10. “Aggressive neutrality”: Wallace, Death and Rebirth, 112. My account of the policy’s operation follows Wallace’s (111–14), Richter’s (Ordeal, 236–54), and Aquila’s versions (Iroquois Restoration, 15–18 ff.).
The Ohio Country included the territory between the Allegheny River and Lake Erie and stretched westward down the Ohio Valley as far as the French-controlled pays des Illinois—i.e., the area lying to the south of Lake Michigan, bounded roughly by the Wabash, the Mississippi, and the Illinois Rivers. See Jennings, Ambiguous Empire, 350–1; also Eccles, Canadian Frontier, 132–85, especially maps at 161, 169; and Eric Hinderaker, Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in the Ohio Valley, 1673–1800 (New York, 1997).
11. On the Illinois Country, see Winstanley Briggs, “Le Pays des Illinois,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., 47 (1990): 30–56; and Hinderaker, Elusive Empires, 12–18, 53–64, 90–9. The importance of the Ohio Valley to France’s strategic arc: “Memoir of the French Colonies in North America by the Marquis de la Galissonière” [Dec. 1750], in Sylvester K. Stevens and Donald H. Kent, eds., Wilderness Chronicles of Northwestern Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, Pa., 1941), 27–9; Eccles, Canadian Frontier, 154–6; and George F. G. Stanley, New France: The Last Phase, 1744–1760 (Toronto, 1968), 35–6.
12. The depopulation of the Ohio Country: Richter, Ordeal, 15, 60–6. Shawnee migrations: Hinderaker, Elusive Empires, 18–22; James Howard, Shawnee! The Ceremonialism of a Native Indian Tribe and Its Cultural Background (Athens, Ohio, 1981), 1–8; and Michael N. McConnell, A Country Between: The Upper Ohio Valley and Its Peoples, 1724–1774 (Lincoln, Nebr., 1992), 14–15. The Ohio Indians of the eighteenth century repopulation: id., “The Peoples ‘In Between’: The Iroquois and the Ohio Indians, 1720–1768,” in Richter and Merrell, Beyond the Covenant Chain, 93–112; Jennings, Ambiguous Empire, 350–3; and id., Empire of Fortune: Crowns, Colonies, and Tribes in the Seven Years War in America (New York, 1988), 22–5. Tanaghrisson and Scarouady: Jennings et al., Iroquois Diplomacy, 250–2.
13. The operation of the system and the importance of the Ohio: Wallace, Death and Rebirth, 112–13. The numbers of Iroquois and Ohio warriors, for 1738 and 1748 respectively: Jennings, Empire of Fortune, 31–2. The Indian expert cited was Conrad Weiser, Pennsylvania’s chief official interpreter, writing in late 1744 to Thomas Lee of Virginia; see Paul A. W. Wallace, Conrad Weiser, 1696–1760: Friend of Colonist and Mohawk (Philadelphia, 1945), 200–1. The populations that Weiser cited were reasonable enough; the claim that such vast numbers of warriors would join the Iroquois when summoned, utterly fanciful.
14. On wampum and diplomatic gifts, see Mary A. Druke, “Iroquois Treaties: Common Forms, Varying Interpretations,” and Michael K. Foster, “Another Look at the Function of Wampum in Iroquois-White Councils,” in Jennings et al., Iroquois Diplomacy, 85–114; also Wilbur Jacobs, Wilderness Diplomacy and Indian Gifts: Anglo-French Rivalry along the Ohio and Northwest Frontiers, 1748–1763 (Stanford, Calif., 1950).
15. Aquila, Iroquois Restoration, 85–91; Jennings et al., Iroquois Diplomacy, 165–9.
CHAPTER TWO: The Erosion of Iroquois Influence
1. Ives Goddard, “Delaware,” in William C. Sturtevant, gen. ed., Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 15, Northeast, ed. Bruce Trigger (Washington, D.C., 1978), 213–22; Michael N. McConnell, “The Peoples ‘In Between’: The Iroquois and the Ohio Indians, 1720–1768,” in Daniel K. Richter and James Merrell, eds., Beyond the Covenant Chain: The Iroquois and Their Neighbors in Indian North America, 1600–1800 (Syracuse, N.Y., 1987), 93–112; id., A Country Between: The Upper Ohio Valley and Its Peoples, 1724–1774 (Lincoln, Nebr., 1992), 5–46; Francis Jennings, Empire of Fortune: Crowns, Colonies, and Tribes in the Seven Years War in America (New York, 1988), 31–5; id., The Ambiguous Iroquois Empire: The Covenant Chain Confederation of Indian Tribes with the English Colonies from Its Beginnings to the Lancaster Treaty of 1744 (New York, 1984), 309–46; Eric Hinderaker, Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in the Ohio Valley, 1673–1800 (New York, 1997), 119–28.
