{"id":29,"date":"2019-06-09T17:59:18","date_gmt":"2019-06-09T17:59:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/asandersgarcia.humspace.ucla.edu\/courses\/dh199s19\/?p=29"},"modified":"2019-06-10T19:53:16","modified_gmt":"2019-06-10T19:53:16","slug":"introduction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asandersgarcia.humspace.ucla.edu\/courses\/dh199s19\/2019\/06\/09\/introduction\/","title":{"rendered":"Introduction"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In\nthe years prior to the American Revolution, the Ohio and Wabash Valleys, along\nwith the Illinois Country, was a world of interconnected villages characterized\nby face-to-face interactions. In the eighteenth century, this territory was\nhome to semi-nomadic and agricultural Native communities, including (from east\nto west) Delaware, Shawnee, Wyandot, Kickapoo, Wea, Piankeshaw, Potawatomi, and\nIllinois, as well as French-Indigenous families, British soldiers, and a small\nSpanish garrison in St. Louis. Each of these communities lived in similar ways\nand in close proximity to each other.[1]<\/a> Rather\nthan being a land filled with Indigenous \u201cnations,\u201d it was a \u201cworld of bands,\nclans, villages, and peoples.\u201d In this world, the Indigenous peoples understood\nland as a shared resource and \u201cuse rights were claimed, negotiated, and exercised\nas part of the lived relationships that people forged with one another.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1778 the first civil geographer of the United States, Thomas Hutchins, detailed the Wabash Valley region and recounted his exploration of the lands west of the settled British colonies. Hutchins\u2019 account signifies his belief that this land would eventually become subject to American settlement, and his book, A Topographical Description of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and North Carolina, <\/em>played no small part in advertising this promised land to an eager population of colonial adventurers and families seeking greater opportunities in the west. He began his narrative by placing the reader next to him, observing the easily navigable rivers that were so numerous and interconnected that they acted like highways throughout the area: \u201cThe Wabash is a beautiful River, with high and upright banks, less subject to overflow, than any other River (the Ohio excepted) in this part of America. It discharges itself into the Ohio, one thousand and twenty-two miles below Fort Pitt in to Ouiatanon.\u201d[4]<\/a> Hutchins then outlined the advantages of the land – its \u201cremarkable fertility,\u201d the wealth to be found in the recently discovered silver mine, and the promise of \u201cothers [that] may be found hereafter.\u201d[5]<\/a> Hutchins extolled the beauty and abundant resources in this territory, even though it still lay in \u201cIndian Country.” Cataloging its advantages, he described numerous salt springs along the river, the wealth of coal found in nearby hills, along with lime, free stone, and blue, yellow, and white clay for glass works and pottery. The region also received enough rain to swell the rivers and grow an abundant supply of crops, including corn, wheat, tobacco, hemp, grapes, hops, apples, peaches, pears, cherries, currants, gooseberries, melons, and even rice.[6]<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prior\nto the escalation of violence in the years following Hutchin\u2019s description,\nthis was a world of permeable cultural boundaries and fluid identities where a\nperson could grow up in one society and be transformed completely upon\nacceptance into another.[7]<\/a> A Chickasaw from the southeast\ncould become a Kickapoo; a Euro-American could become a Wea; but it is worth\nnoting that rarely did Indigenous peoples assimilate willingly or completely\ninto Euro-American communities.  They did\nnot have to. Throughout the eighteenth century, Native communities were still\nthe dominant powers in the region. Furthermore, few Euro-Americans had\nestablished customs of acculturating captives or anyone unlike themselves into\ntheir families, customs many Indigenous communities held previously or adopted\nin the wake of devastating small pox plagues and wartime losses over the\nprevious two centuries. Among Euro-Americans, however, there seems to have been\nan unwillingness to even consider the possibility of adopting anyone outside of\ntheir western European-American cultures.[8]<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Euro-American\ncolonists in the mid-eighteenth century did not have a single, cohesive\nidentity, but neither did the Indigenous inhabitants. The colonists made\ndistinctions between themselves based on religion, ethnic heritage, language,\nand point of origin. Similarly, Native communities held different\nspiritual\/religious beliefs, wore different dress, and spoke different\nlanguages from each other. However, the backcountry settlers formed communities\nin ways similar to their Native neighbors. They moved with co-religionists,\nfamily members, and co-ethnics (primarily Scots-Irish in the beginning) but\nlived near other groups who had done the same. Similarly, due to the\ndislocations caused by constant warfare and European settlement along the\neastern seaboard, tribes and smaller clan groups began moving west, often\nestablishing villages very close to communities from other larger nations.[9]<\/a>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nland and the interactions between different people groups, including Indigenous\ncommunities, the French, British, and backcountry settlers has variously been\ndescribed as a \u201cmiddle ground,\u201d as an \u201cinfinity of villages,\u201d and as \u201cnative\nground.”[10]<\/a> Contemporaries wrote about\nKentucky, just to the south of the region this study examines, as the \u201cdark and\nbloody ground.