American Revolution Podcast: January 2026

Sunday, January 25, 2026

ARP376 Battle of Wabash

In late 1791, the US Army faced its first real challenge in battle. The stakes were whether the Ohio Territory would become part of the United States, or remain Indian territory.

Ohio in 1790

The Ohio territory was seen as the future of the United States. Congress was counting on land sales there to help finance the federal government, and to begin paying off war debts. The Northwest Ordinance had divided up the land and outlined how it would be auctioned and sold to settlers moving into the territory. Virginia had already begun settling veterans on land north of the Ohio River. The Ohio Company had established Marietta in 1788 and began selling land and settling the territory.

Arthur St. Clair had been appointed as Governor of the Northwest Territory. To the extent the US had any army at all, almost all of it was located in Marietta with the purpose of making sure settlement proceeded as planned and for purposes of Indian pacification. As I mentioned back in Episode 359, Lieutenant Colonel Josiah Harmar remained in command of the US Army.

Battle of Wabash

Back in Episode 336, we covered how the US had entered into a series of treaties in 1785 giving it the legal possession of most of the Ohio Territory. Many of the Indians who lived there, however, did not recognize the validity of those treaties, and were determined to keep the Americans from settling on their side of the Ohio River.

One of the leaders of this resistance was the Miami war chief Mihšihkinaahkwa, also known as Little Turtle. We first discussed Little Turtle back in Episode 271, when he intercepted a force of French soldiers that were trying to advance through his territory toward Detroit in 1780.

His warriors massacred the soldiers, prisoners were tortured, mutilated, and burned alive, with a a few released so they could tell the story. The purpose of this treat was a warning to stay out of Miami territory. Little Turtle received some British support in his efforts to keep the Americans out of his territory.

With the arrival of US settlements at the end of the War, Little Turtle joined the Northwestern Confederacy, an alliance with other tribes including the Shawnee and Delaware, as well as the Iroquois under Joseph Brant.

Native warriors regularly conducted raids on settlements, killing settlers, burning their farms, and often kidnapping their children. They did not restrict their raids to the Ohio territory. Many raids crossed into Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Harmar Expedition

Harmar, by this time a general by brevet, and his officers regularly met with tribal leaders in hopes of establishing diplomatic understandings or trade agreements. The army did not report engaging in any attacks on Indians. In fact, Harmar had orders from the Secretary of War not to engage in any offensive operations. The US wanted to avoid provoking a war.

Josiah Harmar

Frontier communities were largely responsible for their own protection. They formed militias which were not afraid to engage with native tribes when they thought it was necessary. But the growing presence of more and more settlers on what the Indians still regarded as their lands led to increased Indian attacks. Territorial governor Arthur St. Clair reported that the Indians had killed, wounded or captured over 1500 men women and children since the end of the Revolutionary War. St. Clair warned that if the government failed to act, the settlers would take increasingly aggressive actions on their own. The Indians were also getting supplies and support from the British outpost still occupying Detroit.

US Officials determined that some of the most aggressive raids were coming from the Miami and neighboring tribes along the Wabash River, which mostly runs through what is today the State of Indiana.

Officials in Philadelphia, including President Washington and Secretary of War Henry Knox, concluded that the army needed to engage in a sudden stroke with a large force to “chastize” the hostile tribes for their continued attacks. This expedition would be similar to the Sullivan Expedition in New York during the Revolutionary War. The army would march in force, burning crops and villages. Their ultimate target would be the confluence of the St. Mary's and St. Joseph Rivers, called Kekionga, near modern day Fort Wayne, and where a concentration of Native warriors were gathering.

The US Army, however, did not have nearly enough soldiers for such a mission. Although Congress had recently authorized recruitment of nearly 1300 officers and men, the current US Army was probably closer to 500. Many of these were spread out across outposts that could not simply be abandoned. General Harmar was able to assemble about 320 officers and men for his expeditionary force. He augmented this force by calling out the militia in Kentucky and western Pennsylvania.

Harmar Campaign

This raised over 1100 men, bringing the total to nearly 1500. Harmar complained about the condition of the militia. Many of those who turned out were hired substitutes. Many were boys or old men. The majority had not come with guns.

The main army assembled primarily at Fort Washington, modern day Cincinnati, and marched into Indian territory in September. A second smaller group of several hundred marched east from Vincennes.

Much of this area was wilderness, requiring the army to cut its own roads. Progress was slow, often only a few miles per day. Cold weather, disease, and insufficient rations soon began to take its toll. Many militiamen, including at times entire units, tried to desert.

The force that marched east from Vincennes, never made it to their goal. The group consisted of only about 50 regulars and over 250 militia. Given the hardships of the march and a lack of food, the militia mutinied and abandoned the mission. They ended up burning one small village and returning to Vincennes.

This second force from Vincennes, however, had been providing a distraction for the Indians, making it difficult for them to concentrate on Harmar’s main force. As Harmar’s army advanced through the wilderness, they encountered little resistance. Natives were well aware of the approaching army and fled their homes. As a result, Harmar divided his forces so they could cover more ground, burning more villages and crops.

Battle of Kekionga

By October 17, the army reached Kekionga. Harmar deployed Colonel John Hardin with about 300 men, mostly Kentucky militia, to take out a village several miles away, the home of Little Turtle. Instead, they walked into an ambush set by Little Turtle. The surprised militia panicked and ran away. Many threw down their arms and fled without firing a shot.

