by Rob Harper
outragious manner.” she and Butler fled the scene, but a Virginian militia
party, led by susanna’s alleged lover, simon girty,14 quickly overtook and ar-
rested them. Butler’s allies hurried to his aid. a connol y lieutenant, george
Ohio R.
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Pittsburgh
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Disputed state borders:
County borders:
Figure 3. The Forks of the Ohio region, 1775–79 (Virginia claim).
Ohio R.
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Disputed state borders:
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County borders:
ell
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Figure 4. The Forks of the Ohio region, 1775–79 (pennsylvania claim).
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aston, knocked devereux smith into a clay pit; when aston charged a sec-
ond time, smith buried a knife in his chest. aston died on the spot. his men
shot a musket ball through smith’s leg and beat him close to death as he lay
crippled on the ground. Only the intervention of a Virginian militia officer,
and the amputation of his wounded leg, saved smith’s life. Butler survived the
riot and soon went east to join the continental army; surviving evidence
reveals nothing about the fate of his mob- ridden friend.15
Both intercultural and revolutionary tensions, it seems, could fade next
to the fury of local partisanship. For the emerging upper Ohio elite, aspira-
tions in land speculation and political advancement hinged on the favor of a
broadly recognized government. such men needed effectual courts, led by
magistrates friendly to their interests, to extract rent from tenants, evict rival
land claimants, and control the labor of servants and slaves. The success of
either Virginia’s or pennsylvania’s claim could mean the difference between
becoming a prominent landlord and public figure and being imprisoned for
debt.16 By the time of the riot Virginia’s revolutionary committee knew con-
nol y was conniving with dunmore, but they nonetheless leaped to his wife’s
defense. For her part, Butler’s friend may have been associated with Ohio
indians; Butler himself was a veteran trader and frontier diplomat.17 But the
surviving evidence offers no sign that revolutionary tensions or attitudes
toward indians had any bearing on the riot. aston died and smith endured
life- changing injuries for the sake of a factional dispute among colonists.
at the other end of the social ladder, the misery of servitude overshad-
owed both partisan and intercultural tensions. in one Kentucky- bound party,
two servants slipped away from their masters, paddled across the Ohio, and
disappeared into indian country. One of their cotravelers puzzled over why
they ran away “in this wilderness country” but they presumably dreaded in-
dians less than continued servitude. hundreds of miles to the east, five of
george Washington’s servants fled their upper Ohio worksite and sought ref-
uge in “the indens towns,” but their hosts handed them over at the demand of
a white trader. so many enslaved african americans did the same that Vir-
ginians insisted shawnees hand over “our negroes” as a condition of making
peace.18 intercultural animosity remained but could be dwarfed by antago-
nism within a divisive and unequal colonial population.
When upper Ohio colonists overcame such divisions and mobilized for
war, they relied on government initiatives. in the spring of 1775, nascent
county committees resolved to form “a military body” but failed to follow
through. after dunmore evacuated his Ohio river forts, they remained
Opportunity, 1775–76
77
vacant for months until Virginia’s revolutionary convention paid armed com-
panies to garrison them. The convention also revived Virginia’s lapsed militia
law, establishing formal procedures for organizing, arming, and paying
fighting- age men, as well as making “Just returns of the delinquent” so they
“may be fined.” colonists often shirked militia duty despite such penalties,
but the law established a structure that enabled officers to mobilize their
neighbors at least sporadical y. even with these measures in place, county
militias did little until late 1776. in november, some reportedly plotted to
ambush passing indian peace delegations, but the plan fell through. Wide-
spread food shortages raised yet another obstacle to mobilization. When Vir-
ginia militia officers final y raised some men, they did so to guard nearby
farmers as they harvested precious grain.19 militant colonists raged against
indians, but even defensive measures required government authorization
and payment.
