nd
bitterly against the government of the United States, and who were at
last conquered by the arms and genius of General Anthony Wayne in the
year 1794.

The Ottawas, Chippewas and Potawatomi formed a sort of loose confederacy
known as the Three Fires, and Massas, a Chippewa chief, so referred to
them at the Treaty of Greenville.

The Miamis, the most powerful of the confederates, were subdivided into
the Eel Rivers, the Weas, and the Piankeshaws. The Kickapoos, a small
tribe which lived on the Sangamon, and the Vermilion of the Wabash, were
associated generally with the Potawatomi, and were always the allies of
the English. The Winnebagoes of Wisconsin were of the linguistic family
of the Sioux; were generally associated with the confederates against
the Americans, and many of their distinguished warriors fought against
General Harrison at Tippecanoe. The decadent tribes known in early times
as the Illinois, did not play a conspicuous part in the history of the
northwest.

While the limits of the various tribes may not be fixed with precision,
and the boundary lines were often confused, still there were well
recognized portions of the northwest that were under the exclusive
control of certain nations, and these nations were extremely jealous of
their rights, as shown by the anger and resentment of the Miamis at what
they termed as the encroachment of the Potawatomi at the Treaty of Fort
Wayne, in 1809.

The Wyandots, for instance, were the incontestable owners of the country
between the Cuyahoga and the Au Glaize, in the present state of Ohio,
their dominion extending as far south as the divide between the waters
of the Sandusky river and the Scioto, and embracing the southern shore
of Lake Erie from Maumee Bay, to the mouth of the Cuyahoga. Large
numbers of them were also along the northern shores of Lake Erie, in
Canada. Their territory at one time probably extended much farther south
toward the Ohio, touching the lands of the Miamis on the west, but
certainly embracing parts of the Muskingum country, to which they had
invited the ancient Delawares, respectfully addressed by them as
"grandfathers." Intermingled with the Wyandots south and west of Lake
Erie were scattered bands of Ottawas, but they were tenants of the soil
by sufferance, and not as of right.

The Miamis have been described by General William Henry Harrison as the
most extensive landowners in the northwest. He stands on record as
saying that: "