Little Turtle

The result was a slaughter, about 100 men were killed, about one-third of the total force. The US army commander with the force, Captain Armstrong reported hiding in a swamp that night, listening to the Indians celebrating their victory over the corpses of their vanquished.

Back at the main camp, Warriors began harassing the soldiers. The Indians, who probably numbered over 1000, and could probably have taken the force, did not attack directly.

The army burned the village and destroyed an estimated 300 homes and 20,000 bushels of corn. Unable to get the Indians into a decisive battle, the army began to withdraw.

A couple of days later, Colonel Hardin took another 400 men and returned to the village, hoping to catch the Indians by surprise and exact some revenge for the ambush he suffered earlier. Little Turtle set up another ambush and attacked. This force of mostly regulars suffered about 80 killed. The battle was a fierce one with a number of Indians killed as well, although exact numbers are unknown. The brigade withdrew and the Indians did not pursue.

On November 3, Harmar’s army returned to Fort Washington, having lost a total of 183 men. Harmar reported that the mission was a success. They had burned a number of towns and set up a string of outposts in Indian territory. As for the casualties, Harmar blamed the militia, referring to their "ignorance, imbecility, insubordination and want of equipment".

Despite the rosy picture Harmar tried to paint, the consensus was that the mission was a failure. A court of inquiry cleared Harmar of any wrongdoing, and blamed the militia for the shortcomings of the campaign. Despite being cleared, public opinion, including civilian leadership, were highly critical. Many feared that the inconclusive attack would serve as a provocation and result in more attacks on settlements.

This fear proved correct. Native raids on towns in Ohio picked up over the winter and into the spring of 1791. Many Americans believed that the army had abandoned the region. This resulted in more squatters moving into the territory as well. Government officials needed to act decisively or the plans for the Northwest Territory would fail.

A New Army

Washington removed Harmar from command, reactivated the territorial Governor, Arthur St. Clair as a major general, and put him in command of the Army. St. Clair, of course, had been a major general during most of the Revolutionary War. While returning to active service, St. Clair retained his position as territorial governor. Washington also appointed an experienced second in command. Richard Butler had served as a colonel during the war, operating as a regimental commander in the Saratoga Campaign, later he transferred to Valley Forge, fighting at Monmouth and Yorktown. Washington personally recognized his abilities and gave him a brevet to brigadier general before the Revolution had ended.

Arthur St. Clair

After the war, Butler became a large land owner in Western Pennsylvania, and also served as a state judge in Pittsburgh, as well as a member of the state’s General Assembly. Butler returned to full service as a full brigadier.

Knox requested that Congress authorize an expansion of the army to 3000. The final law passed by Congress in March 1791 authorized a second regiment of 912 men, 2000 short term enlistments, and to call out the militia for six months.

Another, former Continental General, Charles Scott, also took command of a militia army from Kentucky. Scott’s first experience fighting Indians had been in the Braddock Campaign of 1755. After the war, Scott had moved into the Kentucky territory to take his share of veteran’s land. Two of his adult sons were killed by Indians, one of them in Harmar’s expedition.

The goal of this overwhelming force was to impress on the Indians and others, the power of the US Army and the futility of resistance. The goal, once again, was to burn Indian villages, and focus on the target at the center of the Wabash territory, controlled primarily by the Miami Indians who had defeated Harmar.

There was some opposition. Thomas Jefferson feared that the action would create a permanent need for a larger standing army and would increase the national debt. In an effort to resolve the issue, Washington agreed to send an emissary, the Chief Cornplanter of the Iroquois, along with Colonel Thomas Procter who had been a Continental officer who fought in the Sullivan expedition against the Iroquois. The goal was to convince the western tribes to accept peace or else, as Knox put it, they would “send forth such number of warriors as would drive you entirely of the country” resulting in “absolute destruction to you, your women, and your children.”

In the end, Cornplanter refused to go, and Procter needed help getting across Lake Erie, which British officials refused to allow. There were a few other half-hearted attempts to make diplomatic overtures, but none of these had any impact. The consensus was that they needed to display overwhelming force before the Indians would come to heel.

The initial plan had been to organize the military campaign in the spring, and for the expedition to embark in July. St. Clair had returned to Philadelphia for consultations and left for the west a few weeks after Congress passed the law authorizing the larger army in March, 1791. St. Clair, however, was sick with gout and found it hard to travel. He did not reach Fort Washington until mid-May. When he got there, he found only about 150 regulars present and fit for duty.

St. Clair’s first action was to deploy 500 of the mounted Kentucky militia to attack and distract the Indians from his primary target. The commander of this secondary force was former Continental Colonel James Wilkinson. You may recall Wilkinson from the Revolution, when he was an aide to General Horatio Gates. Wilkinson had to resign in 1778 for his role in the Conway Cabal. He later served nearly two years as the Continental Army’s Clothier General, but resigned from that position as well, generally considered a failure.

After the War, Wilkinson moved to the Kentucky territory, where he was a leader in the effort to separate Kentucky from Virginia. He strongly opposed the ratification of the Constitution and was much more interested in an independent State of Kentucky. What most people did not know at the time was that after Virginia ratified the Constitution, Wilkinson traveled to meet with the Spanish Governor in New Orleans. His aim was to make a deal that would make Kentucky part of the Spanish Empire, and for this service he would receive a grant of 60,000 acres. While Spain was not fully ready to put such an ambitious plan into effect, they did begin providing funds to Wilkinson for him to act as a Spanish agent.

