The Treaty of Greenville was signed at Fort Greenville (now Greenville, Ohio), on August 3, 1795, between a coalition of American Indian tribes and frontiermen, known as the Western Confederacy, and the United States following their loss at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. It ended the Northwest Indian War.

The United States was represented by General "Mad Anthony" Wayne, who led the victory at Fallen Timbers. In exchange for goods to the value of $20,000 (such as blankets, utensils, and domestic animals), the American Indian tribes ceded to the United States large parts of modern-day Ohio, the future site of downtown Chicago, the Fort Detroit area, Maumee, Ohio Area, and the Lower Sandusky Ohio Area.

American Indian leaders who signed the treaty included leaders of these bands and tribes:

The treaty established what became known as the "Greenville Treaty Line," which was for several years a boundary between American Indian territory and lands open to European-American settlers. The latter frequently disregarded the treaty line as they continued to encroach on native lands guaranteed by the treaty. The treaty line began at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River in present-day Cleveland and ran south along the river to the portage between the Cuyahoga and Tuscarawas River, in what is now known as the Portage Lakes area between Akron and Canton. The line continued down the Tuscarawas to Fort Laurens near present-day Bolivar. From there, the line ran west-southwest to near present-day Fort Loramie on a branch of the Great Miami River. From there, the line ran west-northwest to Fort Recovery, on the Wabash River near the present-day boundary between Ohio and Indiana. From Fort Recovery, the line ran south-southwest to the Ohio River at a point opposite the mouth of the Kentucky River in present-day Carrollton, Kentucky.

The term black people is used in some socially-based systems of racial classification for humans of a dark-skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups represented in a particular social context. Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class and socio-economic status also play a role, so that relatively dark-skinned people can be classified as white if they fulfill other social criteria of "whiteness" and relatively light-skinned people can be classified as black if they fulfill the social criteria for "blackness" in a particular setting.

As a biological phenotype being "black" is often associated with the very dark skin colors of some people who are classified as "black". But, particularly in the United States, the racial or ethnic classification also refers to people with all possible kinds of skin pigmentation from the darkest through to the very lightest skin colors, including albinos, if they are believed by others to have African ancestry, or to exhibit cultural traits associated with being "African-American". As a result, in the United States the term "black people" is not an indicator of skin color but of socially based racial classification.