\u201d Which is correct? One? All \u2013 perhaps at different times? None?\nThe time we select for the characterization is immensely important. Prior to\nthe commencement of the American Revolution, Richard White\u2019s depiction of the\n\u201cmiddle ground\u201d and the more recent nuanced modifications of it seem to come\nclosest to describing the nature of relationships scholars have thus far teased\nout of the extant sources.  What happened\nlater will be the focus of subsequent chapters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From\nthe seventeenth through the eighteenth centuries French inhabitants and Natives\nformed a literal and metaphorical \u201cmiddle ground,\u201d in which each society\nadopted some of the customs of the other and established a set of principles\nfor interaction that were neither wholly French nor Indian.  This middle ground was the product of everyday\nlife, as well as formal diplomatic relations.[11]<\/a> \nIt was the \u201crealm of constant invention,\u201d in which each community\nexplained its own self-interested actions or objectives in terms they believed\nthe other would understand in order to legitimate their conduct or achieve\ntheir goal.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Distinct\nvillages dotted the landscape and formed a complex web of trade and kinship\nconnections. However, when the Americans launched a series of raids against\ntheir Indigenous neighbors in the early 1780s to achieve a modicum of relief\nfrom Native raids on their own backcountry settlements, they transformed a\ncontest of villages into a \u201ccontest of empires.\u201d[12]<\/a> Until that time, boundaries\nremained at least relatively permeable, especially from an Indigenous\nperspective. Indigenous peoples\u2019 belief in the possibility, as well as the\nreality, of an individual\u2019s transformation from one identity to another\nprofoundly shaped their relations with one another and with the newcomers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ncommunities that peopled this region were both agricultural and mobile, but\ntheir mobility was \u201cseasonally expected [and] politically negotiated\u201d and not\nmerely a response to inter-tribal conflict and wars.[13]<\/a> Spiritual\nprogenitors who took the form of animals were the basis for clans and kinship\nnetworks that mediated and influenced both movements and relationships within\nthe community and between villages. In this region, spiritual connections were\njust as important as blood relationships in the formation of binding ties.[14]<\/a> Indigenous political history\nhere cannot be understood without knowing which peoples had access to \u201cwhich\nland and to which resources and who could pass freely through a given space,\nand who was subject to taxes or tolls.\u201d Those answers were found in the \u201ccomplex\nnexus of kinship connections and alliances.\u201d[15]<\/a> Collective identities were not\norganized around land possession but rather the spiritual progenitors of each\ngroup – the nindoodemag<\/em>.[16]<\/a> The middle ground was not\ndefined by \u201ca unity of Algonquian-speaking peoples,\u201d but rather an amalgamation\nof nindoodemag<\/em> held loosely together\nthrough intermarriage ties but each with its own leaders. While villages and\nsmaller groups often established alliances, even with other culturally and\nlinguistically distinct peoples, confrontation, warfare, and slavery determined\nthe limits of such cooperative relationships.[17]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As French\npower declined in their North American Empire in the mid-eighteenth century,\nthe power of the Anishinaabe peoples, in contrast, grew.[18]<\/a> The\ntransfer of European claims to power in the region from France to Great Britain\nfollowing the French and Indian War (or the Seven Years\u2019 War, as it was known\nin Europe) in 1763 changed very little about power structures on the ground in\nthe Great Lakes region. Moreover, the end of the eighteenth century was not the\n\u201ctwilight\u201d of Anishinaabe history. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nprecedents that Anglo-Americans, British administrators and Indigenous leaders\nset in the interwar years (roughly between 1763 and 1775) are essential to\nunderstanding the course of events in the Wabash Valley in the subsequent two\ndecades. They lay the groundwork for the formation of settler colonies in the\n\u201cNorthwest Territory,\u201d whose very name implied American conceptions of the\nregion as their own even when it was firmly held by its Indigenous inhabitants.\nFrom their participation in the Seven Years\u2019 War on, a number of prominent\nAmerican colonists viewed the western lands as theirs for the taking. Even when\nBritish colonial officials tried to create boundaries between their colonists\nand the Native communities following the conclusion of the Seven Years\u2019 War and\nPontiac\u2019s Rebellion in 1763, Anglo-Americans continued to trek over the\nAppalachian Mountains into Native territory in hopes of creating a better life\nfor themselves and their children. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nBritish Proclamation of 1763 marked the first attempt to create an imperial\nboundary between the colonists along the eastern seaboard and Indigenous\ncommunities. In 1768, the Treaty of Fort Stanwix fixed the location of this\nboundary, one that Native leaders abided by and to which they held the\ncolonists accountable. As increasing numbers of colonists moved into the\nwestern regions of Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia, and North Carolina, they\nencroached on Indigenous territories. Lord Dunmore\u2019s War in 1774 then served as\nthe opening salvo to a heated battle for lands in the Ohio and Wabash River\nValleys. Simultaneously, surveyors moved into the Kentucky borderlands and\nbegan demarcating properties that could be sold to the incoming settlers,\nregardless of the fact that they had little, if any, justifiable claim to these\nlands. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Figure 1: The British Colonies in North America, 1763-1775[19]<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The\nyear 1763 marked the end of the costly French and Indian War (or the Seven\nYears\u2019 War). It was also the year of what has become known as Pontiac\u2019s\nRebellion. This war marked the first time that Anglo-American colonists began\nto use racial markers to define subjecthood in the British Empire and envisage\na trans-Appalachian west without Native Americans.[20]<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nseeds for Pontiac\u2019s Rebellion were planted in the soil of Montreal with the\nFrench governor\u2019s capitulation to the British there on September 8, 1760. In\nthe wake of the capitulation, British officers began taking possession of\npreviously French occupied forts. In an attempt to recover from wartime\nfinancial losses, the Crown pressured British commanders to keep expenses down\nby reducing diplomatic gifts to Native leaders in America, increasing tensions\nbetween them. Compounding the problem, British traders were no longer allowed to\ntravel out to Native communities. Rather, Native families were expected to\njourney to the forts to trade and meet with British officials. Some of the\nBritish commanders then added insult to injury and verbally abused many of the\nesteemed Indigenous leaders who traveled great distances to conduct political,\neconomic, and social business with them.[21]<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Native\nChiefs complained frequently about the lack of British respect and the very\nreal consequences that the new British policies had on Native communities\nbetween 1760 and 1763. Following the famine of 1758 and 1759 toward the end of\nthe Seven Years War in North America, many Native communities were forced to\nover-hunt or face starvation. Then followed a significant decline in the number\nof deer available for hunting and the fur trade. When that was combined with\nBritish reluctance to supply guns, ammunition and blacksmiths to Native\ncommunities, many men worried about how to feed their families and about their\ngreatly diminished ability to hunt and distribute gifts \u2013 both necessary to\nmaintain status in their villages. Women\u2019s status suffered as well because the\nBritish required the return of captives, whose fate had previously rested on\nthe decisions of the village women. Similarly, women shouldered great\nresponsibility in the care and cultivation of crops and created significant\ntrade linkages through intermarriage and god-parenting networks \u2013 all of which\nsuffered under the new British policies to keep traders in the forts rather\nthan living with Native peoples and requiring both Native men and women to\nleave their villages to negotiate with the British.[22]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was\nmore, the Native communities west of the Appalachian and Allegheny Mountains\nsensed the threat against their lands. Anglo-Americans continued to push eastern\nNative groups to cede more property and move ever closer to the Wabash Valley,\noften through violent means.[23]<\/a> \nMany Native warriors from multiple tribes and villages chose to follow Ottawa\nchief Pontiac in armed resistance to address the loss or potential loss of\nhunting grounds due to settler encroachment and the necessity of overhunting\nduring certain seasons. They also sought to improve their status after a\nsignificant decline in relation to the imperial power with which they had to\nnegotiate. Between May and August 1763, the allied Native warriors attacked British\nforts, communication and supply lines, as well as the settlements that supported\nthem, not only to push both the British troops and colonists out of their\nterritory and back across the Allegheny Mountains, but also to garner the\nattention of the French king and win his support once again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At\nthe end of the war with Pontiac in 1764, the British finally took formal\npossession of the Illinois Country, to which they had previously only pretended.\nAfter their victory, the British also received the captives who had been living\namong the Native communities \u2013 some for many years \u2014 and returned them to their\nsettlements. However, the British had also been forced to treat with Native\nAmericans, not as subjects of the Crown, but as separate \u201cnations,” as\nassociates, as equals. Despite their military loss, the Indigenous leaders\nunder Pontiac succeeded in preserving most of their lands, reduced the British\noccupancy in the west, and upheld their dignity as peoples whom the British\ngovernment could neither dismiss nor dominate.[25]<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Great\nBritain expended enormous sums of money to remove the French influence in North\nAmerica and received Canada, all of the territory east of the Mississippi\nRiver, and Spanish Florida for its trouble. However, the Crown then had to pay\nfor the expensive defense of its colonies and sought measures to ameliorate\nfuture costs, which included the need for troops in North America. By the end\nof the war in 1763, continued skirmishes between Native Americans and colonists\nwere the primary threat to reducing the Crown\u2019s expenditures. Pontiac\u2019s\nRebellion demonstrated to the British government that the Indigenous population\nwould not tolerate continued illegal incursions into their lands and that an\ninviolable boundary line must be created between them. Such a boundary also\nheld the promise of diminishing military expenditures.