For now though, Wilkinson’s interest aligned with the United States. He wanted to stop the Indian raids on Kentucky. Wilkinson and the Kentucky militia rode out in May toward the Wabash Valley. At first he marched north toward Kekionga, but that was a feint. He then rode his army west attacking villages further south along the Wabash River.

His attack on one village surprised the residence. His soldiers managed to kill six men, two women, and one child. He also captured 38 prisoners among those captured was Little Turtles daughter and grandchild. He continued his rampage on a series of towns through August, burning homes and destroying crops. After deciding his work was done, Wilkinson and his militia returned to their homes in Kentucky.

St. Clair's Camp Nov 4, 1791

Wilkinson’s raids were supposed to be a distraction while St. Clair’s main force made its attack. But the main army waited at Fort Washington. It was not until September that General Butler arrived with the additional regulars. The army set out in September, again moving slow as they cut their way through the wilderness. To speed up the process Butler abandoned St. Clair’s orders to cut two parallel lines for the army, and instead focused on just one. When St. Clair rejoined the army a few days later, he reprimanded Butler for violating orders. The result was a rift between the first and second in command of the army. The two men refused to speak to one another for the remainder of the campaign.

By October 12, the army reached Fort Jefferson, one of the outposts established by the Harmar Expedition. This was less than half the distance of their 150 mile march to Kekionga. By that time, frost was killing the forage and a lack of supplies was causing food shortages for the army. St. Clair’s gout got so bad he could no longer ride a horse. He continued in a litter carried between two horses. After 60 of the Kentucky militia still with the main force deserted, St. Clair had to send about 300 soldiers to go after them. St. Clair feared the deserters might capture the food supply wagons that they so desperately needed.

St. Clair had left Fort Washington with over 2400 men. By the end of October, he had only less than 2000. After deploying a regiment to go after the deserters, he had at most 1700 men in the main body, although some estimates say this was as few as 1400. There were also several hundred camp followers, women and children who were related to the soldiers.

The Battle

On November 3, the army reached the Wabash River and established a camp. They had seen no organized enemy and did not bother to set up any real defenses.

There was, however, a large force of Indians in the region. The Wilkinson Expedition a few months earlier had motivated the tribes to form an army of their own. Led by Little Turtle and the Shawnee Chief Blue Jacket, the Indian army consisted of between 1100 and 1400 warriors.

At around dawn the following morning, the Indians attacked the camp. The surprise attack was devastating. Most of the militia fled immediately. Reports say that many of them simply dropped their guns and ran without firing a shot.

Richard Butler

Those who remained, including most of the regulars, were surrounded. The Indian warriors overran the American artillery and killed the soldiers manning those guns. The infantry fought mostly in hand to hand combat with bayonets. St. Clair led a bayonet charge and had two horses shot out from under him during the battle. Although he had several bullet holes in his uniform, he managed to survive unscathed. General Butler was shot twice. He retired to his tent, where he died.

Some of the female camp followers took up arms and fought with the army. Some of these women were killed in battle as well.

The battle raged for about four hours. Eventually, St. Clair ordered a breakout charge, leaving behind the wounded and their supplies. Those who survived the charge and escaped returned to Fort Jefferson. Any wounded left behind were killed and scalped. The Indians did not pursue the retreating column for very long. The Indians realized they were missing out on the spoils left in camp and returned to claim their share.

Aftermath

Although records differ, there were probably somewhere between 600 and 800 soldiers killed, and another 300 wounded. As I said, those wounded who did not escape were killed. So the wounded who did escape were able to run or ride a horse. US Army casualties were about two-thirds those involved in the battle. Total losses cut the entire size of the US Army in half.

The Indians captured six cannons, 1200 muskets and ammunition, hundreds of horses, and wagons full of other supplies. Indian casualties seem to have been rather light. Little Turtle reported 21 killed and 40 wounded.

The American battlefield deaths were worse than any American battle during the Revolutionary war. Many of the wounded were brought back to Fort Jefferson where they received inadequate medical care. Most of them died there.

The entire campaign was an utter defeat.

Next week: we will look at the government’s response to this defeat, including some legislation that is still part of the government today.

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Next Episode 377 Washington's First Veto

Previous Episode 375 Ratifying the Bill of Rights

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Sunday, January 18, 2026

ARP375 Ratifying the Bill of Rights

We last left the Bill of Rights back in Episode 362 when Congress approved twelve amendments to the Constitution and sent them off to the states for ratification. Most of the amendments were pretty uncontroversial. They simply restated the rights for which Americans had fought the Revolutionary War and which most states had already adopted in one form or another at the state level.

Federalists, like James Madison, had never really objected to a bill of rights. They mostly saw it as unnecessary since the federal government was one of limited enumerated powers, and the federal government was not given the power to violate any of those rights. When state debates over ratification of the original Constitution raised the issue of a lack of a bill of rights, federalists like Madison did not want to delay ratification over the issue, but promised to add a bill of rights as soon as the new government was established. True to his word, Madison drafted and put through the amendments in the first few months of the first Congress in 1789.

Concerns over Amendments

The next step was to have three-quarters of the states ratify those amendments. At the time, there were eleven states, so nine of them would have to approve the amendments. Congress had approved the proposed amendments just before it left for the end of its first session at the end of September, 1789. President Washington transmitted the proposed amendments to the states on October 2.

Patrick Henry

In addition to the ten amendments that we know today as the Bill of Rights, there were a total of twelve proposed amendments. What we call the First Amendment today, regarding freedom of speech and religion, was actually the third amendment.

