Treaty of Fort Industry

Map of Land Covered under Treaty of Fort Industry

 

The Treaty of Fort Industry is a small part of a larger set of treaties that show the young America’s thirst for westward expansion. Signed on Independence Day, 1805, it is the agreement that gave the United States legal rights over the land now occupied by Wooster. A predecessor to Fort Industry, the Treaty of Greenville was key to gaining much of the land that now makes up southern Ohio. The peace brought about by the Treaty of Greenville was tense at best, Native Americans becoming weary at the pressure to give land to the U.S.¹  Despite this, President Thomas Jefferson implemented his aggressive land expansion policy, eventually pressuring tribes in the area to sign away land rights of what would become Wooster and areas northwest. This land transfer soon came to be known as the “New Purchase.”²

¹ Douglas R. Hurt, The Ohio Frontier: Crucible of the Old Northwest, 1720-1830 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996).
² Lindsey Wilger Williams, Old Paths in the New Purchase (Wooster, OH: Atkinson’s Printing Inc., 1983).