THE TREATY OF GKEENVJLLE 



fi71 



Indian tribes ranged themselves on the British side. When the war 

 ended and a treaty of peace was made between the new government 

 and the old, no provision was made for the red allies of the king, and 

 they were left to continue the struggle single handed. The Indians 

 claimed the Ohio country as theirs by virtue of the most solemn trea- 

 ties, but pioneers had already occupied western Pennsylvania, western 

 Virginia, and Kentucky, and were listening with eager attention to the 

 reports brought back by adventurous hunters from the fertile lands of 

 the Muskingum and the Scioto. They refused to be bound by the trea- 

 ties of a government they had repudiated, and the tiibes of the north 

 west were obliged to fight to defend their territories. Under the able 



[ 1RGT "Wa. STOT. OTP.N 



Fig. 57 — Greenville treaty medal, obverse and rev ei >< 



leadership of Little Turtle they twice rolled back the tide of white 

 invasion, defeating two of the finest armies ever sent into the western 

 country, until, worn out by twenty years of unceasing warfare, and 

 crushed and broken by the deci sive victory of Wayne at the Fallen 

 Timbers, their villages in ashes and their cornfie lds cut down, the 

 dispirited chiefs met their conqueror at Greenville in 1795 and signed 

 away the rights for which they had so long contended. 



By this treaty, which marks the beginning of the end with the east- 

 ern tribes, the Indians renounced their claims to all territory east of a 

 line running in a general way from the mouth of the < !uyahoga on Lake 

 Erie to the mouth of the Kentucky on the Ohio, leaving to the whites 

 the better portion of Ohio valley, including their favorite hunting 

 14 BTH — pt 2 3 



