The newly independent United States was financially fragile; it needed peace to reduce military expenses, but also wanted to pay off debts by selling lands the British had ceded, as the British had done after the French & Indian War. In contrast to earlier settlers, though, U.S. migrants were more interested in land acquisition and agriculture, excluding the exchange economies of existing Native Nations and traders. In 1784 the U.S. negotiated the Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1784), in which the Iroquois negotiators ceded control of western regions. The Iroquois nations refused to ratify the treaty, however, because it gave away too much land, and the Northwestern Confederacy refused to recognize any right of the Iroquois to give away control of lands which the Iroquois did not occupy. In the following year, the Treaty of Fort McIntosh attempted to open most of the Ohio Country to American settlement. This united the tribes of the Northwestern Confederacy in opposition to American encroachment on their territories.