[26]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus,\nthe Crown established the Proclamation Line of 1763, marking an important\nturning point in English land policy on the frontiers. No longer could an\nindividual colonist purchase land from Indigenous peoples. Rather, the colonial\ngovernment, alone, in the name of the English Crown, had the right to purchase Native\nproperty.[27]<\/a> Consequently, the process\nunderwent a transformation from contract formation between individuals to\ntreaty negotiations and agreements between sovereigns<\/em>.[28]<\/a> The English government,\ntherefore, expressly acknowledged not only that the Native Americans had\nownership rights to their lands, but also that they maintained legal authority\nover said lands, or sovereignty. The proclamation expressly forbade colonists\nfrom settling on or surveying Indigenous lands and from attempting to take any\nform of possession of Native territory. The lands that had not been ceded or\npurchased by the British government were \u201creserved to the said Indians. \u2026 For\nthe present, and until Our further Pleasure be known.\u201d[29]<\/a> Moreover, anyone who had\nsettled on lands declared still to be Native property were to remove themselves\nimmediately. Yet, the wording of the proclamation signaled to settlers that\ntransactions of Native lands then viewed as illegal, might be looked upon more\nfavorably in the future. The perception of the prohibition\u2019s temporality fed\nland speculation and further settlement.[30]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nroyal proclamation set several significant precedents and attempted to address\nthe difficulty of governing the enormous amount of North American territory\nthat Great Britain had acquired from France. It created governments for these\nnew territories, \u201cauthorized colonial governors to grant free land to all the\nsoldiers who had fought in the [Seven Years\u2019] war,\u201d and it \u201cset up a uniform\nsystem of licensing for the Indian trade.\u201d[31]<\/a> <\/em>Finally,\nbecause the Proclamation promulgated the imperial government\u2019s preemptive\nrights \u2013 it was the only legal purchaser of Native lands \u2013 it not only limited\nwhat individual colonists could do, but it also restricted what Indigenous\nleaders could do as well. It \u201cmarked the first time the imperial government\ntreated Indian and English landowners in such a systematically disparate\nfashion.\u201d[32]<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While\nthe Proclamation of 1763 created an abstract boundary, the 1768 Treaty of Fort\nStanwix sought to fix an actual line on which both Native communities and\ncolonists could agree.Participants\nin this treaty viewed the negotiations, agreements reached, and promises made\nas momentous, as did the generation of Indigenous leaders who followed in their\nfootsteps. In the years leading up to and including the American Revolution,\nNative American ambassadors and chiefs were divided in their response to the\ntreaty, but only because they respected and honored agreements made in this\nmanner. Signatories to the treaty, primarily of the Six Nations, upheld its\nterms. Representatives from the Cherokee, Delaware, and Shawnee protested the\ncession of their lands, lands to which the Six Nations had no claim, and\ncompelled Anglo-American colonists to survey and reassess the boundary drawn up\nin the treaty. They trusted that once an agreeable border had been achieved\nthat it would protect their land, provide for the colonists\u2019 needs, and\ntherefore prevent further encroachments and violence. This also assumed that\nthe colonists would abide by the decision reached. Throughout the following\ndecade, Native leaders acted on this belief in good faith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nhis opening remarks to the 1768 treaty council with the Six Nations, Shawnee,\nand Delaware at Fort Stanwix (New York), Sir William Johnson, British Superintendent\nfor Northern Indian Affairs, acknowledged the greatest concern of the gathered\nIndigenous leaders – colonists\u2019 incursion into their lands and the violence\nthat resulted therefrom.[33]<\/a>  He argued that to prevent\nfurther invasions and conflict, a boundary line between the colonists and\nNative communities must be fixed. \nHowever, the tribal leaders reminded Sir William of the white settlers\u2019\npoor track record in upholding treaty agreements and respecting the borders of\nIndigenous lands:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have been for some time deliberating on what you said\nconcerning a Line between the English and us, & we are sensible it would be\nfor our mutual advantage if it were not transgressed, but dayly [sic]\nexperience teaches us that we cannot have any great dependance on the white\nPeople, and that they will forget their agreements for the sake of our\nLands \u2014 However you have said so much to us upon it that we are willing to\nbeleive [sic] more favorably in this case[34]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Repeatedly,\nNative leaders mentioned the intrusion of Euro-Americans and their English\nadministrators on their lands and in their business.[35]<\/a> Nevertheless, they were\noptimistic and willing to be persuaded as long as their \u201creasonable demands\u201d\nwere met.[36]<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through\nappeals to past grievances, present concerns, and their love and respect for\nthe King of England, Johnson cajoled and inveigled tribal leaders to cede a\nlarge portion of their lands to the Crown to be distributed to the colonists.\nHe argued that the line would be so well \u201cdefended\u201d by laws that settlers would\nnot be tempted to cross it and that if the Natives agreed quickly and readily\nto the line, it \u201cwould tend to the better observance of the Line hereafter.