Fort Miami (Miamis) was a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

fort built in spring 1794 on the

Maumee River The Maumee River (pronounced ) ( sjw, Hotaawathiipi; mia, Taawaawa siipiiwi) is a river running in the United States Midwest from northeastern Indiana into northwestern Ohio and Lake Erie. It is formed at the confluence of the St. Joseph and ...

in what was at the time territory claimed by the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, and designated by the federal government as the

Northwest Territory The Northwest Territory, also known as the Old Northwest and formally known as the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio, was formed from unorganized western territory of the United States after the American Revolutionary War. Established in 1 ...

. The fort was located at the eastern edge of present-day

Maumee, Ohio Maumee ( ) is a city in Lucas County, Ohio, United States. Located along the Maumee River, it is about 10 miles southwest of Toledo. The population was 14,286 at the 2010 census. Maumee was declared an All-America City by the National Civic L ...

, southwest of Toledo. The British built the fort to forestall a putative assault on Fort Detroit by Gen.

"Mad" Anthony Wayne Anthony Wayne (January 1, 1745 – December 15, 1796) was an American soldier, officer, statesman, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He adopted a military career at the outset of the American Revolutionary War, where his mil ...

's army, then advancing northward in southwestern Ohio.

Background

Under the terms of the

Treaty of Paris (1783) The Treaty of Paris, signed in Paris by representatives of George III, King George III of Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and representatives of the United States, United States of America on September 3, 1783, officially ended the Ame ...

that ended the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

the region south of the

Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lakes ...

and between the

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

and

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

Rivers was assigned to the United States. The British, however, refused to evacuate their troops from their forts in the region, claiming that the U.S. had not complied with portions of the treatypre-Revolution debts owed to British merchants and subjects had not been paid, and confiscation of

Loyalist Loyalism, in the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and its former colonies, refers to the allegiance to the British crown or the United Kingdom. In North America, the most common usage of the term refers to loyalty to the British Cro ...

properties continued. In the early 1790s, the

Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada The following is a list of lieutenant governors of Ontario and the lieutenant governors of the former colony of Upper Canada. The office of Lieutenant Governor of Ontario was created in 1867, when the Province of Ontario was created upon Confed ...

John Graves Simcoe John Graves Simcoe (25 February 1752 – 26 October 1806) was a British Army general and the first lieutenant governor of Upper Canada from 1791 until 1796 in southern Ontario and the Drainage basin, watersheds of Georgian Bay and Lake Superior. ...

, made an aggressive effort to aid the "

Western Confederacy The Northwestern Confederacy, or Northwestern Indian Confederacy, was a loose confederacy of Native Americans in the Great Lakes region of the United States created after the American Revolutionary War. Formally, the confederacy referred to it ...

" of Native American tribes (the

Shawnee The Shawnee are an Algonquian-speaking indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. In the 17th century they lived in Pennsylvania, and in the 18th century they were in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, with some bands in Kentucky a ...

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...

Wyandot Wyandot may refer to: Native American ethnography * Wyandot people, also known as the Huron * Wyandot language * Wyandot religion Places * Wyandot, Ohio, an unincorporated community * Wyandot County, Ohio * Camp Wyandot, a Camp Fire Boys and ...

, and others) in the Maumee and

Wabash River The Wabash River ( French: Ouabache) is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed May 13, 2011 river that drains most of the state of Indiana in the United States. It flows fro ...

watersheds in their ongoing

war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

with American settlers. His ultimate goal was the establishment of an

Indian barrier state The Indian barrier state or buffer state was a British proposal to establish a Native American state in the portion of the Great Lakes region of North America. It was never created. The idea was to create it west of the Appalachian Mountains, bo ...

in the region, as a way to protect Britain's

North American fur trade The North American fur trade is the commercial trade in furs in North America. Various Indigenous peoples of the Americas traded furs with other tribes during the pre-Columbian era. Europeans started their participation in the North American fur ...

ventures, and to block anticipated American attacks upon their remaining North American possessions.

Fort history

In spring 1794 the British built Fort Miami to forestall U.S. Gen.

Anthony Wayne Anthony Wayne (January 1, 1745 – December 15, 1796) was an American soldier, officer, statesman, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He adopted a military career at the outset of the American Revolutionary War, where his mil ...

's advance on Britain's

Fort Detroit Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit or Fort Detroit (1701–1796) was a fort established on the north bank of the Detroit River by the French officer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac and the Italian Alphonse de Tonty in 1701. In the 18th century, Fre ...

, and to encourage the confederated tribes in their war of resistance. The fort was a log stockade, which had four bastions, each capable of mounting four cannon, a river battery, barracks, officers' quarters, supply buildings, and various shops. A defensive ditch, 20 to 25 feet deep, ran along the land side of the fort. In July 1794 General Wayne and his troops marched northward toward Fort Miami from

Fort Recovery Fort Recovery was a United States Army fort ordered built by General "Mad" Anthony Wayne during what is now termed the Northwest Indian War. Constructed from late 1793 and completed in March 1794, the fort was built along the Wabash River, with ...

