Unsettling the West

by Rob Harper

  the piety and hospitality of the scots- irish, though some of them doubted his

  new england credentials. They had little use for their non- presbyterian neigh-

  bors. an english traveler found a cold welcome among them until he began

  “acting the irishman.” For his part, mcclure dismissed the region’s few Baptist

  introduction

  17

  clergy as “illiterate preachers.” steep and sinuous ridges discouraged communi-

  cation and cooperation between inhabitants of neighboring valleys. geographic

  isolation brought a vulnerable independence, fostering both antigovernment

  resistance and pleas for state protection.34

  economic troubles divided colonists still further. The rugged alleghenies

  cut off farmers from anglo- american markets, while uncertain relations

  with spanish louisiana— as well as fluctuating river levels— hindered trade

  downriver to new Orleans. many distilled their grain into whiskey, a more

  portable and profitable commodity, but most of the region’s colonists re-

  mained chronical y cash- poor. colonial farmers largely neglected both the

  agricultural expertise of indian women and recent european innovations like

  crop rotation. One son of england’s landed gentry found it necessary to teach

  his hosts a modern method of stacking wheat. These deficits of skill and tech-

  nology, combined with the region’s frosts, floods, and pests, fostered wide-

  spread indebtedness, driving many into bankruptcy. Within a generation of

  colonization, landownership among upper Ohio colonists dropped sharply,

  as absentee landlords acquired an ever greater percentage of the region’s

  farmland. living conditions and disparities of wealth worsened throughout

  the revolutionary period.35 colonists increasingly found themselves in eco-

  nomic straits as bad as or worse than those they had left behind.

  contemporary observers, including mcclure, argued that Ohio Valley

  colonists despised state authority. The region’s “Unruly settlers,” they alleged,

  sought to escape “from Justice & from creditors” by moving “beyond the

  arm of any government.” colonists often resisted government policies, espe-

  cial y when they expected a competing government to treat them more fa-

  vorably, but they largely lacked the resources and cohesion necessary to

  pursue self- rule. They looked to governments to resolve disputes, guard

  against attack, and build roads, jails, and arsenals. They fiercely opposed offi-

  cials who favored competing land claims, but coveted validation of their own,

  so systems of land distribution attracted both resistance and customers. in

  1769, pennsylvania opened an office in philadelphia to sell land within its

  still- undetermined western boundary. in 1773, Virginia appointed county

  surveyors for much of the same territory. in either case, prospective land-

  owners had to locate and survey desired tracts, obtain paperwork from pro-

  vincial officials, and pay either in cash or, in Virginia, by redeeming land

  certificates issued for wartime service. Those who could not afford the requi-

  site time, travel, and expense often embraced speculative schemes that prom-

  ised to circumvent formal procedures. Others sought title by preemptively

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  introduction

  occupying land shortly before a government began selling it, hoping that

  their physical presence would outweigh their relative poverty.36 But rather

  than rebelling against state authority as such, these quasi- legal colonists

  sought to manipulate the system in order to win legal title for themselves.

  disputed land claims magnified the influence of county courts and the

  individuals who presided over them. in 1773, pennsylvania established West-

  moreland county, the first seat of British government west of the appala-

  chians. Virginia countered by establishing an overlapping “district of West

  augusta” and in 1776 added an immense “Kentucky county” farther west.

  Both governments subsequently subdivided these jurisdictions into smaller

  counties, each of which boasted appointed or elected judges, a sheriff and

  constables, various administrative officials, and militia commanders. local

  courts provided a venue for dispute resolution and a means of dealing with

  refractory servants, impoverished orphans, and belligerent neighbors.

  county officials also raised the funds, labor, and supplies necessary to build

  public infrastructure, most notably roads. rather than undertaking such

  projects independently, colonists petitioned the infant court of West au-

  gusta, which vetted proposals, assigned individuals to oversee construction,

  and taxed nearby inhabitants to cover costs. The court records do not reveal

  how well or how quickly local inhabitants carried out the court’s instructions,

  but nonetheless they demonstrate that communities looked to local govern-

  ment to undertake collective projects.37

  at least in theory, county militias similarly marshaled the time and en-

  ergy of fighting- age men for the common good. rather than independent,

  self- organized associations of neighbors, colonial and revolutionary militias

  were arms of the state, organized and funded through official regulations.