\u201d[37]<\/a> After giving them a map of the\nproposed land cession, Sir William assured them that \u201cthey should be\nparticularly rewarded for their services [and] endeavours [sic]\u201d in order \u201cto\nshew [sic] the Indians the reasonableness of the requisition.\u201d[38]<\/a> Finally, he suggested \u201cThat\nthey should not stop at what was but a Trifle to them, tho’ so advantageous\n& necessary to the English and that he wished they would so act as to shew\ntheir love and respect for the King & friendship for his Subjects.\u201d[39]<\/a> In so saying, he trivialized\nthe enormous cession he requested and asserted that the land was \u201cnecessary\u201d\nfor the English and to keep the peace between them. His statement also recalled\nthe metaphorical covenant chain that linked the Six Nations and English through\nmutual respect – a chain that required constant attention and polishing to\nmaintain its luster. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nthe end, tribal leaders agreed to the land cession, stating that they hoped the\nEnglish (Euro-Americans) would view the boundary as inviolable as they did.\nThey expected that \u201cno further attempts shall be made on our Lands but that\nthis Line, be considered as final.\u201d[40]<\/a> In his closing statement at the\ntreaty council, Sir William attempted to bolster Native faith in the treaty\nthey had just signed:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brothers,<\/p>

I am glad the Boundary is at length agreed upon, & as I have great reason to think it will be duly observed by the English. I recommend it to you to preserve it carefully in remembrance to explain it fully to those that are absent and to teach it to your children. This Boundary is intended to be lasting but should it be found necessary by His Majesty or yourselves to make any future additions or alterations he will treat with you by those who have the management of your affairs. And never permit any private application this I have received in command to tell you.[41]<\/a> <\/p>Proceedings of the Treaty of Fort Stanwix 1768, in E. B. O’Callaghan (Ed.), 130.<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The\ntribes\u2019 firm belief in the sanctity of the border established at Fort Stanwix\nin 1768 resurfaced later in debates over the validity of a series of three\ntreaties in the mid-1780s.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While\nthe Treaty of Fort Stanwix sought to settle disputes between northern tribes\nwith northern colonies over the Proclamation of 1763 line, it created new\ntensions and conflicts. Most significantly, Johnson purposely did not invite\nthe Cherokee, who had legitimate claims to the land the\nSix Nations purportedly sold to the English government.[42]<\/a> According to British General\nThomas Gage, this tribe was \u201c\u2018exasperated to a great Degree\u2019 when they heard\nthe news.\u201d[43]<\/a> Following the Treaty of Fort\nStanwix in 1768, the Cherokee protested the illegality of the Six Nations\u2019\nsupposed sale of their lands. Their response indicates the heterogeneity of\nNative American tribes in contrast to contemporary Americans\u2019 habit of\nhomogenizing all Indigenous peoples under the misnomer, \u201cIndian.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over\nthe subsequent six years, Native leaders remained powerful enough to compel the\ncolonists to revisit and redraw the line in accordance with their preexisting\nproperty claims to the disputed land, claims that superseded those of the Six\nNations\u2019. The dissension also reveals the\ndivisive and competitive nature of land cessions among Native communities as\neach jostled for greater protections for their own homelands at the expense of\nothers\u2019 through the early 1770s. As we shall see, when the threat became more\nwidespread and it became apparent that none was safe from avaricious American\nspeculators and militant settlers, Indigenous leaders began to seek a united\nNative front during and after the American Revolution. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heedless\nof the significance of Indigenous protestations, Anglo-American colonists\ncontinued to move into Native lands between 1768 and 1774 using the Treaty of\nFort Stanwix as a legal justification for their claims. Believing the treaty\naffirmed their sovereignty over the region south of the Ohio River and backed\nby Lord Dunmore, American militias formed to protect their claims against\nNative efforts to defend and re-possess their own lands. Over the course of\nthese six years, Euro-American colonists became settlers<\/em> through the process of dispossessing the Native\ncommunities of Kentucky and the Ohio River Valley territory.[44]<\/a> Through this transformation,\nthey acquired a distinct identity that scholars today can retrospectively\ndefine as \u201csettlers,\u201d but also one they, themselves, defined at the time.   <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nJanuary 1773, Virginia surveyor George Rogers Clark wrote to his brother to\ninform him of the land he had claimed in the region southwest of Fort Pitt and\nits prospects. The country \u201csetels very fast\u201d and people had already claimed\nlands down to the Scioto River 366 miles below Fort Pitt, Clark reported. As\nhis survey partner, Roy observed, the land was valuable, and Clark had already\nreceived \u201can offer of a very considerable sum\u201d for his place. Even his\nsurveying endeavors in the region were lucrative.[45]<\/a> Americans could not wait to get\ntheir hands on the fertile bottomlands along the Ohio River and its valley. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Increasing\nsettlement in the western regions of Pennsylvania and Virginia colonies brought\nmore Americans into contact with Native inhabitants. Tensions grew as settlers\ncontinued encroaching on Native lands, initiating violence out of fear and\ngrowing racialized hostility.