Virginia’s promise to pay militia carried weight. as its last official act, the
prerevolutionary house of Burgesses appointed a commission to pay dun-
more’s 1774 army, those who had supplied it, and the “poor Widows and Or-
phans” of the fallen. That fal , the commissioners issued certificates to
hundreds of claimants. By late 1776, the revolutionary convention had paid
out over £100,000 in Virginia currency to settle the expenses of the governor
it had overthrown. For serving about two months, each man received a cer-
tificate worth £4– 5 in Virginia currency, roughly equivalent to the assessed
value of each steer bought to feed dunmore’s men. some served five months
or longer, for earnings that approximated the value of a good horse. in years
to come, wartime inflation made such payments worthless, but for the mo-
ment they offered a tangible reward for military service, especial y in cash-
poor western Virginia.20
in some cases, communities persuaded militia to serve unofficial y in
hopes of future compensation, much as dunmore’s army had done. in Janu-
ary 1777, as the militia garrison at grave creek neared the end of its term,
nearby colonists petitioned them to stay longer. neither the governor nor the
county militia commander had authorized a longer tour, or drafted more
men to relieve them, but the colonists assured the garrison that the dun-
more’s War commissioners would “in no ways refuse to pay you . . . for this
service done the country.” about twenty of the men signed a pledge to stay
on “as militia soldiers” for an additional fifteen days. The terminology mat-
tered: “militia soldiers” were entitled to wages, though only when authorized
by Virginia officials. noting that they acted “without proper orders,” they
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agreed “to run the risk of the colony’s paying us,” trusting that their com-
mander would advocate for payment. david shepherd, a local merchant,
promised to feed the men, similarly gambling that the state would compen-
sate him. he had experience in this area, having earned about £4 in certifi-
cates for supplying dunmore’s army.21 The arrangement reflected the murky
yet potent manifestation of state influence. rather than simply complying
with or ignoring official directives, the colonists and the garrison sought to
manipulate the nascent revolutionary government into paying for extra pro-
tection. The plan emerged through local negotiations, with no input from
officials other than the garrison’s commander, but it hinged on expectations
of state support.
The formal militia structure also helped resolve questions about leader-
ship and organization. in mid- 1776, thirty- seven clinch Valley inhabitants
petitioned Fincastle county’s revolutionary committee to appoint a local mi-
litia commander. living over one hundred miles and across a mountain ridge
from the county seat, the petitioners explained they could not feasibly attend
Fincastle’s regular musters. to organize local defenses, they required “some
principal Officer here in this Valley” to lead them. Their favored candidate,
richard lyman, seemingly lacked the necessary authority to “keep the men
in Order together.” his friends might obey him out of personal respect and
confidence, but the community in general would not. if their valley were at-
tacked, lyman would have to persuade men he hardly knew to leave their
homes and march to meet the enemy. Whatever his qualities as a leader, per-
sonal influence alone might not overcome colonists’ inclination to defend
their own homesteads. to ral y their neighbors, he and his officers wanted
official appointments and the backing of Virginia law. With the county com-
mittee’s support, the petitioners claimed, lyman and his officers “could train
our militia with much ease” and prepare the valley to resist indian aggres-
sion. notwithstanding the upheaval of revolution, these colonists believed
that the trappings of legal authority could strengthen frontier defenses.22
internecine squabbles could impede even government- backed mobiliza-
tion. in the summer of 1776, congress authorized pennsylvania’s Westmore-
land county committee to create a new battalion for frontier defense. to
command the new unit, congress appointed aeneas mackay, a pittsburgh
merchant with connections in philadelphia but few friends among Westmore-
land farmers. The county committee, under pressure from mackay’s oppo-
nents, saddled him with several antagonistic subordinates. For months,
“artfull insinuations” and a “factious disposition” plagued the officer corps.