The first proposed amendment decreed that the House of Representatives would have one representative for every 30,000 people. As the population of the US increased, the Congress would set the size of the House so that it contained at least 200 members but no more than one representative for every 50,000 people. This amendment addressed the concern that had come up at some ratification conventions, that Congress had too much authority to set the size of the House of Representatives to whatever it wanted.

The second proposed amendment ordered that Congress could not alter the compensation of members of the House or Senate until an election had intervened. This addressed the fear that elected officials could get into office, give themselves massive raises, and collect that money before the voters could get rid of them. Under this amendment, Congress would have to propose a raise, then wait for an election before that raise would take effect.

When the state began considering the amendments, the first two hit some opposition. The first amendment, which I’m going to call the apportionment amendment, had been added to assure anti-federalist skeptics that voters could have a pretty close relationship with their representative because representation would be to a relatively small group. If a representative had only 30,000 constituents, and the average household was about six people, that meant there were only about 5000 heads of households per representative.

Opponents argued that the amendment would make the House too large. The House of Representatives had opened with only 59 representatives. The idea of a House with more than 200 members would make deliberation impossible. It would simply be a large mass of people who assembled for votes but who could not work to develop good legislation. Others argued that a large House would allow men of inferior abilities to win office. Rather than appealing to a larger body of voters, they would just have to convince a few friends and neighbors to get elected. Smaller states knew that their guaranteed one seat in the House would see its voting power diluted as larger states got more representatives. There was also the concern over cost. Having a larger Congress meant more tax dollars to pay all of those representatives.

The second proposed amendment, which required an election before a change in Congressional pay could take effect, also had its opposition. The main argument against what I’m going to call the pay amendment, was that the amendment would make Congressional pay more of a political issue. It would mean that many members of Congress would want to keep pay much lower in order to ingratiate themselves with the voters. This would mean that only men of independent wealth would be able to afford to serve in Congress and would result in the interests of poorer working people being diminished. Opponents argued that voters already had the ability to let their views be known about congressional pay without drawing it out as a higher profile issue.

There were also concerns about the other amendments. The protections of free speech might encourage licentiousness. The restriction on cruel and unusual punishments also took some criticism from those who thought criminals deserved what they got, and that this restriction might prevent that.

But the free speech provision, along with the other rights, had largely come from the English Bill of Rights and were well established in British common law. The main one that was not, was the Establishment clause, preventing the federal government from establishing a state religion. But that only applied to the federal governments. States were still free to establish whatever religions they wanted.

States Consider Ratification

Washington sent copies of the proposed amendments to the states in October, 1789. Less than two months later, on November 20th, the first state voted on them. The New Jersey Assembly took up the proposal and with relatively little debate voted to ratify eleven of the twelve amendments. The state rejected only the pay amendment. A month after that, Maryland took up consideration and ratified all twelve amendments.

North Carolina had refused to ratify the original constitution, in part because it lacked a bill of rights. When the second North Carolina Convention ratified the Constitution in November, the ink was barely dry on that work before the North Carolina legislature considered and ratified all twelve amendments in December. It became the third state to ratify the Bill of Rights, even before the US Congress had officially received word that the state had ratified the Constitution and joined the union. South Carolina followed suit a few weeks later, also ratifying all twelve amendments.

Also in January, New Hampshire signed on, approving all the amendments except for the pay amendment. Delaware approved all accept the apportionment amendment. Delaware, of course, was a small state and had only one representative and was unlikely to get another under any measure, so this amendment only gave more power to other states.

So, within three months of the proposal, six states had voted on the amendments and had either voted to adopt at least eleven of them. But as we saw with the Constitution, the earliest states were the easiest.

New York continued the process, approving eleven amendments and rejecting the pay amendment in February. Pennsylvania took up the amendment in March. They were the first to approve only ten amendments. They rejected both the apportionment and the pay amendment.

So, by then, the states were just one more state away from ratifying at least ten of the amendments. In May of 1790, Rhode Island finally joined the union and ratified eleven of the amendments, rejecting the pay amendment. But Rhode Island’s entry into the Union also brought the total number of states to thirteen, meaning that ten states would have to ratify rather than only nine to get the necessary three-fourths vote required. That was it. For another year and a half, no other states took up the ratification.

In November, 1791, Vermont joined the Union and ratified both the Constitution and all twelve amendments. But Vermont’s entry brought the total number of states to fourteen, meaning the required three-fourths rose to eleven states.

Virginia Ratification

One important holdout was Virginia. As I said, Madison had never really thought that a bill of rights was important as he deemed it unnecessary. But to make his constituents happy, he had drafted them and pushed through Congress. Two years after the fact though, Virginia still refused to vote on them.

Virginia had been reluctant to ratify the Constitution at all because it lacked a bill of rights. George Mason had refused to sign on at the Constitutional Convention based on that lack of a bill of rights. Now state leaders were refusing to approve the bill of rights that they had been demanding.

The reason for the reluctance was that many anti-federalist leaders thought that the amendments did not go far enough. They called it a “tub to the whale.” That is a 19th century saying that probably needs an explanation. Obviously a tub of water does little for a whale. By providing a tub to the whale, opponents thought that the proposed amendments were offering a phony and insufficient solution to the very real problem of a dangerously powerful federal government.

Patrick Henry remained an outspoken foe of the new government and had still not given up his dream of holding a second constitutional convention to rewrite some major flaws that he sawn in the first one. Henry believed that if the people ratified the Bill of Rights, it would quash all the political energy toward demanding that second convention.

