82 An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States
rangers to burn and loot Miami towns and fields along the Wabash
River. They were to capture women and children as hostages to use
as terms of surrender.
In carrying out these orders, the marauding rangers demonstrated
what they could accomplish with unmitigated violence and a total
lack of scruples and respect for noncombatants. They destroyed the
Miamis' two largest towns and took forty-one women and children
captive, then sent warnings to the other towns that the same would
be their lot unless they surrendered unconditionally: "Your war
riors will be slaughtered, your towns and villages ransacked and de
stroyed, your wives and children carried into captivity, and you may
be assured that those who escape the fury of our mighty chiefs shall
find no resting place on this side of the great lakes." Yet the Indians
of the Ohio Country continued to fight, well aware of the likely
consequences. The Seneca leader Cornplanter called the colonizers
the "town destroyers." He described how, during the destruction
and suffering that troops wreaked on the western Iroquois, Seneca
"women look behind them and turn pale, and our children cling
close to the necks of their mothers."6
Despite the primary use of settler militias, President Washington
insisted that the new government had to develop a professional army
that would enhance US prestige in the eyes of European countries.
He also thought that the cost of using mercenaries, at four times
that of regular troops, was too high. But whenever regular troops
were sent into the Ohio Country, the Indigenous resisters drove
them out. Reluctantly, Washington resigned himself to the neces
sity of using what were essentially vicious killers to terrorize the
region, thereby annexing land that could be sold to settlers. The
sale of confiscated land was the primary revenue source for the new
government.
In late 1791, the War Department notified Ohio squatters to call
out their rangers for an offensive. Major General "Mad" Anthony
Wayne was charged with restructuring the units of the army under
his command to function as irregular forces. Washington and other
officials were aware that Wayne was unreliable and an alcoholic, but
it appeared that such characteristics might be useful for the dirty