The Battle of Fallen Timbers (20 August 1794) was the final battle of the Northwest Indian War, a struggle between the Northwestern Confederacy and United States for control of the Northwest Territory. The battle took place amid trees toppled by a tornado near the Maumee River in northwestern Ohio at the site of the present-day city of Maumee, Ohio.

Major General Anthony Wayne's Legion of the United States, supported by General Charles Scott's Kentucky militia, were victorious against a combined Native American force of Shawnee under Blue Jacket, Ottawas under Egushawa, and many others. The battle was brief, lasting little more than one hour, but it scattered the confederated Native American forces.

The U.S. victory ended major hostilities in the region. The following Treaty of Greenville and Jay Treaty forced Native American displacement from most of modern-day Ohio, opening it to White American settlement, along with withdrawal of the British presence from the southern Great Lakes region of the United States.

In the 1783 Treaty of Paris, which ended the American Revolutionary War, Great Britain ceded rights to the region northwest of the Ohio River and south of the Great Lakes. Despite the treaty, which ceded the Northwest Territory to the United States, the British maintained a military presence in their forts there and continued policies that supported the Native Americans to slow American expansion. With the encroachment of European-American settlers west of the Appalachians after the War, a Huron-led confederacy formed in 1785 to resist the usurpation of Indian lands, declaring that lands north and west of the Ohio River were Indian territory. The young United States formally organized the region in the Land Ordinance of 1785 and negotiated treaties allowing settlement, but the Western Confederacy of Native American nations were not party to these treaties and refused to acknowledge them. Violence erupted in the area between Native Americans and U.S. settlers in the region and in Kentucky.

In George Washington's first term as President of the United States, the U.S. launched two major campaigns to subdue the Western Confederacy and protect American colonizers from Indian attacks. The Harmar campaign in 1790 resulted in a significant victory for the confederacy and a U.S. retreat to Fort Washington. In May 1791, Lieutenant Colonel James Wilkinson launched what he thought was a clever raid at the Battle of Kenapacomaqua, Wilkinson killed 9 Wea and Miami, and captured 34 Miami as prisoners, including a daughter of Miami war chief Little Turtle. Many of the confederation leaders were considering terms of peace to present to the United States, but when they received news of Wilkinson's raid, they readied for war. Wilkinson's raid thus had the opposite effect, uniting the tribes against St. Clair. In 1791, a follow-up campaign was led by territorial governor Arthur St. Clair, which was decimated by combined native forces.

Following this devastating defeat, the area was now open to attacks from the British and their allied native tribes in the west. The U.S. quickly appointed envoys to negotiate peace with the Confederacy. Meanwhile, President Washington commissioned Major General "Mad" Anthony Wayne to recruit, and train a more effective, and larger force. If peace negotiations failed, Wayne was to bring U.S. sovereignty to the new borders. Wayne commanded about 2,000 men, with Joseph Bartholomew, Choctaw and Chickasaw men serving as his scouts. In the spring of 1793, Wayne moved the Legion from Pennsylvania downriver to Fort Washington, at a camp Wayne named Hobson's Choice because they had no other options.

When Wayne received news that a grand council of the confederacy had not reached a peace agreement with U.S. negotiators, he moved his army north into Indian held territory. In November, the Legion built a new fort north of Fort Jefferson, which Wayne named Fort Greeneville. The Legion wintered here, but Wayne dispatched a detachment of about 300 men on December 23rd to quickly build Fort Recovery on the site of St. Clair's defeat and recover the cannons lost there in 1791. In response, the British built Fort Miami to block Wayne's advance and to protect Fort Lernoult in Detroit. In January 1794, Wayne reported to Knox that 8 companies and a detachment of artillery under Major Henry Burbeck had claimed St. Clair's battleground and had already built a small fort. By June, Fort Recovery had been reinforced, and the Legion had recovered four copper cannons (two six-pound and two three-pound), two copper howitzers, and one iron carronade. The fort was attacked that month, and although the Legion suffered heavy casualties, they maintained control of the fort, and the battle exposed divisions within the confederacy.

Before departing Fort Recovery, Wayne sent a final offer of peace with two captured prisoners to the leaders of the confederation at Roche de Bout. The confederacy leaders debated among themselves. Little Turtle declared Wayne as a "the Chief who never sleeps," and recommended that the confederation should negotiate peace with Wayne. Blue Jacket mocked Little Turtle as a traitor and convinced the others that Wayne would be defeated, just as Harmar and St. Clair had been. Little Turtle then relinquished leadership to Blue Jacket, stating that he would be only a follower. The perceived cracks in the united confederacy concerned the British, who sent reinforcements to Fort Miami on the Maumee River.