The massacre of Big Bottom was a mass murder perpetrated on January 2, 1791 - during the presidency of George Washington - by Lenape and Uroni Indians against a fort of colonists settled on behalf of the Ohio Company of Associates along the river Muskingum which led to the death of fourteen people, including one woman and two children. Three other civilians were captured while the rest of the occupants managed to find shelter in the surrounding forests.
The killing of civilians by the natives induced the Ohio Company of Associates to provide for greater protection of its settlers and provoked the spark that triggered the conflict known as the Northwest Indian War.
The Big Bottom Massacre marked the beginning of four years of border warfare in Ohio, which ended only with the Greenville treaty on August 3, 1795. At the site of the massacre, the Ohio Historical Society, a society for the promotion of the historical memory of Ohio, has placed a memorial monument to the victims.
