Studies in American History 
101 
and the choice of Washington as president. Americans were 
pushing into the Northwest, and Washington showed a dis- 
position to protect them and to extend the frontier at the 
expense of the Indians. War was precipitated by General 
Harmar's raid into the Maumee country in 1789 and continued 
until 1795. 
Its effect upon the British fur trade in the Maumee-Wabash 
country was disastrous. When the Indians went to war they 
stopped hunting furs. While the British along the Great 
Lakes deplored the loss of trade they saw in the defeat of 
St. Clair a golden opportunity to bar the Americans perma- 
nently from the country north of the Ohio. They hoped to 
establish here a great Indian country, free from American 
authority, in which they would hold all the trading posts. 
With this plan in mind mediation between the United States 
and the Indian tribes was suggested, but the American gov- 
ernment gave no countenance to such a proposal. 
Altho the Indians received encouragement and help from 
Canada the wars were ended in 1795 by General Wayne, and 
Americans began pouring into the country south and south- 
west of Lake Erie. 
A desire to control the fur trade was a principal motive 
of the British in retaining the American posts south of the 
Canadian boundary.^® The fur business led the Canadians to 
use every effort to hold the loyalty of the Indians and was 
back of the encouragement given them in their wars with 
Generals St. Clair and Wayne. The Treaty of Greenville, how- 
ever, ended Indian power in the Northwest,^® and prepared the 
“I most sincerely wish & hope our Government may be able to mediate between 
the Indians & Americans if the latter are disposed for peace they must relinquish the idea 
of getting the Posts. . . James McGill to John Askin, January 24, 1792. Askin 
Papers, II. “It is said the Americans will insist upon the posts as the means of enabling 
them to Chastise with effect the Indians, while on the other hand, there appears no 
disposition here to comply with such acquisition — at the same time a new line has been 
suggested for a frontier between the Indians & Americans — which is run from Lake 
Ontario up the Gunison [Genesee] river to its source thence onto the obscure stream 
from whence the Alleghanny takes its rise & following the meanderings of that river till 
it joins . . . the Ohio, is then to follow the course of that noble stream to the 
Mississippi. . . . Mr. Todd & I had some conversation with Mr. Dundas’s secretary 
on this subject, hut what will be done men in office you know are too cautious to say,” 
William Robertson, London, March 26, 1792, in ibid. See also William Kingsford, 
The History of Canada (12 vols., London, 1894), VII, 343, for description of British 
efforts at mediation. 
Andrew C. McLaughlin, “The Western Posts and the British Debts”, in American 
Historical Association Annual Report, 1894, pp. 426-430, presents full evidence to prove 
this. 
^Ubid., 439-441. 
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