2. Jennings, Ambiguous Empire, 356–60; Kenneth P. Bailey, The Ohio Company of Virginia and the Westward Movement, 1748–1792: A Chapter in the History of the Colonial Frontier (Glendale, Calif., 1939), 105–6.
3. Jennings, Ambiguous Empire, 360–2; quotation from Bailey, Ohio Company, 117.
4. On the Mohawk experience in King George’s War and its effects on relations with New York, see Ian K. Steele, Betrayals: Fort William Henry and the “Massacre” (New York, 1990), 18–27. On New York’s politics and the neutrality of Albany’s merchants, see Stanley Nider Katz, Newcastle’s New York: Anglo-American Politics, 1732–1753 (Cambridge, Mass., 1968), 164–82.
5. Yoko Shirai, “The Indian Trade of Colonial Pennsylvania, 1730–1768: Traders and Land Speculation” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1985), 35–9.
6. Croghan quotation: Albert T. Volwiler, George Croghan and the Westward Movement, 1741–1782 (Cleveland, 1926), 35. The rise of Pickawillany and Memeskia’s activities: Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Republics, and Empires in the Great Lakes Region, 1650–1815 (New York, 1991), 215–22; and R. David Edmunds, “Pickawillany: French Military Power Versus British Economics,” Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine 58 (1975): 169–84. Croghan’s enterprises: Nicholas Wainwright, George Croghan, Wilderness Diplomat (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1959), 5–37. The bounty on Croghan’s head was $1,000, the equivalent of £225 sterling (Volwiler, Croghan, 78). In general it appears that Croghan could offer manufactures at about a fourth the price that French traders charged for comparable items: a testimony to the growing power of the British industrial economy that helps explain the anxiety of the French when confronted with the prospect of English competition in the Indian trade.
7. Inscription: Donald H. Kent, The French Invasion of Western Pennsylvania, 1753 (Harrisburg, Pa., 1954), 8, my translation. Céloron quotation: George F. G. Stanley, New France: The Last Phase, 1744–1760 (Toronto, 1968), 38. This encounter was at Scioto, and English traders as well as Indians were present.
8. Alarm at the numbers of traders: ibid. Céloron’s report: ibid., 33–9; Gustave Lanctot, A History of Canada, vol. 3, From the Treaty of Utrecht to the Treaty of Paris, 1763 (Cambridge, Mass., 1965), 75–6; Kent, French Invasion, 6–10. Both White, Middle Ground, 204–8, and Andrew R. L. Cayton, Frontier Indiana (Bloomington, Ind., 1996), 20–5, add significantly to these older accounts. Céloron’s journals are translated in A. A. Lambing, ed., “Journals of Céloron de Blainville and Father Joseph Pierre de Bonnecamps,” Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society Quarterly 29 (1920): 335–423.
9. Bailey, Ohio Company, 68–9.
10. Gist’s surveys: Bailey, Ohio Company, 90, 94, 95. Croghan and Gist’s cooperation: Wainwright, Croghan, 48–50. On the Logstown conference in general, see McConnell, A Country Between, 75–7; Hinderaker, Elusive Empires, 136–8; and White, Middle Ground, 236–7. The minutes of the conference appear in Lois Mulkearn, ed., George Mercer Papers Relating to the Ohio Company of Virginia (Pittsburgh, 1954), 127–38. Tanaghrisson was particularly dependent on the gifts the British had to offer; his ability to distribute these enabled him to create a following among locally powerful headmen. This made him more ardently pro-British than most of the Shawnees and Delawares, and for that matter more than the Great Council would have preferred (Jennings, Empire of Fortune, 37–45; McConnell, A Country Between, 75–6; Hinderaker, Elusive Empires, 138).
11. On Logstown’s significance for the Ohio Indians, see McConnell, A Country Between, 77–82; and Jennings, Empire of Fortune, 21–45.