  Virginia had required militia service since its founding, while pennsylvania

  enacted its first formal militia law in 1777. in both cases, the government ap-

  pointed county commanders who chose or supervised the election of subor-

  dinate officers. according to law, militia companies had to periodical y

  muster and dril , and militiamen could be drafted into active service at the

  governor’s orders. When drafted, men were to be paid wages, fed, and sup-

  plied much like regular soldiers; delinquents faced stiff fines. in a cash- poor

  region, the resulting redistribution of funds profited both militiamen them-

  selves and those who supplied them. For the emerging elite, serving as a mi-

  litia officer brought control over official funds and signaled higher social and

  political status. But the system often failed to work as planned. colonists rou-

  tinely refused to serve or disregarded orders while on duty, and those who

  introduction

  19

  complied often had negligible military training. When threatened with at-

  tack, communities readily built and defended makeshift stockades, but they

  often declined to help defend neighboring valleys, let alone march farther

  afield.38 even so, militia laws created an institutional structure necessary for

  mobilization. When armed colonists assembled in dozens or hundreds, they

  almost invariably did so through the formal militia system.

  in his travels, mcclure repeatedly lodged with arthur st. clair, a scottish

  army officer who had acquired “a good farm and grist mil . . . & large tracts

  of wild lands” in western pennsylvania. mcclure found him a prosperous

  country gentleman, enjoying ample “ease, & good cheer,” despite his chronic

  gout. as a landlord and mill owner, st. clair belonged to the emerging fron-

  tier elite. mills like st. clair’s hosted political meetings and religious services,

  giving their owners a measure of political as well as economic sway that made

  them valuable agents for eastern govern
ments. st. clair himself received a

  long series of local government appointments and commanded a small army

  outpost on the road to Fort pitt. This fusion of economic, political, and mili-

  tary status typified the aspirations of the upper Ohio elite. local judges and

  administrators could augment their wealth with fees and bribes, as well as

  secure their land against rival claimants. But such appointments also invited

  controversy: some in the region would continue defying pennsylvanian juris-

  diction, and st. clair’s authority, for over a decade to come.39

  Because of such conflicts, st. clair and other members of the nascent

  frontier elite enjoyed only a tenuous grasp on the status they craved. Britain’s

  north american colonies broadly replicated the home country’s division be-

  tween the gentry (who lived on the labor of tenants, servants, and slaves) and

  the “common folk” (who might own land but worked it themselves). Upper

  Ohio Valley landlords and mill owners considered themselves (and wanted

  others to consider them) gentlemen, and they thus set themselves above most

  of their neighbors. But their recent arrival in the region, as well as chronic

  jurisdictional uncertainty, deprived them of the social and political capital

  that protected the better- established eastern gentry. Their insecurity raised

  the stakes of factional disputes, as gaining or losing control of local govern-

  ment posts could make or break an individual’s fortune. With so much hang-

  ing in the balance, Virginia’s and pennsylvania’s dueling sets of magistrates,

  sheriffs, and militia commanders fiercely denounced one another’s authority,

  even when the governments they represented urged calm. in the process,

  they competed for the loyalty and cooperation of ordinary colonists, many of

  whom resented policies the officials were expected to enforce. gaining

  20

  introduction

  credibility as a local leader could even require denying one’s aspirations to

  leadership. at a 1770 meeting with haudenosaunee leaders, a monongahela

  colonist, Van swearingen, stressed that though his neighbors had chosen him

  as a spokesman, he claimed no formal authority: their community had “no

  head man amongst them.” in fact, swearingen was a relatively affluent slave-

  holder who had formerly served as a Virginian official and subsequently be-

  came a magistrate and army officer in pennsylvania. his social status qualified

  him for such posts, but maintaining his position required embracing his

  neighbors’ relatively egalitarian political culture. The aspiring elite thus occu-

  pied an awkward intermediary position, from which they attempted to per-

  suade both eastern officials and upper Ohio colonists to accept each other’s

  demands.40

  The west that mcclure visited in 1772 was considerably less wild than he

  imagined. The indians and colonists who lived there had little love for one

  another, but neither did they kill each other as frequently or as indiscrimi-

  nately as their detractors alleged. Ohio Valley inhabitants navigated regional

  politics by building tenuous coalitions and manipulating eastern and impe-

  rial patronage. The resulting networks, together with the containment of in-

  tercultural violence, enabled a naive and arrogant young missionary to

  traverse the region safely for months.

  This troubled but stable order would soon col apse, but its demise re-

  sulted less from state absence than from exertions of government influence

  that accelerated colonization and encouraged intercultural conflict. Follow-

  ing pontiac’s War, peace prevailed for ten years, thanks in part to an imperial

  pledge to reserve Kentucky for indians. in 1774, Virginia’s royal governor

  tried to seize Kentucky for colonization, triggering a land rush and a brief

  war. The Virginians’ victory spurred hundreds of colonists westward, even as

  revolution unfolded in the seaboard colonies. rather than triggering blood-

  shed, the col apse of imperial authority brought two years of relative peace.