[46]<\/a>\nWhen Virginia surveyors began moving into Kentucky in 1773 and 1774, the\nShawnee chiefs admonished the British that they could not be held responsible\nfor what their young men might do when they met the white surveyors on their\nhunting grounds. Despite the warnings, the surveyors continued their\nexploration and their plans for settlement, even as settlers and their\nunwilling Native neighbors conducted raids against each other. One such incident\nclaimed the lives of Mingo Chief Logan\u2019s family members and provoked a\ncounterattack.[47]<\/a>\nThe subsequent machinations of John Connolly escalated the conflict to a\nfull-blown pitched battle that the English won only by forfeit. When the\nIndigenous warriors chose not to continue armed hostilities and left the\nbattlefield in the middle of the night, the Anglo-Americans declared victory.[48]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within\na week of the battle at the inaptly named Point Pleasant, Virginia\u2019s colonial\ngovernor, Lord Dunmore reported that he had concluded a treaty with the Shawnee\nchief Cornstalk. With the combined might of his own and Captain Lewis\u2019 forces,\nDunmore marched to the Shawnee villages on the Scioto.[49]<\/a>\nThrough the clever maneuvering of British Superintendent, Sir William Johnson,\nthe Native confederacy that the Shawnee had orchestrated broke apart, leaving\nthem isolated and outnumbered. Faced with few alternatives, the Shawnee agreed\nto Dunmore\u2019s peace terms and ceded their territory southeast of the Ohio River.[50]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

According\nto messages exchanged between Indigenous leaders in the Wabash Valley just four\nyears later, in 1778, it is clear that they recognized that many Americans\nperceived the region as future American territory. At the outset of the\nAmerican Revolution, contemporary Americans viewed the land west of the\nAppalachian Mountains as temporarily in the possession of Native Americans. A\nnumber of prominent statesmen, including George Washington and Thomas\nJefferson, believed that it would eventually be incorporated into the United\nStates, even though the outcome of the Revolutionary War remained uncertain at\nthe time. The Americans\u2019 objective to acquire it from its Indigenous\ninhabitants signaled to Native leaders that the United States had embarked on a\npath toward becoming a settler empire, even as the confederated states fought\nto free themselves from their own colonial status within the British Empire. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Settlers\nused the Treaty of Fort Stanwix as a legal pretext to support their right to\nexpropriate lands from Indigenous communities. With little else to base their\ndecision on apart from desire and the belief that the treaty gave them the\nright, adventurers, land speculators, and families in search of economic\nadvancement set out for the western territories to stake and defend their land\nclaims. The Battle of Point Pleasant did not end the contest for the Ohio and,\nlater, the Wabash River Valleys; it was the opening salvo. The Shawnee land cessions\nin 1774 allowed more settlers into Kentucky, enriched Virginia land\nspeculators, and provided the British with an excuse to encourage their Native\nallies to attack the American frontiers during the Revolution.[51]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus,\nthe \u201cIndian\u201d agents of the British Empire and Indigenous leaders, with the best\nof intentions, established what became the legal foundation for later\nsettlement. The Treaty of Fort Stanwix provided the discursive groundwork for\nthe settlers. At the same time, it paradoxically became the reference point for\nNative leaders to preserve their lands because it clearly delineated a boundary\nbetween the American and Native communities. Between the signing of this treaty\nin 1768 and the attacks the Americans launched on the British outposts in Wabash\nRiver Valley in 1778, Americans established both the ideological framework and\nthe economic system that propelled people west near or into Native lands,\nsetting the stage for the development of settler colonies.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a> White, The\nMiddle Ground<\/em>; Sleeper-Smith, Indian Women and French Men<\/em>; Daniel K\nRichter, Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America<\/em>\n(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 168\u20139; Heidi Bohaker,\n\u201c\u2018Nindoodemag\u2019: The Significance of Algonquian Kinship Networks in the Eastern\nGreat Lakes Region, 1600-1701,\u201d The William and Mary Quarterly<\/em>, Third\nSeries, 63, no. 1 (January 1, 2006): 23\u201352, doi:10.2307\/3491724; Witgen, An\nInfinity of Nations<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/a> Witgen, 19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/a> Kmusser,\n\u201cMap of the Wabash River Watershed\u201d (Wikimedia Commons, June 3, 2008), Based on\nUSGS data, http:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Wabashrivermap.png.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[4]<\/a> Thomas Hutchins, A Topographical Description of Virginia, Pennsylvania,\nMaryland, and North Carolina<\/em> (Cleveland: The Burrows Brothers Company,\n<\/p>\n\n\n

[reprinted from original 1778 edition]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

