed at
the mouth of the Cuyahoga in the Western Reserve in 1796, and Ebenezer Zane completed a
rudimentary road across Ohio, and established three ferries in 1797 (Horsman, 1988:32-33;
Scott, 1877; Howe, 1852; OHC, 2010; OHO, 2010). In 1798, the Harrison Land Act divided the
Northwest Territory into the Ohio Country and the Indiana Territory (Petro, 1994; Knepper,
2002; Randall and Ryan, 1912).
Jay’s Treaty with Great Britain resolved several issues smoldering since the conclusion of the
Revolution. As a result of the treaty, the British withdrew their soldiers from posts along the
northern border between the United States and Canada, and a commission was established to
settle outstanding border issues between the United States and Canada (Mahon, 1988:152).
During the early nineteenth century, Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa led a Shawnee
revival in western Ohio and Indiana. Supported by British intervention, the revival evolved into
an intertribal movement that rekindled Native American resistance to American expansion. In
November 1811, Gen. William Henry Harrison, Indiana Territorial Governor, led American
troops against a group of Indians at the Battle of Tippecanoe in northern Indiana. The movement
dissolved as a result of the battle. This conflict merged into the battles against the British during
the War of 1812 (Callender, 1978:632). The American victory over and combined British-Indian
force at the Battle of Thames (in Ontario, Canada) in October 1813 “marked the end of effective
Indian resistance between the Ohio and Mississippi rivers” (Horsman, 1988:39).
Transportation
Overland roads were generally poor, however, Lake Erie and inland rivers provided essential
transportation as well as power for early sawmills and gristmills. Despite the improvements in
roads and development of mills and other processing facilities during the early nineteenth
century, economic growth still lagged. A problem facing many rural farming communities was
ensuring that their products could reach markets. While the state’s population rose in tandem
with improved infrastructure, this infrastructure was still inadequate for farmers to get their
products to market. Beginning in the 1820s, Ohio developed two main canal lines—the Ohio-
Erie Canal between Cleveland on Lake Erie and Cincinnati on the Ohio River; and the Ohio-
Miami Canal between Toledo and the junction of the Great Miami and Ohio rivers (Howe, 1852;
McGill, 1969; OHC, 2010). A number of other feeder canals were also constructed in the
following decades to support both systems.
Northern Border Activities H-94 July 2012