section_path: Presidency (1789–1797)/Native American affairs
section_name: Native American affairs
paragraph_text: Native American affairs
  
  During the fall of 1789, Washington had to contend with the British refusing to evacuate their forts in the Northwest frontier and their concerted efforts to incite Indian tribes to attack American settlers. The Northwest tribes under Miami chief Little Turtle allied with the British to resist American expansion, and killed 1,500 settlers between 1783 and 1790.
  
  Washington declared that "the Government of the United States are determined that their Administration of Indian Affairs shall be directed entirely by the great principles of Justice and humanity", and provided that treaties should negotiate their land interests. The administration regarded powerful tribes as foreign nations, and Washington even smoked a peace pipe and drank wine with them at the President's House in Philadelphia. He made numerous attempts to conciliate them; he equated killing indigenous peoples with killing whites and sought to integrate them into European American culture.
  
  In the Southwest, negotiations failed between federal commissioners and raiding Indian tribes seeking retribution. Washington invited Creek Chief Alexander McGillivray and 24 leading chiefs to New York to negotiate a treaty and treated them like foreign dignitaries. Knox and McGillivray concluded the Treaty of New York on August 7, 1790, which provided the tribes with agricultural supplies and McGillivray with the rank of Brigadier General and an annual salary of $1,200, equivalent to $29,573 in 2023.
  
  In 1790, Washington sent Brigadier General Josiah Harmar to pacify the Northwest tribes, but Little Turtle routed him twice and forced him to withdraw. The Northwestern Confederacy of tribes used guerrilla tactics and were an effective force against the sparsely manned American Army. Washington sent Major General Arthur St. Clair from Fort Washington on an expedition to restore peace in the territory in 1791. On November 4, St. Clair's forces were ambushed and soundly defeated by tribal forces with few survivors.
  
  Washington replaced the disgraced St. Clair with the Revolutionary War hero Anthony Wayne. From 1792 to 1793, Wayne instructed his troops on Native American warfare tactics and instilled discipline which was lacking under St. Clair. In August 1794, Washington sent Wayne into tribal territory with authority to drive them out by burning their villages and crops in the Maumee Valley. On August 24, the American army defeated the Northwestern Confederacy at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, and the Treaty of Greenville in August 1795 opened two-thirds of the Ohio Country for American settlement.