12. Quotations from Charles A. Hanna, The Wilderness Trail, or The Ventures and Adventures of the Pennsylvania Traders on the Allegheny Path . . . , vol. 2 (New York, 1911), 292. The English document that describes Langlade’s raid is Alfred T. Goodman, ed., Journal of Captain William Trent from Logstown to Pickawillany (1871; reprint, New York, 1971). See also the versions in Volwiler, Croghan, 78–9; Stanley, New
France, 45–6; White, Middle Ground, 228–31; Cayton, Frontier Indiana, 23–35; and the single most complete account, Edmunds, “Pickawillany.” The predominance of Ottawas and Chippewas in the raiding party—peoples who practiced ritual cannibalism to transfer their enemies’ spiritual power to themselves— explains the aftermath of the surrender. Langlade took no part but understood the importance of the feast and turned Memeskia over to the Indians (“some of [whom],” White notes, were “Langlade’s own kinsmen”) as a means of quite literally reincorporating him into the French alliance (White, Middle Ground, 231).
13. Bailey, Ohio Company, 154–5.
14. Pennsylvania-Virginia competition: ibid., 103–22. Gist’s and Croghan’s cooperation at Logstown: Jennings, Empire of Fortune, 44; Wainwright, Croghan, 48–50.
15. Bailey, Ohio Company, 64–9.
16. Duquesne’s orders: Antoine-Louis Rouillé, comte de Jouy, Minister of Marine, to Duquesne, 15 May 1752, quoted in Stanley, New France, 45. Construction of French forts: ibid., 47–8; Lanctot, History 3: 85–6; and esp. Kent, French Invasion, 15–68.
CHAPTER THREE: London Moves to Counter a Threat
1. Except as noted, the following account derives from T. R. Clayton, “The Duke of Newcastle, the Earl of Halifax, and the American Origins of the Seven Years’ War,” Historical Journal 24 (1981): 573–84. On Newcastle, see Reed Browning, The Duke of Newcastle (New Haven, Conn., 1975), 82–8.
2. A few words about the curious institutional structure of the British empire and the conduct of foreign relations are in order. The king was responsible for all executive functions in the eighteenth-century British state but delegated authority to the members of his Privy Council, a body of dignitaries that varied in size from thirty to eighty members. Some of the councillors had purely advisory roles and ceremonial offices, while others were responsible for the actual administration of government. In 1696, King William III, worried that Parliament meddled too much in commercial and colonial affairs that were rightfully within his prerogative powers, created the Board of Trade and Plantations as a subcommittee of the Privy Council. Sixteen officials formally known as the “Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations” comprised the board: eight were Privy Council dignitaries; eight were salaried permanent members who did the board’s real work.
The Board of Trade advised the Privy Council and the king on the appointment of officers in colonial governments, reviewed the legislation passed by the colonial assemblies to make sure that it was consistent with British law and the best interests of the realm (the Privy Council could “disallow,” or veto, any repugnant colonial acts), and served as a clearinghouse for all official information on the colonies. Except for two problems, the Board of Trade might have become a genuinely effective agency for formulating and implementing colonial policy. The first difficulty was that the board had to concern itself not just with the colonies, but with literally all of England’s trade and with many related issues. Thus among other duties it was charged with advising on all commercial treaties, supervising the state of domestic industries and the fisheries, and devising useful employments for the poor of the realm. But the second problem would ultimately prove worse: because the board could only advise on colonial matters, it had neither the authority to appoint officers in the colonial governments nor any executive power to compel the various government departments concerned in colonial affairs to follow its policies. All executive authority remained with the Privy Council, which in turn delegated power over the colonies to the secretary of state for the Southern Department.
The two secretaries of state, both privy councillors, together formulated “His Majesty’s pleasure” in official papers and decrees and were therefore crucial intermediaries between the king and the rest of the British government. The division of responsibility between these “principal Secretaries” was traditional rather than legal—a circumstance that allowed them to meddle in each other’s affairs more or less at will. The secretary of state for the Northern Department customarily exercised responsibility over the internal administration of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and over foreign relations with those states that lay north of a line bisecting Europe from Cape Gris-Nez on the north coast of France to Constantinople. The secretary of state for the Southern Department conducted foreign relations with all the world to the south of that line and administered colonial affairs. Colonial governors reported to the Southern secretary and received their instructions from him. From 1704 onward, he also exercised the undisputed right of patronage appointment within the colonial sphere. Needless to say, anyone charged with conducting foreign relations with France in an age of continual tension and hostility would have had his hands full; but to add to that burden the responsibility for relations with the rest of Catholic Europe, the Ottoman Empire, and the colonies meant that the secretary of state for the Southern Department was a very busy man indeed. Far too busy, in fact, to pay meticulous attention to the colonies—or even to inquire very closely about them. Most Southern secretaries simply ignored the colonies, using the patronage available within the colonial system to meet the pressing needs of domestic politics rather than seeking out capable officers to administer the colonial governments.