  But in 1777, both revolutionary and imperial governments began recruiting,

  organizing, and supplying fighting forces that ravaged one another’s commu-

  nities. in the ensuing years, British- allied Ohio indians repeatedly pressed for

  peace with the newborn United states, but american commanders spurned

  their offers. years of horror ensued, as militant indians and colonists carried

  out atrocities with government- supplied weaponry, leaving their respective

  peoples desperate for state protection. The 1783 treaty of paris brought the

  fighting to a halt, for a time. some indian and colonial leaders tried to ham-

  introduction

  21

  mer out a durable peace, but their efforts could not overcome congress’s in-

  sistence on colonizing Ohio. meanwhile, leaders among both indians and

  colonists forged ever stronger ties to British and United states officials.

  rather than preserving local autonomy, the emerging political order brought

  a new federal government determined to squash western resistance.

  The case of the Ohio Valley thus il uminates how diverse groups of people

  attempted to attain, contest, and manipulate power in a place where compet-

  ing governments wielded some influence but little actual authority. instead of

  hobbesian anarchy or a two- sided clash of opposing cultures, the region ex-

  hibited a complex pattern of coalition building, in which an array of political

  brokers pursued disparate aims through informal and often ephemeral col-

  laborations. individuals and communities built coalitions to reap profits, to

  gain diplomatic leverage, to acquire and dispense patronage, to defend or

  contest claims to land, to make peace, and to wage war. These efforts often

  brought unintended and unwelcome results, but even when coalition build-

  ers failed to achieve their goals, their work still shaped the region’s transfor-

  mation. partnerships with colonial governments repeatedly spurred new

  waves of colonization and violence, which in turn deepened indians’ and col-

  onists’ reliance on government resources and the brokers who could deliver

  them. rather than proceeding “from the bottom up,” anglo- american colo-

  nialism was joined at the hip with the unsettling process of state building.

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  Chapter 1

  containment, 1765– 72

  peter was dead; that much was certain. The delaware war captain died in

  early 1767 near the mouth of redstone creek, where a Virginian, John ryan,

  fatal y shot him. ryan then fled into the mountains, never to be heard from

  again. pittsburgh traders, British indian agents, and other imperial officials

  all blamed peter’s death on the hundreds of colonists who had recently occu-

  pied land around redstone and on the slippery land speculator Thomas cre-

  sap. according to the officials, the redstone colonists considered killing an

  indian “a meritorious act” and “wish[ed] for nothing more than an indian

  War.”1 modern historians general y echo this view, citing a long parade of

  horrors— the paxton Boys massacre of 1763, the middle creek massacre of

  1768, and others— in which ungoverned a
nd ungovernable colonists rou-

  tinely lashed out at indians they hated. One landmark study describes those

  at redstone as “ragtag refugees” who “despised indians and abused them.”

  Their abuses brought about “a state of war” in which “almost any encounter . . .

  could end in death and open the door to a bloody cycle of retaliation.”2 small

  wonder, then, that ryan killed peter.

  a closer look, though, complicates the story. The fatal encounter began

  when peter seized ryan’s kegs of rum. nor was the killer a redstone colonist:

  he had only just arrived, kegs in tow. rather than taking indian land himself,

  ryan was selling liquor to those who were. peter tried to seize the kegs at the

  request of cresap, who sought to monopolize the lucrative rum business for

  himself and his sons. “if he met with any traders in the country or going to

  it,” cresap reportedly told peter, “he should take their liquor from them &

  cause the Kegs to be staved.” rather than being a victim of redstone’s rapid

  colonization, peter had worked for the man responsible for it, providing, in

  the parlance of another era, muscle to protect cresap’s turf.3 This partnership

  echoed a regional trend. in the ten years after pontiac’s War, Ohio Valley

  24

  chapter 1

  indians and colonists interacted peaceful y much more often than they killed

  one another. internecine divisions, and memories of wartime horrors, en-

  couraged them to seek allies and trading partners across the cultural divide.

  When tavern brawls and trade disputes ended violently, both indians and

  colonists hurried to contain hostilities. distrust remained strong but did not

  preclude cooperation.

  amid this relative stability, Ohio Valley inhabitants sought to reshape their

  relationships with the multifaceted British state. after a decade of war and the

  decisive defeat of France, few could envision a future whol y separate from the

  British empire. having failed to expel the British in pontiac’s War, western indi-