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 Wayne (Detroit) Detroit River with his troops and landed on the future Fort Wayne site before marching to Detroit. In the ensuing Siege of Detroit, American general William Hull, believing himself completely surrounded and outnumbered, surrendered Fort Shelby to the British without offering any resistance. The British later abandoned the fort and American troops reoccupied it. In 1815, the future Fort Wayne site was where American government and the local Native American tribal leaders met to sign of the Treaty of Springwells, which marked the official (though belated) end of hostilities between the government and tribes who had allied with the British