, 1904), 98.\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[5]<\/a> Hutchins, 98.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[6]<\/a> Hutchins, 98-100.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[7]<\/a> Witgen, 116-165; White, The Middle Ground<\/em>; Sleeper-Smith, Indian Women and French Men<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[8]<\/a> White, The\nMiddle Ground<\/em>; Gregory Evans Dowd, War Under Heaven: Pontiac, the Indian\nNations & the British Empire<\/em> (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University\nPress, 2002); Eric Hinderaker, Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in\nthe Ohio Valley, 1673-1800<\/em> (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997);\nHinderaker and Mancall, At the Edge of Empire<\/em>; Michael N. McConnell, A\nCountry Between: The Upper Ohio Valley and Its Peoples, 1724-1774<\/em> (Lincoln:\nUniversity of Nebraska Press, 1992); Colin G. Calloway, One Vast Winter\nCount the Native American West Before Lewis and Clark<\/em>, History of the\nAmerican West (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003); W. J. Eccles, The\nCanadian Frontier, 1534-1760<\/em>, Rev. ed, Histories of the American Frontier (Albuquerque:\nUniversity of New Mexico Press, 1983); Witgen, An Infinity of Nations<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[9]<\/a> Hinderaker\nand Mancall, At the Edge of Empire<\/em>; McConnell, A Country Between<\/em>;\nWitgen, An Infinity of Nations<\/em>; White, The Middle Ground<\/em>; Alan\nTaylor, The Divided Ground Indians, Settlers and the Northern Borderland of\nthe American Revolution<\/em>, 1st ed (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006); Taylor, American\nColonies<\/em>; Calloway, New Worlds for All<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[10]<\/a> Farther to the east, in New\nYork, Alan Taylor has written about the \u201cDivided Ground.\u201d (Alan Taylor, The Divided Ground: Indians, Settlers and\nthe Northern Borderland of the American Revolution <\/em>[New York: Alfred A.\nKnopf, 2006].)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[11]<\/a> White, 53.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[12]<\/a> White, 368.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[13]<\/a>\nBohaker,\n\u201cNindoodemag,\u201d 39. Bohaker\u2019s argument here directly contradicts White\u2019s\nassertion in The Middle Ground<\/em> that\nit formed a cohesive unity in the region out of refugee populations who settled\nthere after fleeing from Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) violence in eastern regions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[14]<\/a> Bohaker, 38.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[15]<\/a> Bohaker, 42.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[16]<\/a> Bohaker, 43. Bohaker argues\nthat while the middle ground may still be \u201ca suitable metaphor for explicating\nthe narratives of intercultural accommodation, it does not sufficiently explain\nAnishinaabe cultural continuity and adaptation. To understand that process,\nscholars must turn to the Anishinaabe category of nindoodemag<\/em> and Anishinaabe expressions of their own collective\nidentity. When faced with crisis and change, Anishinaabe peoples used glue from\ntheir own institutions, not French mediators to regroup in the wake of crisis.\u201d\n(Bohaker, 51)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[17]<\/a> Brett\nRushforth, \u201cSlavery, the Fox Wars, and the Limits of Alliance,\u201d The William\nand Mary Quarterly<\/em>, Third Series, 63, no. 1 (January 1, 2006): 53\u201380,\ndoi:10.2307\/3491725 quote from Rushforth, 80; Bohaker, \u201cNindoodemag,\u201d 23\u201352.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[18]<\/a> Witgen,\n217. For population growth, see Jeanne Kay, \u201cThe Fur Trade and Native American\nPopulation Growth,\u201d Ethnohistory<\/em> 31, no. 4 (October 1, 1984): 265\u201387,\ndoi:10.2307\/482713.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[19]<\/a> Map of the British colonies in\nNorth America, 1763 to 1775. This was first published in: Shepherd, William Robert\n(1911) “The\nBritish Colonies in North America, 1763\u20131765<\/a>” in Historical Atlas<\/em><\/a>, New York, United States:\nHenry Holt and Company, p. 194 Retrieved on 27 October 2010. Wikimedia\nCommons. Public Domain. http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20150318150913\/http:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:British_colonies_1763-76_shepherd1923.PNG<\/a> (18 March 2015).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[20]<\/a> Dowd, War Under Heaven<\/em>, 174\u2013275,\nsee also endnotes 1-3 on pages 325-326. Hinderaker, Elusive Empires<\/em>,\n156\u2013162.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[21]<\/a> Dowd, War\nUnder Heaven<\/em>, 54\u2013113; White, The Middle Ground<\/em>, 269\u2013314; Dowd, War\nUnder Heaven<\/em>, 86\u201389.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[22]<\/a> Dowd, War Under Heaven<\/em>,\n55\u201389; Sleeper-Smith, Indian Women and French Men<\/em>, 54\u201364; Gregory Evans\nDowd, A Spirited Resistance: The North American Indian Struggle for Unity,\n1745-1815<\/em>, The Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political\nScience, 109th ser., 4 (Baltimore, Md: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992),\n32\u201345; White, The Middle Ground<\/em>, 256\u2013314.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[23]<\/a> Some of these bands include the\nDelaware, Shawnee, and Mingo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[24]<\/a> Kevin Myers, “Pontiac’s\nwar region,” English Wikipedia – Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons.\nLicensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 via Wikimedia\nCommons – http:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Pontiac%27s_war_region.png#mediaviewer\/File:Pontiac%27s_war_region.png<\/a> (9 September 2014). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[25]<\/a> Dowd, War\nUnder Heaven<\/em>, 174\u2013212, 274\u2013275; Banner, How the Indians Lost Their Land<\/em>,\n91.