To people like Henry, the Bill of Rights as proposed was simply a restatement of pretty non-controversial personal liberties. It completely ignored Virginia’s concerns that the federal government had too much power of taxation and the regulation of commerce. These had to be addressed now, or the moment would pass.

The Virginia House of Delegates took up the debate over the Bill of Rights only weeks after receiving them in 1789. Henry, by this time no longer governor but still a member of the legislature, spoke against ratification.

It soon became clear that Virginia’s House was willing to ratify the amendments, but the state Senate was not. Senators not only objected to the apportionment and pay amendments, but also to what we today call the First, Sixth, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments. Their issue was that the wording of these amendments was not as nearly as strong as the proposals they had sent to Congress along with their ratification of the original Constitution. They wanted the language to be stronger.

The problem, of course, was that a ratifying vote was simply an up or down vote. They had no authority to reword the proposals. In the midst of this debate, Henry simply left Richmond and went home. He did not announce his reasons, but it was generally believed that he had become frustrated that the legislature was unwilling to fight for stronger language.

After Henry left Richmond and went home, the legislature voted on a motion to demand that Congress propose new amendments that used the stronger language that Virginia had used in the proposals it had sent from the Constitutional ratifying convention. The vote on this motion was a tie. The Speaker voted against it, thus causing the motion to fail. Henry’s presence would have allowed it to pass.

Even so, the legislature also failed to ratify the amendments. Opponents were successful in getting the legislature to defer the matter to their next session. When the next session came, the legislature did not take up the matter again, but rather dealt with other matters. Finally, in the fall of 1791, the Virginia legislature took up the debate again.

By this time it was clear that there was not going to be a second constitutional convention and that the US Congress was not going to reconsider the wording of its amendments. The choice was to have this bill of rights, or none at all.

Having accepted that fact, the Virginia House of Delegates approved all twelve amendments, nearly unanimously on December 5, 1791. Ten days later, the Senate also ratified all the amendments. This gave the federal government the eleven state ratifications it needed to put into effect the ten amendments that we know as the Bill of Rights.

Other States

Even with the announcement of the ratification of the ten amendments, there were still three states that had not acted. The pay amendment, which had fallen five votes short so far, seemed pretty much dead. The apportionment amendment, which was only two votes away from success, still had a chance of ratification.

Connecticut had considered the amendments in late 1789 shortly after they received the proposals from Congress. The Connecticut House approved eleven of the twelve amendments, rejecting only the pay amendment. The Governor and Senate, supported all twelve. Because the two bodies did not agree, and refused to compromise, the Senate voted to delay action until the following spring.

The legislators took up the question again in May 1790, the house only voted to approve ten amendments while the Senate still wanted all twelve. Once again, they agreed to postpone a final decision until 1791. After Virginia ratified the amendments, making the ten part of the Constitution, Connecticut gave up all further consideration and never bothered to make a final determination.

Georgia had been one of the states that demanded a bill of rights when it ratified the original Constitution. But when it came to ratify a bill of rights, Georgia did not act. During the debate in Congress, Georgia Congressman James Jackson argued that the amendments were unnecessary since the constitution had limited enumerated powers and those powers already denied the federal government any authority to infringe on individual rights. He thought the proposed amendments as a mere restatement of rights would not lead to any actual security. These views seem to be shared by the Georgia legislature, which never took up debate on the amendments.

Massachusetts debated the amendments, but also never came to a final conclusion. In early 1790 when the state legislature came into session, Governor John Hancock encouraged the legislature to ratify the amendments. A month later, the state senate agreed to approve ten of the amendments, rejecting the apportionment and pay amendments. The house also rejected the apportionment and pay amendments.

This rejection of the apportionment amendment is particularly surprising since Massachusetts had demanded that such an amendment be added when it ratified the original constitution. Two years later, the legislature rejected the idea.

The two bodies were not in agreement though, because the House also raised concerns about the twelfth proposed amendment, what eventually became the tenth amendment. This is the one that explicitly reserves unenumerated powers to the states or to the people. Several members raised concerns about the wording, so the House only approved nine amendments, while the Senate approved ten.

Because of this dispute, even though both houses agreed to nine of the amendments, they did not pass a formal bill and notify the federal government of their ratification. As a result of not completing the process, Massachusetts support for the bill of rights was never finalized. When Jefferson announced ratification of the ten amendments, Massachusetts legislators dropped the matter completely. They considered further debate was irrelevant.

Implementation

At the end of December, 1791, President Washington received word that Virginia had become the eleventh state to vote in favor of ratification. That meant that three-fourths of the states had ratified ten of the twelve amendments. They were now part of the Constitution.

A few months later, Secretary of State Jefferson sent announcements to the governors, burying the announcement in a list of other matters.

I have the honor to send you herein enclosed, two copies duly authenticated, of an Act concerning certain fisheries of the United States, and for the regulation and government of the fishermen employed therein; also of an Act to establish the post office and post roads within the United States; also the ratifications by three fourths of the Legislatures of the Several States, of certain articles in addition and amendment of the Constitution of the United States, proposed by Congress to the said Legislatures.

Jefferson’s announcement, almost in passing along with other legislation, gives an indication about how much of a non-event ratification was considered at the time. Supporters of the bill of rights mostly thought of them as an irrelevant restatement of obvious rights. Opponents generally agreed with that, but wanted stronger protections that would actually mean something. Most leaders considered the whole effort as a sop to voters that basically said, yes, we support individual rights and here is a list of some which we like. The actual defense of these liberties would still require that the people and their representatives live up to them.

