By 1794, the northwestern Indian policy of the Washington administration was in crisis. Insisting upon the Ohio River as the southern boundary of their territory, Indians under the Miami chieftain Little Turtle routed expeditions led by Generals Josiah Harmar and Arthur St. Clair in 1790 and 1791, respectively. With the credibility of his administration at stake, Washington selected Anthony Wayne to command a third and final strike against the Indians.
Having spent the better part of two years raising and training his Legion of the United States, Wayne faced a delicate situation as he began his advance in July 1794. Not only were the Indians determined to resist, but they were armed and encouraged by British officials who operated out of Detroit and other posts that were supposed to have been abandoned to the United States under the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1783). Now, Wayne discovered that the British had recently rebuilt and garrisoned Fort Miami at the Maumee rapids, near present-day Toledo, a site that Wayne had targeted for his attack upon the Indians. To further complicate matters, John Jay was in London attempting to reach an agreement to avert the apparently inevitable war, resulting in Secretary of War Henry Knox's instructions to Wayne to avoid conflict with the British if at all possible.
On 20 August, Wayne's legion was attacked by the Miami Indians at a clearing called Fallen Timbers (because a tornado had uprooted many trees, leaving the wreckage scattered over the area), near Fort Miami. In a battle of only forty minutes, the legion launched a bayonet charge that dispersed the Indians in disorder. Though both sides suffered about 150 casualties, the confidence of the Indians was broken. Even more dispiriting was the refusal of the British to allow refuge to the fleeing Indians inside Fort Miami or to offer any resistance at all as Wayne destroyed the Indian fields surrounding the fort.
The British had built Fort Miami at the Maumee rapids, a strategically important site. Fearing the imminence of war with the United States, the British had used the fort as a base from which to arm the Indians and encourage attacks upon the frontier. They gave every indication that they would fulfill their promises to support the Indians against attack by United States forces. Circumstances changed this situation, however, just at the time of Wayne's advance. With John Jay in London and the prospects strong for a peaceful resolution to the diplomatic crisis, British officials ordered the detachment at Fort Miami to avoid military conflict unless directly attacked (similar orders had been given to Wayne by Secretary of War Henry Knox). Thus, despite their promises to the Indians and provocative actions on Wayne's part, the British refused any assistance to the defeated Indians.
With British credibility shaken, the Indians had little choice but to come to terms with Wayne. In the Treaty of Greenville of 3 August 1795, the Shawnee, Delaware, and Miami tribes ceded three-fourths of modern Ohio and northeastern Indiana to the United States. This treaty, along with the final evacuation of British posts in the Northwest, as mandated by Jay's Treaty (1794), opened that region, particularly Ohio, to a flood of American settlement.