Land victories against the British in the east were few and far between, but in the west the force of American arms did much better after some initial setbacks. The situation was so bad in the east that malcontents in New England actually set about to secede from the Union.
In the then-northwestern part of the United States in the early 1790s, Britain had failed to honor the 1783 Treaty of Peace ending the Revolutionary War. It had continued to occupy a portion of what is now Michigan as well as sending agents into other areas to stir up the Native Americans against American rule. In 1796, the British finally withdrew but continued to foment trouble on the frontier by furnishing military supplies to the tribes.
This British interference in the Old Northwest continued to rankle territorial governments, and in 1811 matters boiled over when Indiana Territorial Governor William Henry Harrison marched against the growing menace of the Native American confederation led by Tecumseh. The Battle of Tippecanoe in November 1811 was a prelude to the open warfare that erupted in the summer of 1812. Harrison’s bold thrust against the Native American confederation, though not a clear-cut victory, effectively destroyed the Native American power base, and for the rest of the War of 1812 the rebellious tribes in the Indiana Territory played only a marginal role, though many of the warriors joined the British army as irregulars. One of