Next week, the new US army faces its first significant battle, which takes place in Ohio.

- - -

Next Episode 376 Battle of Wabash

Previous Episode 374 Haitian Revolution Begins

Contact me via email at mtroy.history@gmail.com

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Sunday, January 11, 2026

ARP374 Haitian Revolution Begins

The summer of 1791 saw the first colonial revolt inspired by the American Revolution. Slaves in the French colony of Haiti rose up and overthrew their masters, demanding liberty and equality. This week, we look at the beginning of the Haitian Revolution and the American reaction.

San Domingue Colony

I want to start by giving a little background. Haiti was not called Haiti at the time. That was the name used by the indigenous people before colonization. The Spanish under Christopher Columbus arrived there in 1492 and named it Hispaniola, which essentially means “Spanish Island.” A few years later, the Spanish created a settlement called Santo Domingo. Although the Spanish claimed the island, they didn’t make much use of it. More than 100 years later, French pirates began using the western coast of the island as a base of operations. Spanish officials pulled back Spanish colonists to the east for their safety. This withdrawal essentially handed the western part of the island to the French pirates in the early 1600s. Because the pirates to took over that area were French, the French government claimed possession of the western part of the island by the late 1600s.

Slave uprising in Haiti

Over the course of the 1700s the French colony of Saint Domingue grew into the wealthiest colony in the western hemisphere. The island produced massive amounts of sugar and coffee, which were valuable cash crops. It produced 40% of the world’s sugar and 50% of the world’s coffee.

That level of production took a great deal of work. That work was done by slaves. The number of slaves ramped up considerably in the 1760s and 1770s as more demand for sugar and coffee caused the land owners to push for more production. By 1789, the slave population on the small island was close to 500,000, nearly 90% of the population. The free islanders were split pretty evenly between free blacks and mixed race colonists, who owned a considerable amount of land and large numbers of slaves themselves, and white colonists, mostly French, who controlled about two-thirds of the land and three-quarters of the slaves.

The work that the slaves performed was particularly brutal. That, combined with the weather, poor sanitation, malnutrition, and disease meant that the death rate among slaves was extremely high. Many slaves killed themselves, either because they could not take the conditions, or simply to deny their enslavers the benefit of their labor.

The island had to import tens of thousands of slaves each year, just to keep up the numbers for work. About one-third of new slave arrivals died in their first year. The average life span for slaves on the island was seven to ten years. More than two thirds of the slaves on the island had been born in Africa. This meant they were not born into this life, but had grown up free, only to be enslaved as adults.

Escape was nearly impossible. There were a few thousand maroons who had fled plantations and had formed communities up in the mountains. Slave owners made regular attempts to exterminate these small communities since they represented a threat. Other slaves would be tempted to flee there, or these communities might become the center of a slave rebellion.

A rebellion was always a concern. Given that 90% of the population was enslaved, the owners were in a precarious position, that had to keep that majority population of slaves divided, docile, and without hope.

In the 1750’s the maroons had attempted to start a slave revolt, planning for more than six years to develop an organization among the slaves within the plantation system so that they could rise up and execute their plan. The leader, François Mackandal, was an escaped slave himself, who had been brought to the island to work on a sugar plantation at the age of twelve. During his time as a slave, he lost an arm while working at a sugar mill. He escaped and joined the maroon communities, where he began planning a rebellion. Using his knowledge of plants Mackandal taught his followers, including slaves still on the plantations, how to produce poisons to kill their enslavers

In 1758, some of his followers betrayed him, leading to his capture. To make an example of him, a court sentenced him to be burned alive. During the burning, Mackandal managed to break free and escape the fire. But he was immediately subdued, bound again, and tossed back into the fire. This made Mackandal a folk hero among the maroons and the slaves.

This had been one of the largest rebellions on the island, but as you might guess, there were constant efforts to resist, most of which were isolated killings where slaves managed to find a way to kill their masters. Whenever this happened, punishment came quickly and brutally to deter future attempts.

Revolutionary France

France tolerated slavery in its colonies as the most efficient way to get that cheap sugar and coffee. As was the case in Britain, France had abolished slavery during the middle ages. In 1685 Louis the XIV released an edict called the Code Noir, formalizing the law for holding slaves in the colonies.

Having decided that slavery was acceptable overseas, the king ensured that France would receive the benefits of cheap produce from the West Indies by requiring all French colonies to trade exclusively within the French Empire. Again, this was what all European powers did to make sure that there was no competition that would allow colonies to raise their prices.

French ministers also had to keep the colonial leaders divided, to make sure they did not unite and overthrow French rule and seek independence. They put in place systems that attempted to keep the colonial leaders financially dependent on France. They also made efforts to keep the white population and the free black population at odds with one another, as well as setting up conflicts between large and small land owners, all to make sure that the people would not unite against France. The result of this policy of division was that French control was maintained with only two regiments of soldiers, about 500 men, on the island to control 60,000 free colonists and 500,000 slaves.

There were some protest movements in 1722 and again in 1769, mostly protesting trade restrictions, but these were brought under control before they got out of hand. All of this began to change after the American Revolution.

The notions of liberty and equality began to spread all over the world after the United States overthrew royal authority and found a republic based on those ideals. These notions found particularly fertile soil in France, leading to the French Revolution in 1789. The French Assembly approved the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen that year, which proclaimed all men born free and equal.

