Editing Ohio (section)

===Colonial and Revolutionary eras===
{{Main|New France|Canada (New France)|Ohio Country|French and Indian War|Treaty of Paris (1763)|Province of Quebec (1763–1791)|Indian Reserve (1763)|American Revolutionary War|Western theater of the American Revolutionary War|Treaty of Paris (1783)}}

During the 18th century, the [[French colonisation of the Americas|French]] set up a system of [[trading post]]s to control the fur trade in the region. Beginning in 1754, the [[Kingdom of France]] and [[Kingdom of Great Britain]] fought in the [[French and Indian War]], with various Native American tribes on each side. As a result of the [[Treaty of Paris (1763)|Treaty of Paris]], the French ceded control of Ohio and the remainder of the [[Old Northwest]] to Great Britain in 1763.<ref>{{cite web |title=Wars and Battles: Treaty of Paris (1763) |url=http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h754.html |publisher=www.u-s-history.com |access-date=March 9, 2022 |archive-date=December 4, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151204235607/http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h754.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

Before the American Revolution, Britain thinly exercised sovereignty over Ohio Country by lackadaisical garrisoning of the French forts.{{efn|The last French Fort in Ohio Country, Fort Sandusky, was destroyed in 1763 during Pontiac's Rebellion.}} Just beyond Ohio Country was the great [[Miami Tribe|Miami]] capital of [[Kekionga]], which became the center of British trade and influence in Ohio Country and throughout the future [[Northwest Territory]]. By the [[Royal Proclamation of 1763]], British lands west of [[Appalachia]] were forbidden to settlement by colonists.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Billington|first=Ray A.|title=The Fort Stanwix Treaty of 1768 |journal=New York History |year=1944 |volume=25 |issue=2 |publisher=University of Nebraska Press|pages=182–194|jstor=23147791}}</ref> The [[Treaty of Fort Stanwix]] in 1768 explicitly reserved lands north and west of the Ohio as Native lands.<ref>{{cite book |last=Sosin|first=Jack M.|title=Whitehall and the wilderness: the Middle West in British colonial policy, 1760–1775 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aaMzwgEACAAJ&pg=PA146|year=1961|publisher=Cornell University Press|page=146|access-date=March 9, 2022 |archive-date=January 18, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200118044200/https://books.google.com/books?id=aaMzwgEACAAJ&pg=PA146 |url-status=live}}</ref> British military occupation in the region contributed to the outbreak of [[Pontiac's War]] in 1763.<ref>{{cite book |last=White|first=Richard|title=The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650–1815|isbn=0-521-42460-7 |year=1991|publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=256}}</ref> Ohio tribes participated in the war until an armed expedition in Ohio led by [[Brigadier General]] [[Henry Bouquet]] brought about a truce. Another colonial military expedition into the Ohio Country in 1774 brought [[Lord Dunmore's War]], kicked off by the [[Yellow Creek massacre]] in Ohio, to a conclusion. In 1774, Britain passed the [[Quebec Act]], which formally annexed Ohio and other western lands to the [[Province of Quebec]] in order to provide a civil government and to centralize British administration of the [[Montreal]]-based fur trade.<ref>{{cite book|page=[https://archive.org/details/quebecact00hartgoog/page/n22 12]|title=The Quebec Act 1774|url=https://archive.org/details/quebecact00hartgoog|author=Gerald E. Hart|year=1891|publisher=Gazette Printing Company |location=Montreal}}</ref> The prohibition of settlement west of the Appalachians remained, contributing to the American Revolution.<ref>Gordon Wood, ''The American Revolution'' (New York: [[Random House]], 2002).</ref>

By the start of the [[American Revolutionary War]], the movement of Natives and Americans between the Ohio Country and [[Thirteen Colonies]] had resulted in tension. [[Fort Pitt (Pennsylvania)|Fort Pitt]] in Pennsylvania had become the main fort where expeditions into Ohio started. Intrusions into the area included General [[Edward Hand]]'s 1778 movement of 500 Pennsylvania [[militia (United States)|militiamen]] from Fort Pitt towards Mingo towns on the [[Cuyahoga River]], where the British stored military supplies which they distributed to Indian raiding parties;<ref>Downes, ''Council Fires'', 211; Nester, ''Frontier War'', 194; Nelson, ''Man of Distinction'', 101.</ref> Colonel [[Daniel Brodhead]]'s invasion in 1780 and [[Brodhead's Coshocton expedition|destruction of the Lenape Indian capital of Coshocton]];<ref>Downes, ''Council Fires'', 266.</ref> a detachment of one hundred of [[George Rogers Clark]]'s troops that were [[Lochry's Defeat|ambushed near the Ohio River]] by Indians led by [[Joseph Brant]] in the same year; a British and Native American attack on the U.S.' [[Fort Laurens]];<ref>{{cite web |title=Archeology of the Battles of Fort Recovery, Mercer County, Ohio: Education and Protection |url=https://www.bsu.edu/-/media/www/departmentalcontent/aal/aalpdfs/roi%2076-100/roi%2078%20public.pdf |publisher=National Park Service American Battlefield Protection Program |via=Ball State University |first1=Christine |last1=Keller |first2=Colleen |last2=Boyd |first3=Mark |last3=Groover |first4=Mark |last4=Hill |year=2011 |page=61 |access-date=November 24, 2019 |archive-date=June 12, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190612080120/https://www.bsu.edu/-/media/www/departmentalcontent/aal/aalpdfs/roi%2076-100/roi%2078%20public.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> and the 1782 detainment and murder of 96 [[Christian Munsee|Moravian Lenape]] pacifists by Pennsylvania militiamen in the [[Gnadenhutten massacre]].<ref>Weslager, ''Delaware Indians'', 316.</ref><ref>{{cite journal |date=February 6, 2018 |title=Moravians in the Middle: the Gnadenhutten Massacre |first=Eric |last=Sterner |url=https://allthingsliberty.com/2018/02/moravians-middle-gnadenhutten-massacre |journal=Journal of the American Revolution |access-date=September 30, 2019 |archive-date=September 30, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190930143616/https://allthingsliberty.com/2018/02/moravians-middle-gnadenhutten-massacre/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

The western theatre never had a decisive victor. In the [[Treaty of Paris (1783)|Treaty of Paris]] in 1783, Britain ceded all claims to Ohio Country to the new [[United States]] after its victory in the [[American Revolutionary War]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Cogliano |first=Francis D. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QMAKWDQt1LAC |title=Revolutionary America, 1763–1815: A Political History |year=2003 |publisher=Francis and Taylor |isbn=978-1-134-67869-3 |ref=cogliano2003 |access-date=November 19, 2020 |archive-date=February 20, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210220153334/https://www.google.com/books/edition/Revolutionary_America_1763_1815/QMAKWDQt1LAC?hl=en&gbpv=0 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Kaplan |first=Lawrence S. |title=The Treaty of Paris, 1783: A Historiographical Challenge |journal=International History Review |publisher=Taylor & Francis, Ltd.|date=September 1983 |volume=5 |number=3 |pages=431–442 |doi=10.1080/07075332.1983.9640322 |jstor=40105317 |ref=lskaplan1983 | issn = 0707-5332 }}</ref>