The Indian Barrier State of 1812
By: Todd Nelson
Tags: Native Americans, History, Manifest Destiny, Military History, Canada

Photo credit: WLUC/Canva

The continental United States stretches from sea to shining sea, from the Rio Grande to the Great Lakes. These boundaries were forged in war and resolved in peace treaties. For most battles, to the victor go the spoils — or in Latin, uti possidetis — while in other battles the territory reverts to its original boundaries — status quo ante bellum. But over the course of several American wars, a recurring compromise appeared a middle ground that would have changed the face of the continental United States in a way that would have been visible from space.

A Barrier between the British and French

In the early-1700s, the North American continent and its Native inhabitants suffered colonial expansion from the European powers: Great Britain, Spain, and France. During the French and Indian War, in 1755, the British first offered the idea of an Indian Barrier State. In approximate terms, the proposed territory extended north of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to the Great Lakes. Today, that’s all of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and half of Minnesota. The state would have been the sovereign territory of Native Americans; controlling of their own government, separating the French and British territories, while maintaining the fur trade and safe travel along the Great Lakes. This proposal faded as Great Britain gained control of the entire territory prior to the American Revolutionary War.

While Americans think the Revolutionary War pitted the Colonists against Great Britain, participation from Spain, France, and many Native American tribes made it a global conflict on the continent. Following that war, the French proposed new territorial boundaries (see figure, below) with Indian Territory south of the Ohio River. Unlike the French proposal, the British still favored a northern buffer zone with the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers forming the southern boundary of the Indian Barrier State, the midline of the Great Lakes forming the northern boundary. The Americans pushed for bilateral negotiations with the British resulting in the Treaty of Paris. Both parties violated or ignored most of the terms of the 1783 treaty and, while the Jay Treaty¹ of 1795 attempted to resolve those issues, peace only lasted for 10 years.

The 1782 French proposal for the territorial division of North America. Source: Wikipedia

A Barrier between the Americans and the British

As fighting continued through the War of 1812, the Indian Barrier State proposal reappeared. The War of 1812 involved a confusing set of combatants, grievances, and overlapping time-spans. In peace negotiations, the British favored the Indian Barrier State as a buffer keeping the Americans from invading Canada, to continue influencing the lucrative fur trade, and preserving safe travel throughout the Great Lakes.

Toward the end of the war, the British and Native allies held most of the territory west of Detroit, whereas the Americans held most of the territory east along the north shore of Lake Erie and south in what is now Ohio, Indiana, and southern Illinois. Despite having gained about half of the proposed territory in battle, the Americans vehemently rejected the revised Indian Barrier State during the negotiations in Ghent. Had this purely been a battle of the Canadian border, the proposal might have been viable but British negotiators relented and the Treaty of Ghent resulted in status quo ante bellum.

Again, the Americans insisted on bilateral negotiations with the British; they refused to include any Native Americans in the treaty negotiations. It’s not that Native Nations lacked sophisticated governmental structure or command of the language. As early as the 1720s, our founding fathers appreciated the Great Law of Peace² (the constitution of the Iroquois confederacy, estimated to have begun in 1451 AD) for its concepts of representative democracy, individual liberty, separation of powers, and local decision-making. While the British were attempting a multilateral solution, the Americans imposed an agreement without Native representation.

Article IX was the compromise. It stated that the United States would put an end to hostilities with all the Tribes or Nations of Indians, and restore all the possessions, rights, and privileges that existed prior to the war. Great Britain (in Canada) would do the same. Prior to the war, only Ohio had achieved statehood; the rest of the Indian Barrier State lands would either be considered British territory or aboriginal land³. In hindsight, there was no intention by either party to honor this article.

“Till I came here, I had no idea of the fixed determination which there is in the heart of every American to extirpate the Indians and appropriate their territory.” — Henry Goulburn, one of the British negotiators at Ghent

Manifest Destiny

Quickly following the War of 1812 and the dismissal of the Indian Barrier State, most of those states entered the Union. Along with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the Monroe Doctrine reframed American policy as Manifest Destiny⁴. In the contemporary analysis, many view this as an ideology used to justify genocide against Native Americans.

Visualizing the boundaries of the proposed state comes easily because of the Great Lakes and the big rivers. Imagining any other aspect of a sovereign nation in the middle of the continent is much more difficult. Countless treaties with Native Americans defined and redefined the growing United States as it spread across the continent. As with European treaties, these were simply broken — at times following the discovery of gold or to provide ‘free’ land for white citizens. Despite the temptation to imagine an alternate history where the proposal was accepted, any ‘what if?’ discussion of an Indian Barrier State only reinforces how we fail the better angels of our nature.