George Rogers Clark National Park

Settlers started crossing the Appalachians in significant numbers in 1776, about the time the American Revolution began in the East. The spearhead of their advance was into the Kentucky region, which Virginia officially claimed as part of its territory. There, around present-day Lexington, some 300 resourceful pioneers, most of whom supported the rebellion against England, maintained a marginal existence in small forts or stations.

By 1777 the British at Fort Detroit were sending Indian war parties to raid and destroy the settlements. To survive, these settlers adopted Indian warfare tactics and became formidable fighters. As the frequency of Indian attacks increased, George Rogers Clark became one of Kentucky’s military leaders and was convinced that the best defense was the strong offense. In the winter of 1777-78, he persuaded Gov. Patrick Henry and a group of Virginia officials to let him carry the war into the British-controlled territory north of the Ohio River. They authorized Clark to raise a force of 350 men. His public orders from the legislature – to protect the Kentucky frontier. His secret instructions from Governor Henry – to operate against the British-controlled posts of French inhabitants at Kaskaskia and Cahokia in the Illinois country and Vincennes on the Wabash River. These were stepping stones to Clark’s ultimate objective, the capture of Fort Detroit.

Campaign in the West – March to Victory at Kaskaskia

In the spring of 1778 Clark floated his 150 Virginia volunteers down the Ohio River from western Pennsylvania to Corn Island, opposite present-day Louisville, KY. Late in June men from the Kentucky and Tennessee regions joined him, and he took his little army down this waterway to the West. Clark and his men hid their boots near an abandoned fort, then marched overland toward the Mississippi River across what is now southwestern Illinois. They approached Kaskaskia at dusk on July 4 and took the village without firing a shot.

General George Rogers Clark won over the inhabitants of Kaskasia by telling them of the recent alliance between France and the United States and by promising religious freedom. Next he sent Capt. Joseph Bowman and a group of Kaskaskians north to Cahokia, where those residents also quickly embraced the patriot cause. Father Pierre Gibault, vicar-general of the Illinois country and the head of Kaskaskia’s Roman Catholic mission, influenced the people of Vincennes to swear allegiance to the patriots. At Vincennes, Clark placed Capt. Leonard Helm in command of Fort Sackville and the French militia. Then, at Cahokia, Clark met with warriors from some of the previously hostile tribes and gained their temporary neutrality through a mixture of bluff and an outward disdain of danger.

When word of Clark’s conquests reached Fort Detroit, British Lt. Gov. Henry Hamilton led a small force of regulars and still-loyal French militia south to put an end to the activities of the bold intruder. Joined along the way by hundreds of Indians who remained allied to the British, Hamilton awed the outnumbered French at Vincennes into renouncing their recent alliance with the Americans, leaving Captain Helm with no choice but to surrender the fort on December 17, 1778.

A Bone-chilling Trek to Fort Sackville

On February 5, 1779, Francis Vigo, a merchant and trader, informed Clark that Hamilton had allowed most of his Indian allies and French militia to go home for the winter. Clark set out from Kaskaskia with 170 Virginians and Illinois French volunteers to attack the weakened British garrison at Vincennes. The patriots arrived on February 23, after a march across 180 miles of "drowned country" that had forced them at times to wade in icy waters reaching their shoulders. Taking positions around Fort Sackville at Vincennes, Clark’s men opened fired on the surprised British. Clark’s threat to storm the fort and give no quarter led to a British formal surrender on February 25, 1779. This victory foiled British and Indian attempts to drive the Americans out of the region west of the Appalachians.

Aftermath of the Campaign

Clark was unable to gather a sufficient force to capture Fort Detroit or gain total victory over the English north of the Ohio River, but his activities weakened British control west of the Appalachians. Clark’s efforts helped the United States acquire this vast region north and south of the Ohio River in the peace settlement of 1783. Four Years later, the Continental Congress established the "Territory Northwest of the River Ohio," a political entity known as the Old Northwest, which evolved into the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and the eastern portion of the Minnesota.

The influx of Americans west of the Appalachians continued after the American Revolution, but Indian resistance, encouraged by the British, slowed settlement north of the Ohio River. Migration accelerated after 1794 when troops under Gen. Anthony Wayne defeated warriors from several tribes at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in present-day Ohio. By 1800 the Northwest Territory’s population had reached nearly 60,000. A resurgence of Indian resistance to American settlement started five years later under two new Indian leaders – Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa, known as the Shawnee Prophet.

William Henry Harrison

Their major opponent was William Henry Harrison, governor of the Indiana Territory. Tecumseh’s plans to prevent further loss of Indian territory to settlers received a temporary setback from forces under Harrison at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811. Final defeat for the Indians in this region came during the War of 1812. The United States victory over the British and the Indians west of the Appalachians in the latter stages of that war ensured continued American development of the region started by the efforts of George Rogers Clark and his frontier army three and a half decades earlier.