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[26]<\/a> Patrick Griffin, American\nLeviathan: Empire, Nation, and Revolutionary Frontier<\/em>, 1st pbk. ed (New\nYork: Hill and Wang, 2008), 19\u201394; Fred Anderson, Crucible of War the Seven\nYears\u2019 War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766<\/em>, 1st\ned (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000), 557\u2013734; Colin G. Calloway, The\nScratch of a Pen 1763 and the Transformation of North America<\/em>, Pivotal\nMoments in American History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006); Banner, How\nthe Indians Lost Their Land<\/em>, 90\u201399.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[27]<\/a> \u201cThe principle of inviolate\nIndian country, which could not be reduced by private purchase but only by\nformal treaty between Indian nation and white nation and which could be entered\nonly by persons licensed to do so, became the foundation on which the United\nStates built its own relations with the tribes.\u201d (Francis Paul Prucha, Sword of the Republic: The United States\nArmy on the Frontier, 1788-1846 <\/em>[London: The Macmillan Co., 1969], 2).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[28]<\/a> Banner, How the Indians Lost their Land<\/em>, 84.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[29]<\/a> \u201cThe Royal Proclamation of 7\nOctober 1763.\u201d Available: http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20150302013445\/http:\/\/www.solon.org\/Constitutions\/Canada\/English\/PreConfederation\/rp_1763.html<\/a> \n(Accessed 9 September 2014)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[30]<\/a> Banner, 92<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[31]<\/a> \u201cThe Royal Proclamation of 7\nOctober 1763.\u201d It should be noted that the British trade licensing system was\nnever truly effective in the region under study here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[32]<\/a> Banner, 94.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[33]<\/a> \u201cProceedings of the Treaty of\nFort Stanwix 1768,\u201d Documents Relative to\nthe Colonial History of the State of New York, <\/em>ed.E. B. O’Callaghan (Albany, NY: Weed, Parsons, and Co., 1857), 118.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[34]<\/a> Proceedings of the Treaty of\nFort Stanwix 1768, in E. B. O’Callaghan (Ed.), 120.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[35]<\/a> Ibid. See esp. 123, 127, 128.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[36]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[37]<\/a> Ibid, 124.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[38]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[39]<\/a> Ibid, 125.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[40]<\/a> Ibid, 127.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[41]<\/a> Ibid, 130.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[42]<\/a> Banner, 97.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[43]<\/a> Banner, 97.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[44]<\/a> \u201cSettlers are not born. They\nare made in the dispossessing, a ceaseless obligation that has to be maintained\nacross the generations if the Natives are not to come back.\u201d(Patrick Wolfe, \u201cThe Settler Complex:\nAn Introduction,\u201d American Indian Culture\nand Research Journal<\/em> 37, no. 2 (2013): 1.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[45]<\/a> George Rogers Clark to Jonathan\nClark, Ohio River Grave Creek Township, 9 January 1773, Illinois Historical Collections<\/em>, ed. James Alton James(Springfield, IL: Trustees of the\nIllinois State Historical Library, 1912), 8: 2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[46]<\/a> For more on the development of\nrace-based sentiments and violence, see Peter Rhoads Silver, Our\nSavage Neighbors: How Indian War Transformed Early America<\/em>, 1st ed (New\nYork: W.W. Norton, 2008).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[47]<\/a>\nReminiscences of Judge Henry\nJolly sent to Dr. Draper in 1849 by S. P. in Reuben Gold Thwaites and Louise\nPhelps Kellogg, Documentary History of Dunmore\u2019s War, 1774<\/em> (Madison: Wisconsin\nHistorical Society, 1905), 9\u201314.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[48]<\/a>\nColonel William Fleming to\nWilliam Bowyer. nd., in ibid., 254\u2013257; Captain William Ingles to Colonel\nWilliam Preston. 14 October 1774. Point Pleasant [at the Mouth of the Great\nKanawha River], in ibid., 257\u2013259; Colonel William Christian to Colonel William\nPreston, 15 October 1774, in ibid., 261\u2013266.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[49]<\/a>\nColonel William Fleming\u2019s\njournal based on data from his orderly book, in Thwaites and Kellogg, Documentary\nHistory of Dunmore\u2019s War, 1774<\/em>, 281\u2013291; \u201cTreaty of Camp Charlotte,\u201d 14\nOctober 1774, in American Archives. Fourth Series\u202f: Containing a Documentary\nHistory of the English Colonies in North America from the King\u2019s Message to\nParliament of March 7, 1774 to the Declaration of Independence by the United\nStates.<\/em>, vol. 1, American Archives Series 4 (Washington, D.C.: M. St. Clair\nClarke and Peter Force, 1837), 872\u2013876.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[50]<\/a> Griffin, American Leviathan<\/em>,\n114\u2013124; White, The Middle Ground<\/em>, 362\u2013365; McConnell, A Country Between<\/em>,\n3\u20134, 268\u2013281; Wallace, Jefferson and the Indians<\/em>, 1\u201320.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[51]<\/a> Boone concludes: \u201cI can now say\nthat I have verified the saying of an old Indian who signed Col. Henderson\u2019s\ndeed. Taking me by the hand, at the delivery thereof, Brother, says he, we have\ngiven you a one land, but I believe you will have much trouble in settling it.\n\u2014 My footsteps have often been marked with blood, and therefore I can truly\nsubscribe to its original name\u201d \u2014  the\nDark and Bloody Ground. (Boone, in Filson, 61).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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