Treaty of Fort McIntosh Boundary Line
Akron, Summit County, Ohio
Marker Inscription
In 1785, American Indian tribal leaders from the Chippewa, Delaware, Ottawa, and Wyandot met with representatives sent by the United States Congress to sign the controversial Treaty of Fort McIntosh...
The Story
In 1785, just two years after the Revolution secured American independence, the young United States moved quickly to open the Ohio Country to settlement. At Fort McIntosh on the Pennsylvania frontier, commissioners from the Confederation Congress pressed leaders of the Chippewa, Delaware, Ottawa, and Wyandot to accept a boundary line that surrendered much of present-day Ohio. The treaty was controversial from the start: many Native nations regarded the terms as coerced and the signatories as unauthorized to cede communal land, and the disputed line helped fuel the frontier conflicts of the following decade.
Why it matters
The Treaty of Fort McIntosh set the template for how a land-hungry new republic would acquire Native territory through pressured treaties, and the resistance it provoked led directly to the Northwest Indian War. This quiet boundary marker traces one of the first lines drawn in the long, contested story of American westward expansion.
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Related events
- · Treaty of Fort McIntosh
- · Northwest Indian War
Themes & tags
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