Born in Philadelphia and educated at a school run by Quakers, Josiah Harmar served as an officer under George Washington during the Revolutionary War (1775-83), and he spent much of his subsequent military career fighting Native Americans. His first commission was as a captain in 1775; eight years later he held the rank of colonel, and by 1787 he was a brigadier general.

Harmar's efforts to secure the region north of the Ohio River, specifically his role in the Treaty of Fort McIntosh in 1785 and the construction of Fort Washington (Cincinnati, Ohio), inflamed relationships between the United States and nativist Indian communities during the late 1780s. Harmar hoped to protect Indian lands that had not been ceded and to forge peaceful relationships with Native Americans. He grew frustrated, however, when the Indians insisted on maintaining traditional negotiation rituals such as gift giving. Rather than concede to the Indian wishes as the French and British had previously done, Harmar demanded acceptance of the U.S. policy of payments made in exchange for land. This approach fueled nativist prophets and militant Native Americans who inveighed against the destructive influence of U.S. policy and culture.

The Shawnee chief Blue Jacket and Miami chief Little Turtle rallied support from their own tribes and the Delaware, Potawatomi, Chippewa, and Ottawa in 1790. Harmar marched into the Ohio Country with almost 1,500 men, intending to destroy Native American villages in the fall, just as the harvest was due. But only a little more than 300 of his men were army regulars, while the rest were untrained militia. In two separate actions (October 20 and 22, 1790), which collectively are known as Harmar's Defeat, the Native Americans attacked and drove Harmar's army back to the Ohio. Harmar lost 183 men killed or missing in the fighting, and since many of his men ran from the battlefield almost as soon as the first shots had been fired, his army all but disintegrated.

This rout created massive confusion and fear among the western settlements of the United States. Encouraged by the British, who supplied gifts and trade goods, the Native Americans continued to oppose the United States. The next year Harmar's replacement, General Arthur St. Clair, experienced a similar disaster along the Wabash River. In 1794, however, a well-trained army finally broke Native American resistance in the Ohio Country at the Battle of Fallen Timbers (August 20, 1794). Harmar was brought before a court-martial for his failures in 1790 and was acquitted of any dereliction of duty; however, he retired from the army in 1792. He served as adjutant general of Pennsylvania from 1793 to 1799 and died at his residence, The Retreat, on August 20, 1813.

Bibliography:

Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).

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