WAYNE AND THE TREATY OF GREENE VILLE
by DWIGHT L. SMITH*
It has generally been assumed that the
chief architect of the
Treaty of Greene Ville at the end of
the Indian Wars in the Old
Northwest was General "Mad"
Anthony Wayne. The discovery of
hitherto unknown manuscript material,
however, furnishes docu-
mentary evidence that Wayne was
operating under very specific
orders from the war department.
Further, a draft treaty for his
guidance and use predetermined to a
large extent the ultimate
structure and content of the treaty. By
comparing the instructions
and the draft treaty with the final
document drawn up and accepted
at the Greene Ville council in the
summer of 1795, it is possible to
assign Wayne precisely the credit due
him. This is assuming, of
course, that general credit for the
successful negotiation is pri-
marily his.
Following the American Revolution,
repeated attempts to bring
peace between the Indians and the
United States in the Old North-
west had failed. To Wayne was assigned
the task that others had
failed to accomplish. As early as the
autumn of 1792 he began to
organize and drill the Legion of the
United States, as the army was
then designated, in the hope of an
eventual decisive victory. The
legion advanced down the Ohio River to
Fort Washington (Cin-
cinnati) and up the Great Miami Valley
in western Ohio. A chain
of forts, spearheaded by Greene Ville,
pointed into the Indian
stronghold of the
Auglaize-Maumee-Wabash valleys.
From his headquarters at Greene Ville
in mid-January of 1794,
Wayne reported to the secretary of war
that Delaware, Miami, and
Shawnee Indians had sent him "a
flag with overtures of peace."
There was reason to doubt the sincerity
of this gesture and to con-
clude that it was only
"insidiously to gain time." Wayne reasoned
that time would permit the Indians to
reconnoiter his position and
*Dwight L. Smith is an assistant
professor of history at Miami University and the
editor of From Greene Ville to Fallen
Timbers: A Journal of the Wayne Campaign,
July 28-September 14, 1794.
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