<P> Americans wanted to establish control over the region . In 1778, after victories in the region by the Patriot general George Rogers Clark, the Virginia legislature organized the first American civil government in the region . They called it the Illinois County, which encompassed all of the lands lying west of the Ohio River to which Virginia had any claim . The high - water mark of the Native American struggle to retain the region was in 1782: the Ohio Nations and the British met in a council at the Chalawgatha village along the Little Miami River to plan what was the successful rout of the Americans at the Battle of Blue Licks, south of the Ohio River, two weeks later . </P> <P> In 1783, following the Treaty of Paris, Great Britain ceded the area to the United States (US). The government immediately opened it to settlement by American pioneers, considering it unorganized territory . The Ohio Country quickly became one of the most desirable locations for Trans - Appalachian settlements, in particular among veterans of the Revolutionary War . </P> <P> In the Treaty of Fort McIntosh in 1785 and the Treaty of Fort Harmar in 1789, the US fixed boundaries between United States and tribal lands . The Shawnee and other tribes continued to resist US encroachment into their historic lands . This resistance led to the Northwest Indian War after the Revolution, in which a coalition of Native American tribes tried to repulse US settlement; it lasted until 1795 but the Indians were finally defeated . </P> <P> By 1800, many of the Shawnee had ceded their lands to the control of the United States in exchange for lands in Missouri . The last great resistance to white settlement in the area was during the War of 1812, when Tecumseh led a war against the Americans that ended in the defeat of him and his people . By 1817, the Shawnee, as well as the other Algonquian - speaking tribes in the region, had ceded all their lands to the United States . </P>

Who wanted to rule the land around the ohio valley