When the Declaration reached Saint Domingue, the response of the slave owners in the colonies was something like: Wait! What? Certainly this doesn’t apply to us! The entire social and economic system on the island was completely incompatible with liberty and equality.

The initial reaction was to make sure the slaves on the island found out nothing about this declaration. French newspapers were banned from the island. Of course, word soon spread anyway, leading everyone to question how it would impact them.

One of the first responses cam from the free people of color, who had always been treated as second-class citizens, but still as citizens. Now, however, they were demanding the same rights and privileges as the free whites. Although they had property rights and other economic rights, they had been denied political rights, and were excluded from public office. They demanded their right to have a say in government.

The National Assembly, seeing the can of worms they had opened with the Declaration, began to back track on how it might apply to the colonies. In May of 1791, the Assembly clarified that not all free colonists were equal. They passed a law which had very strict voting requirements, including that voters could not be the children of slaves. Both father and mother had to be free before a person could qualify for voting. Even if they met that qualification, there were also substantial property requirements for voting, meaning that only about 1% of the free blacks on the island would be eligible to vote. Even that was too much for the white colonists. When the new law reached Saint Domingue in July, they immediately demanded that the new law be repealed. They protested the new law and threatened to seek protection from Britain or Spain if French officials tried to enforce it. When word of the response got back to France in September, the Assembly backed down and repealed the law.

The universal rights of man seemed not to be so universal after all. Black colonists were not the equal of white colonists and were not going to be given equal rights. And certainly, there were no plans to abolish slavery in the colonies. Talk of freedom and equality were all well and good, but if that was going to increase the price of a cup of coffee, we need to slow down and think about this a little more.

Slave Revolt

Despite all efforts, the slaves began to learn about some of the ideas coming out of France. Many slaves came to understand the French Revolution as white slaves in France having overthrown their masters. That wasn't quite accurate, but that was the story goin around. The hopelessness of slavery and brutal death gave way to a glimmer of hope for freedom, if only they could fight for it.

The French Revolution came to Haiti in 1791. Its first casualty was a former Continental officer. Colonel Thomas-Antoine, the Chevalier de Mauduit du Plessis had gone to fight as a French volunteer in the Continental Army in 1776. He received a commission as a captain of artillery early 1777, in time to see combat at the Battle of Brandywine and at Germantown. I mentioned Captain de Mauduit du Plessis back in Episode 168 when General Washington assigned him to defend Fort Mercer on the Delaware River during the end of the Philadelphia Campaign. He spent the winter at Valley Forge, and fought at Monmouth. His leadership was considered good, leading him to be promoted several times, serving as a lieutenant colonel by 1778.

That fall, de Mauduit resigned his commission in the Continental Army and returned to France. Some sources indicate that he came back to America with the army under General Rochambeau, but there is some debate on whether that was the case.

In 1787 de Mauduit was serving as a major in the French Army. He had command of the French regiment in Port au Prince. If Mauduit had volunteered for the Continental Army for idealistic reasons, those reasons now appeared to be long gone.

Major de Mauduit seemed ideologically aligned with the royal governor in Saint Domingue and opposed the revolutionary assembly in France. He supported the governor’s decision to defy decrees from the Revolutionary Assembly. He disarmed the national guard and formed a separate militia made up of royalists. He also arrested members of the revolutionary commission and dissolved the local assembly when they started sounding a bit too revolutionary.

In response, the government in France sent two more regiments to Port-au-Prince, whose commanders were much more politically aligned with the Revolutionaries. These new troops told de Maduit’s soldiers that their commander was defying the revolution. In response, his own troops killed the major with swords and bayonets. A mob mutilated his body and dragged it down the street. They cut off his head and posted it on a pike in front of his house, which they then demolished.

Through most of 1791 though the fighting was between free people, who were fighting over equal rights for slave owners, not any rights for slaves. The fight for freedom, however, was not lost on the slaves. In August, groups of slaves who were in supervisory positions on their plantations, began to coordinate plans for an uprising that would begin across the plantations at the same time.

On August 22 the slave insurrection began, across the colony, slaves invaded the homes of their masters, killing whole families. They burned their homes, along with crops in the fields. Hundreds of white colonists died in this first attack. Those who survived the initial attack fled their plantations to take refuge in towns. Some owners began massacring their own slaves who had not rebelled, fearing that they might soon join the rebellion.

A couple of weeks later, the white colonists signed an agreement ceding more power to the free blacks, hoping to bring them together so they could join forces and put down the slave rebellion. The idea of giving political power to free blacks which was so abhorrent a month earlier, now seemed quite reasonable in the face of a full slave rebellion.

Toussaint L'Ouverture

Not all slaves jumped to rebellion. A slave named Toussaint Bréda spent a month defending his master’s plantation from attack. While his master had fled, Bréda was not confident that the slave revolt would succeed, so he was hedging his bets. After about a month, he finally abandoned the plantation and joined the rebel camp. He quickly took a leadership role. It would be several more years before he changed his name to Toussaint L'Ouverture.

Despite the threat from the slave revolt and the agreement to work together, the free colonists never really united. In November, a group of white conservatives lynched a free black man in Port-au-Prince. The result was a riot that led to two-thirds of the town being burned.

The slaves were not really united either. In December, many of the former slaves were beginning to starve. The island required food imports to feed its people, and those imports had stopped. Some of the leaders of the rebellion agreed to return the slaves to their plantations in exchange for the freedom of a few hundred of the rebellion’s leaders. They had received word that France was willing to institute reforms, but needed to have the colony working again. The Colonial Assembly of slave owners, however, rejected the offer. They could not reward the leaders of a slave insurrection with freedom.

