Wabash War (The Dreams End)

The Wabash War was a conflict fought between an alliance of Native American tribes in the Old Northwest, with covert British support, and the United States. Fought from 1822 to 1825, it arose from the unresolved tensions following the War of 1812, in which the US had failed to defeat the tribal confederacy forged by Shawnee leader Tecumseh to resist American expansion. Frontier skirmishing had never fully ended, but reached a fresh pitch in 1822 when ambitious Michigan governor Lewis Cass attempted to direct the settlement of disputed land sold by the Sauk in 1817, to which other tribes also claimed title. Cass and Indiana Governor Johnathan Jennings launched a series of frontier campaigns to expel Native American inhabitants of Michigan Territory, enjoying initial success. In 1823, they provoked a united response from the region's tribes, led by Tecumseh, which resulted in several humiliating defeats for the two governors' militia forces. In response, newly elected President Andrew Jackson ordered a large-scale campaign by regular forces under General Edmund P. Gaines, who decisively defeated allied native forces in 1824-5, demonstrating their superiority in conventional warfare. 1825 also saw the death of Tecumseh at the Battle of Prophetstown. Despite vicious guerilla resistance, American forces were able to expel Native Americans from Michigan and Indiana in 1826, provoking large-scale British aid and the deployment of numerous military advisors. In 1827, an effort by Gaines to capture Prairie du Chien and retake the former Illinois Territory failed after a large-scale, stalemated conventional battle at Channahon, in which US forces failed to cross the Illinois River. Although this left the war's result indecisive, Jackson chose to accept a partial retaking of Illinois Territory and refocused US forces on the ongoing war with the Seminole in Florida, although no single peace was ever signed. In reaction to the war, Native Americans in the region were forced to revive Tecumseh's Confederacy and ally more closely to resist American expansion.