Opportunity, 1775–76
79
some complained that their station, an allegheny river trading post forty-
five miles from Fort pitt, was too “remote” to protect “the defenceless fron-
tiers.” meanwhile, the exorbitant price of provisions, and quarrels over how
to pay for them, left the battalion poorly supplied. in november, several offi-
cers threatened to march their companies “where they pleased” and to “shoot
down the first that would oppose them.” mackay regained control only by
agreeing to distribute the men among frontier homesteads, where they could
be more readily clothed and fed. Then, in december, congress ordered the
battalion to join Washington’s army hundreds of miles to the east. The men
set out on a long midwinter journey across pennsylvania, with few blankets
and little food or clothing. By the time they arrived, mackay and many more
had died.23
however much upper Ohio colonists may have wanted to fight indians,
they repeatedly failed to mobilize in large numbers. The scarcity of guns, am-
munition, and provisions, as well as political fractiousness, geographic dis-
persal, and general poverty, posed serious obstacles. households could ill
afford to spare men who left home for war, and few colonists wielded the
personal authority necessary to enlist others’ cooperation. “The militia on
this side of the hil s is not to be depended on in case of emergency,” mackay
noted. When threatened, “they fly with their respective families” rather than
joining their neighbors to fight. reports of indian attacks— some imagined,
some real— repeatedly failed to spur a coordinated response. When colonists
did mobilize, they relied on the structure of formal county militias.24 The na-
scent revolutionary state commanded scant resources or authority, but with-
out its support frontier war seemed impossible.
much as colonial disputes muted anti- indian hostility, so, too, the politics of
indian communities discouraged new attacks on colonists. The traumas of
recent wars had convinced many that they could not fight colonization mili-
tarily without powerful allies and reliable supplies of gunpowder. in addition,
the upheavals of 1774 left many Ohio indians short of food.25 at the same
time, the imperial crisis promised alternative ways to secure sovereignty. in
1775 and 1776 both the British at detroit and the americans at pittsburgh
sought western indians’ friendship without openly encouraging them to go
to war. some militants called for war to defend Kentucky, but without state
support they won few converts. meanwhile, as colonists warred over inde-
pendence, indians reshaped their own politics to suit native needs.
The most pressing needs revolved around the challenge of renewed
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colonial expansion. delawares, shawnees, and mohicans all recognized a fa-
miliar pattern. First in new netherland, and later in new york, new
Jersey,
and pennsylvania, colonial governments had encouraged colonists to occupy
ever more land, then used the resulting tensions as a pretext to demand addi-
tional territory. in reoccupying Ohio, these nations had aimed to distance
themselves from the seaboard colonies. now the rush of colonists to Ken-
tucky signaled a new cycle of dispossession. to confront this growing threat,
Ohio indians proposed a wide range of strategies, nearly all of which involved
building relationships with some manifestation of the anglo- american state.
For years, delaware leaders had sought British recognition of their na-
tion’s sovereignty, offering in exchange to accept the British king, embrace
christianity, and remake their society and economy along colonial lines. as
White eyes told a Virginian emissary, he wanted his people to live “as the
White people do and under their laws and protection.” But rather than
blending into colonial society, delaware leaders sought recognition as a dis-
tinct people, living in a defined territory, within the composite British em-
pire. They persistently insisted on their right to their lands in eastern Ohio,
citing a gift from their Wyandot neighbors, and labored to unify their scat-
tered nation both political y and geographical y. They also developed a more
formal governing council to centralize decision making. as they adopted as-
pects of european culture, the delaware integrated them with familiar tradi-
tions. in 1775, when they built a new capital, goschachgünk, they laid out a
european street grid and adapted it to their traditional kinship system, as-
signing a separate street to each clan. above al , delaware leaders angled to
send a diplomatic mission to england in order to win formal recognition
from the king.26
in 1775, as their shawnee neighbors recovered from dunmore’s War, del-
aware leaders had good reason to expect the formal recognition they coveted.
as a reward for White eyes’s services, dunmore had pledged to back their
nation’s territorial claims “with all his interest” and to send a delaware dele-
gation to london to win royal approval. accordingly, White eyes appeared at
a June 1775 council bearing a new belt of friendship for “King george our