Scott's Expedition Against the Wea






 

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Scott's Expedition Against the Wea

Just after noon, June 1, 1791, from the elevation to the south, now known as "High Gap", Brigadier General Charles Scott,
his 33 officers, and 760 mounted Kentucky Militiamen rode toward the smoke of cooking fires rising four miles to the north
over the principal town of the Ouiatenons (Weas). After the Revolutionary War, Ouiatenon, a fortified century old trading
 town, became a rendezvous for Wea, Kickapoo, and Mascouten Native Americans conducting raids against American
settlements along the Ohio and Kentucky Frontier. The Wabash towns and their Miami and Shawnee allies on the
 Maumee River, were subject to continuing British encouragement from Detroit to violently resist American encroachment
into the Northwest Territory.

In March, 1791, peace efforts exhausted, President George Washington reluctantly ordered Secretary of War Henry Knox to
 direct a punitive raid against the Wea, using the Kentucky militia. Scott's force mustered near Cincinnati, then marched
160 miles to Ouiatenon in 8 days. Upon arrival, they engaged the several villages comprising the Grand Ouiatenon.
An unmounted detachment of 350 men, under the command of Lt. Colonel James Wilkinson destroyed the important town,
Kethtippecanuck, near the mouth of the Tippecanoe River. Scott burned the villages and 300 acres of growing corn at
Ouiatenon, unaware that he had barely avoided a force of 500 Wea warriors mistakenly sent to defend the Maumee
towns from Scott's attack. He returned to Kentucky delivering 41 women and children prisoners to Ft. Steuben at
Clarksville en route. The prisoners were transferred and held at Ft. Washington near Cincinnati, until the principal Ouiatenon
Chiefs agreed to terms of peace in 1792.


This marker is located near the intersection of State Road 25 and County Road 375 West

Picture source: Wikimedia Commons



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