Fort Defiance provisions abstract   Save
United States Army Records,  1793-1815
Description: This abstract accounts for the provisions issued to United States Army detachments and American Indian troops stationed at Fort Defiance in April of 1796. The collection also includes surviving receipts that document the same time period. Fort Defiance was located at the junction of the Maumee and Auglaize Rivers near present-day Defiance, Ohio. In August 1794, Anthony Wayne ordered its construction during his campaign against local American Indians, who were resisting the increased encroachment on their lands by white settlers. The fort, built in a rough square with a blockhouse located on each corner, was intended to serve both as a secure location for Wayne's men and as a staging ground for future military operations. In addition to the stockade, a wall of earth eight feet thick and a ditch eight feet deep and fifteen feet wide protected the fortifications. Following the Battle of Fallen Timbers, Wayne used Fort Defiance as his base of operations, ordering the destruction of all American Indian villages and crops within a 50-mile radius of the fort. With the signing of the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, the region's American Indian tribes permitted the Anglo-American settlers to maintain a trading post and fort at Fort Defiance, although the United States had ceded the right to settle this portion of Ohio. Until the War of 1812, Fort Defiance served as one of America's western-most outposts in the Ohio Country. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: MSS233_B01F01_01
Subjects: Fort Defiance (Defiance, Ohio); Military life; American Indian history; United States. Army;
Places: Defiance County (Ohio)