Thus the administration of the American colonies was not merely disorderly and confused but chaotic at its very heart. The Board of Trade knew everything there was to know about the colonies but had no power to translate its knowledge into policy. The secretary of state for the Southern Department had executive authority over the colonies but no real knowledge of them and little reason to inform himself on colonial affairs before he appointed officials or promulgated policies. This fundamental division between knowledge and power, together with the fragmentation and internal competitiveness of the bureaucracy, the absence of coherent direction given the colonial governments, and the paucity of effective political power available to the governors, hobbled the British government’s ability to assert control over the colonies.
Even beyond these limits on the efficiency of the imperial system, however, the fact that most English administrators conceived of the empire in strictly commercial terms kept them from trying to make it into anything more than a structure for the control of trade. In a sense, the British empire in the 1750s was not and never had been a territorial entity, and it had never really governed much more than the produce and goods and credit that had traversed the Atlantic Ocean. The added fact that the Crown’s colonial policy for most of the first half of the eighteenth century was to do nothing—showing, in Edmund Burke’s famous phrase, a “wise and salutary neglect” of the colonies—only lent the weight of inertia to the institutional incapacity of English officials to influence American affairs. To intervene in the local government of the provinces themselves, as imperial administrators well understood, was to invite intense local opposition, which at the very least would be bad for business.
On the apparatus of imperial administration, see Charles McLean Andrews, The Colonial Period of American History, vol. 4, England ’s Commercial and Colonial Policy (New Haven, Conn., 1938), 272–425; Thomas Barrow, Trade and Empire: The British Customs Service in Colonial America, 1760–1775 (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), 106–12; Arthur H. Basye, The Lords Commissionersof Trade and Plantation, Commonly Known as the Board of Trade, 1748–1782 (New Haven, Conn., 1925); Oliver M. Dickerson, American Colonial Government, 1696–1765: A Study of the British Board of Trade in Its Relations to the American Colonies (Cleveland, 1912); and Leonard Woods Labaree, Royal Government in America: A Study of the British Colonial System before 1783 (New Haven, Conn., 1930). Burke quotation: id., Speech . . . on . . . Conciliation with the Colonies . . . (London, 1775), par. 30.
3. On British balance-of-power politics before the Seven Years’ War, see Eliga Gould, The Persistence of Empire: British Political Culture in the Age of the American Revolution (Chapel Hill, N.C., forthcoming), chap. 1; Jeremy Black, British Foreign Policy in the Age of Walpole (Edinburgh, 1985); id., A System of Ambition? British Fo
reign Policy 1660–1793 (London, 1991); H. M. Scott, “ ‘The True Principles of the Revolution’: The Duke of Newcastle and the Idea of the Old System,” in Jeremy Black, ed., Knights Errant and True Englishmen: British Foreign Policy 1600–1800 (Edinburgh, 1989), 55–91.
4. Instructions to governors: cabinet minutes, 21 Aug. 1751. Circular letter: the earl of Holdernesse to the governors, 28 Aug. 1753. Both quoted in Clayton, “American Origins,” 584.
5. Holdernesse to Dinwiddie, 28 Aug. 1753, in Kenneth P. Bailey, The Ohio Company of Virginiaand the Westward Movement, 1748–1792: A Chapter in the History of the Colonial Frontier (Glendale, Calif., 1939), 202–3 n. 486.
6. Conference minutes quoted in Francis Jennings, Empire of Fortune: Crowns, Colonies, and Tribes in the Seven Years War in America (New York, 1988), 81.
7. Lords of Trade to Sir Danvers Osborne, 18 Sept. 1753, quoted in Jennings, Empire of Fortune,82 n. 28.
8. Robert C. Newbold, The Albany Congress and the Plan of Union of 1754 (New York, 1755), 17–37.
9. On Dinwiddie, see Bailey, Ohio Company, 57–8; Lawrence Henry Gipson, The British Empire before the American Revolution, vol. 2, The Southern Plantations, 1748–1754 (New York, 1960), 16–17; L. K. Koontz, Robert Dinwiddie (Glendale, Calif., 1941), 33–49; and J. R. Alden, Robert Dinwiddie: Servant of the Crown (Charlottesville, Va., 1973), 18–19.
10. On the pistole fee controversy, see Alden, Dinwiddie, 26–37; Koontz, Dinwiddie, 201–35; and Jack P. Greene, The Quest for Power: The Lower Houses of Assembly in the Southern Royal Colonies, 1689–1776 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1963), 158–65.
11. Hayes Baker-Crothers, Virginia and the French and Indian War (Chicago, 1928), 18.
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