Britain in 1776. Many Natives allied with the British in the western theater of the American Revolutionary War, seeking to drive out American settlers. In the 1783 Treaty of Paris that ended the war, Great Britain ceded the region to the United States, making no mention of Native land rights. The Native nations technically remained at war with the United States, and Richard Butler argued to them that the British had "cast you off, and given us your country." Mohawk leader Joseph Brant, who had fought in the Revolution as a British ally, was stunned to learn that "England had sold the Indians to Congress." In 1783 he took the lead in forming the Northwestern Confederacy, the "most ambitious pan-tribal confederacy yet." At the Wyandot town of Junquindundeh (modern Fremont, Ohio), Brant argued that Native lands were held in common by all tribes and so no land could be ceded without the consent of the confederacy. Among the attendees at the conference were representatives from the Iroquois, Shawnees, Delawares (Lenapes), Wyandots, Three Fires (Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi), as well as a few Cherokees and Creeks. In the following years, U.S. states relinquished their claims in the region to the federal government, which intended to pay debts from the Revolution by selling lands north of the Ohio River to American settlers. American officials refused to recognize the Native confederacy and instead pursued a policy of divide and rule. They informed the Natives their lands had been taken by right of conquest and sought to confirm this in a series of treaties in which the Americans dictated the terms. Some Native leaders buckled to the pressure and ceded land at Fort Stanwix (1784), Fort McIntosh (1785), and Fort Finney (1786). Hardline and militant Natives remained committed to defending their lands north of the Ohio River. Shawnees and Lenapes sent out messages calling for war. Course of the war After a number of raids and counter-raids along the Ohio River boundary, in 1786 the Kentucky militia launched the first major frontier military action since the end of the Revolutionary War. Generals George Rogers Clark and Benjamin Logan headed a two-pronged invasion of Native land. In September, Clark led 1,200 militiamen north along the Wabash River. Beset by logistical problems, mutiny, and desertion, Clark turned back without accomplishing anything. In October, Logan led 790 Kentucky militiamen to the Shawnee towns along the Mad River.