Over the winter, another option opened as several leaders of the rebellion received recognition, as well as supplies and weapons, from the King of Spain. Spanish officials saw a colony run by revolutionary France as a threat, and hoped to use the slave rebellion to crush those revolutionaries.

Throughout the following year, 1792, the revolution, headed by former slaves, continued to spread and grow. The colony would remain in chaos for years.

American Reaction

I’m going to leave the story there since the Haitian Revolution would continue for more than a decade. In our story from the American Revolution Podcast, we are in the middle of 1792. I want to turn to the reaction of Americans at the start of this rebellion. They obviously had no idea where it was going in the future.

One might think that Americans, who had used rhetoric about liberty or death, and the need for violent resistance to prevent themselves from being reduced to slaves by the British government might cheer on the idea of the people of another country fighting for their liberty.

There were some. Connecticut Newspaper editor Abraham Bishop published a series of essays supporting the Haitian Revolution in late 1791 under the title “Rights of Black Men”. In 1792, the Reverend David Rice gave a Fourth of July Oration which praised “the brave sons of Africa, engaged in a noble conflict” for “sacrificing their lives on the altar of liberty.” Philadelphia editors Benjamin Franklin Bache and Philip Freneau both professed support for the uprising.

There was little support, however, in the government. Almost as soon as the slave revolt began in August, 1791, the General Assembly sent agents to neighboring colonies looking for help. The Spaniards in Cuba rejected help out of hand. The Spanish government was not going to help a government that supported the French Revolution. The British government in Jamaica was surprisingly more helpful. It sent naval ships, arms, and supplies to help the white colonists. Since Jamaica also had a population of roughly 90% slaves, they greatly empathized with the white colonists.

The US government reaction was not quite as enthusiastic, but also seemed to side with the white colonists. In September, 1791, about a month after the slave uprising began, President Washington agreed to provide arms and financial support at the request of French Minister to the US, Jean Baptiste Ternant. The cost of the aid was deducted from the debts owed to France from the American Revolution.

Many US leaders were still slave owners themselves. Whatever doubts some of them held regarding slavery as an institution, their concerns immediately went to the slave owners, not the rebelling slaves. Jefferson referred to the white colonists as brethren in distress. Although not a slave owner, Alexander Hamilton encouraged Washington to provide assistance to the white colonists.

The Pennsylvania Assembly, which had already begun the process of Abolition in that state, voted to raise funds for relief of white planters in Cap Francais.

Shortly after the first calls for assistance, Haitian refugees began to arrive in America. Their primary destination at first was Philadelphia, where locals raised thousands of dollars to support the white planters who arrived in their town. Some free blacks also fled the revolution and were welcomed. Some refugees even brought some of their slaves with them. Of course, they would have to leave Philadelphia within six months in order to keep their slaves. But the slave owners were welcomed temporarily. Philadelphians even postponed some fund raising to build African American Churches in the city in order to provide assistance to the white refugees.

Refugees went to other cities as well. White refugees were welcomed in Charleston, although some free black slave owners who had to escape the slave rebellion as well, were not welcome there.

The US response made clear that the ideology of liberty and equality did not extend to ending slavery. While half of the states were on the path toward ending slavery in their states. No one was willing to support a slave rebellion. The enslaved people of Haiti were largely on their own.

Next week: we will look at the ratification of the Bill of Rights.

- - -

Next Episode 375 Ratification of the Bill of Rights

Previous Episode 373 State of the Union 1790-91

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Books Worth Buying

(links to Amazon.com unless otherwise noted)*

Brown, Gordon S. Toussaint's Clause: The Founding Fathers and the Haitian Revolution, Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2005.
Caesaire, Aime (Author), Kate Nash (Translator) Toussaint Louverture: The French Revolution and the Colonial Problem, Polity Press, 2025.
Dun, James Alexander Dangerous Neighbors: Making the Haitian Revolution in Early America, Univ. of Pa. Press, 2016
Faherty, Duncan The Haitian Revolution in the Early Republic of Letters, Oxford Univ. Press, 2024.
Fick, Carolyn E. The Making of Haiti: The Saint Domingue Revolution from Below, Univ. of Tenn. Press, 1991.
Geggus, David (ed) The Haitian Revolution: A Documentary History, Hackett Publishing Co, 2014.
Geggus, David P. (ed) The Impact of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World, Univ of SC Press, 2001.
Hazareesingh, Sudhir Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020.
James, C.L.R. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, Penguin Books, 1989.

Sunday, January 25, 2026

ARP376 Battle of Wabash

Ohio in 1790

Harmar Expedition

Battle of Kekionga

A New Army

The Battle

Aftermath

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Sunday, January 18, 2026

ARP375 Ratifying the Bill of Rights

Concerns over Amendments

States Consider Ratification

Virginia Ratification

Other States

Implementation

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Sunday, January 11, 2026

ARP374 Haitian Revolution Begins

San Domingue Colony

Revolutionary France

Slave Revolt

American Reaction

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Further Reading

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Books Worth Buying

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Wellman, Billy The Haitian Revolution: An Enthralling Tale of Resistance, Freedom, and the Birth of a Nation, (self-published), 2024.

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Free eBooks
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Books Worth Buying
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Free eBooks
(from archive.org unless noted)

Books Worth Buying
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Free eBooks
(from archive.org unless noted)