. Just south of Fort Miami, encountering a barricade erected by the Native Americans and a small party of Canadian militia, he ordered a charge and dispersed his adversaries in the

Battle of Fallen Timbers The Battle of Fallen Timbers (20 August 1794) was the final battle of the Northwest Indian War, a struggle between Native American tribes affiliated with the Northwestern Confederacy and their British allies, against the nascent United States ...

. The Native Americans fled to the fort, but the commander shut them out. Beaten and disillusioned, the Native Americans dispersed and one year later their tribal elders gathered at

Fort Greenville Greenville is a city in and the county seat of Darke County, Ohio, United States, located near the western edge of Ohio about 33 miles northwest of Dayton. The population was 13,227 at the 2010 census. History Historic Native American tribes in ...

to negotiate with Wayne. The

Treaty of Greenville The Treaty of Greenville, formally titled Treaty with the Wyandots, etc., was a 1795 treaty between the United States and indigenous nations of the Northwest Territory (now Midwestern United States), including the Wyandot and Delaware peoples, ...

opened most of the present State of Ohio and part of Indiana to United States settlement. In 1796, under the terms of the

Jay Treaty The Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation, Between His Britannic Majesty and the United States of America, commonly known as the Jay Treaty, and also as Jay's Treaty, was a 1794 treaty between the United States and Great Britain that averted ...

(1794), the British abandoned Fort Miamialong with their other forts on American soil. Wayne occupied and garrisoned it, but about 1799 it was abandoned. The British again occupied the site during the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States of America and its indigenous allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in British North America, with limited participation by Spain in Florida. It bega ...

, which at the time was opposite the American

Fort Meigs Fort Meigs was a United States fortification along the Maumee River in what is now Perrysburg, Ohio during the War of 1812. The British Army, supported by Tecumseh's Confederacy, failed to capture the fort during the siege of Fort Meigs. It is n ...

. During the War, Tecumseh, the Shawnee chief, and British officials maintained headquarters at the fort, from where they moved against Gen.

William Henry Harrison William Henry Harrison (February 9, 1773April 4, 1841) was an American military officer and politician who served as the ninth president of the United States. Harrison died just 31 days after his inauguration in 1841, and had the shortest pres ...

at Fort Meigs. Abandoned again in 1814, the fort was eventually demolished. Afterward, the site reverted to agricultural and, later, public park use.

Present-day site

Today, the site of Fort Miami sits as a small

enclave An enclave is a territory (or a small territory apart of a larger one) that is entirely surrounded by the territory of one other state or entity. Enclaves may also exist within territorial waters. ''Enclave'' is sometimes used improperly to deno ...

within a residential development. Nothing remains of the original structure except parts of the earthworks. In 1942 several Ohio civic and patriotic organizations acquired a part of the fort site. In 1953 the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society conducted preliminary excavations, and in 1957 the Historical Society of Northwestern Ohio placed a marker at the site, which remains undeveloped. In 1975, the site of the fort was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

. The site of the fort was incorporated with the Fallen Timbers Battlefield into Fallen Timbers Battlefield and Fort Miamis National Historic Site in 1999, under . The site is managed by the Metropolitan Park District of the Toledo Area (Metroparks), in partnership with the Ohio Historical Society, and is an affiliated area of the National Park System. A state memorial has been created at the site. Ft. Miami Elementary School of the Maumee City School District is five blocks away and named after the fort.

Gallery

File:Fort Miami, looking toward Fort Meigs, Maumee, Ohio - DPLA - d589edfce6b6aef21ea23e905e00c168 (page 1).jpg, alt=Fort Miami, looking toward Fort Meigs, Maumee, Ohio, Fort Miami, looking toward Fort Meigs, Maumee, Ohio File:Fort Miami on the Maumee River above Toledo, Ohio - DPLA - 3113f316731190ecb3d0594a1043c25a (page 1).jpg, alt=Fort Miami on the Maumee River above Toledo, Ohio, Fort Miami on the Maumee River above Toledo, Ohio File:Fort Miami, Maumee, Ohio - DPLA - b92543ab76c4d3145403bbc2658ea016 (page 1).jpg, alt=Fort Miami, Maumee, Ohio, Fort Miami, Maumee, Ohio

References

External links

Fallen Timbers Battlefield Today
Toledo Metroparks site for the Fallen Timbers Battlefield and Fort Miamis National Historic Site
Fallen Timbers Battlefield and Fort Miamis National Historic Site
National Park Service site

information about Fort Miamis from the City of Maumee

Survey of Historic Sites and Buildings, Founders and Frontiersmen, National Park Service * {{Toledo 1794 establishments in the British Empire Protected areas established in 1999 1999 establishments in Ohio Infrastructure completed in 1794 18th-century fortifications

Protected areas of Lucas County, Ohio National Register of Historic Places in Lucas County, Ohio Northwest Indian War

History of Ohio French-American culture in Ohio British-American culture in Ohio

Metroparks Toledo