Indiana give up: they captured Fort Ouiatenon and Fort Miami during Pontiac's Rebellion. The British royal proclamation of 1763 designated the land west of the Appalachians for Native American use, and excluded British colonists from the area, which the Crown called "Indian Territory". In 1775, the American Revolutionary War began as the colonists sought self-government and independence from the British. The majority of the fighting took place near the East Coast, but the Patriot military officer George Rogers Clark called for an army to help fight the British in the west. Clark's army won significant battles and took over Vincennes and
Fort Detroit by the British after the French surrendered Montreal in 1760 during the French and Indian War (part of the Seven Years' War). The British held it until the American Revolutionary War, and it was taken over by the United States afterward. They built Fort Lernoult to the north along the river in 1779. This was later renamed as Fort Shelby and was abandoned by the US military in the 1820s. The city of Detroit demolished Fort Shelby in 1827. Cadillac ordered Fort Detroit built on the west side of the Detroit River in an effort to prevent British colonists from