George Rogers Clark's Fort Jefferson and the town of Clarksville stood in a contested confluence region claimed by Great Britain, Virginia, and the British-allied Chickasaw Nation, with Americans seeking to secure trade through New Orleans and continued aid from Spain and France. Clark tried unsuccessfully to purchase Chickasaw land through a Kaskaskia emissary, and in 1780 British-allied Chickasaw warriors attacked Fort Jefferson and Clarksville in June, July, and again for three days at the end of August as part of a larger planned British offensive that did not occur simultaneously against St. Louis and Cahokia, the Falls of the Ohio, and Fort Jefferson. The third attack, led by Lt. John Whitehead of the British Southern Indian Department with James Colbert second in command, was the most destructive, and after it 20 civilian families left on Sept. 12, 1780. Soldiers from Fort Jefferson had helped defend St. Louis and Cahokia from a British-led Native attack in May 1780, and many later joined Clark's July 1780 attack on the Shawnee at Old Piqua, after which Clark's Kaskaskia allies from Fort Jefferson twice raided the Chickasaw in present-day Mississippi in December 1780 and January 1781. Despite food shortages caused by the summer attacks, Fort Jefferson and Clarksville were abandoned on June 8, 1781, chiefly because Clark recalled soldiers, supplies, and equipment from the Illinois Country to the Falls of the Ohio for a projected attack on Detroit with permission from Gen. Washington, a plan ended after Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown on October 19, 1781. Clark's western successes, including at Kaskaskia, St. Louis, Cahokia, Vincennes, Fort Jefferson, and Old Piqua, were presented during peace negotiations and were important in the United States gaining the Old Northwest Territories by the Treaty of Paris in 1783. After the war, plans in 1796 to reoccupy either Fort Jefferson or Fort Massiac arose after Spain closed the Mississippi River, but Lt. William Clark recommended regarrisoning Fort Massiac instead. Fort Jefferson still stood in 1804 but was destroyed in the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811 and 1812.