Patronage and Colonization in Ohio: Rufus Putnam, George Washington, and the Ohio Company of Associates

During the Revolution, Rufus Putnam collaborated and allied with George Washington, and the two developed a patronage relationship in its later years. Washington served as the duo's senior partner, using his political cache and broader political and patronage network to advocate for Putnam, while Putnam constituted the junior partner, providing Washington with loyal service and implementing their colonial vision in Ohio. Following the Revolution, British cession of the Northwest Territory challenged the United States to secure its new western land, overcoming state, corporate, British, and Indigenous sovereignty. This thesis illustrates the outsized and underappreciated importance of Rufus Putnam, founder of the Ohio Company of Associates (the "Ohio Company" or "OCA), in shaping the colonization of western land from the end of the Revolution in 1783 until the Treaty of Greenville in 1795. Putnam and Washington worked together with aligned interests to shape the history of Ohio, the Northwest Territory, and the United States.