Unsettling the West

by Rob Harper

  pro- Virginia rivals won local elections; to secure their positions, the erst-

  while Virginians assured pennsylvanian officials of their newfound loyalties.

  Whatever they might think of pennsylvania, those on all sides needed the

  council’s goodwill to triumph over their rivals. in denouncing one another,

  the petitioners rhetorical y embraced state law and state institutions as au-

  thoritative arbitrators in local disputes.14

  The pursuit of government contracts tied some members of the colonial

  elite still more closely to revolutionary governments. to assert their authority

  in the region, congress, pennsylvania, and Virginia needed local contractors

  to secure supplies, build roads, and survey lands. competition for contracts

  fostered patronage networks linking merchants, surveyors, army officers, and

  Failures, 1783–95

  155

  government officials. Veteran pittsburgh trader david duncan had provi-

  sioned the wartime garrison at Fort pitt; with the coming of peace, he

  promptly resumed trading with Ohio indians. By the mid- 1780s, his agents

  ranged from the upper allegheny river to the shawnee towns of western

  Ohio. duncan himself traveled repeatedly to British- occupied detroit to cul-

  tivate business partners and sell upper Ohio grain. he also pursued govern-

  ment contracts to supply the western army and treaty commissioners, and he

  angled to acquire choice tracts of land. although trading with erstwhile ene-

  mies attracted criticism, duncan won over civil and military authorities by

  making himself useful. army commander Josiah harmar relied on him for

  detailed accounts of British and indian activities, and duncan and his part-

  ners, most notably William Finley, helped prominent officials buy choice

  western lands. They kept particularly close ties to former Fort pitt comman-

  dant William irvine, whom duncan had served during the war. in 1786, ir-

  vine entered congress, and duncan quickly sought help in both securing the

  title to a lucrative salt spring and winning a contract to provision the western

  army. in exchange, he offered the new congressman a share in the spring and

  kept an eye on irvine’s own land claims. after many false starts, duncan won

  a contract to supply thirty thousand rations for the 1788 treaty of Fort

  harmar.15

  duncan’s relationships with irvine and harmar were part of a web of pa-

  tronage stretching from congress through the military and commercial hub

  of pittsburgh to army garrisons and indian communities throughout the

  Ohio Valley and around lake erie. cumulatively, such networks gave upper

  Ohio merchants and traders an ever greater stake in the effectiveness of state

  authority, even as they profited from state weakness. congress spent so much

  money in the region because of its tenuous military and political position.

  But to secure the profits they envisioned, duncan and his allies needed the

  nascent anglo- american state to pay its bil s, uphold land titles, and keep the

  peace. The flow of patronage and profits fused public endeavors with private

  ones, and formal partnerships with the extralegal exchange of favors. in the

  process, representatives of state authority gained a personal interest in ac-

  quiring indian land, even at the cost of political and military stability. har-

  mar and his officers, charged with maintaining frontier peace, simultaneously

  angled for a share of the lands that indians were determined to defend. har-

  mar himself asked congressman irvine to use his “influence” to help him get

  a slice of the muskingum Valley. duncan, by contrast, railed against con-

  gress’s haste to colonize Ohio, reasoning that war would ruin his trading

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  business, but his eagerness for harmar’s and irvine’s patronage deterred him

  from protesting too loudly.16

  Other colonists used emerging institutions for local and personal pur-

  poses. in early 1782, the magistrate abner howell conducted a double mar-

  riage uniting sabitha colt with cornelius miller, and Jeniah colt with an

  unnamed woman. Both couples paid for howel ’s services in silver coin— a

  scarce commodity. The two couples set up housekeeping nearby, in the same

  neighborhood where everyone involved had lived for years. But two other

  neighbors denounced the double wedding, pointing out that three of the four

  newlyweds were already legal y married, two of them— the colts— to one an-

  other. By law, both marriages were bigamous and therefore invalid; howel ’s

  ceremony was legal y meaningless. When questioned on the matter, howell

  gloated that, legal or not, “he had got the hard money for what he had done.”

  The exchange of silver reflected the ritual’s importance to the participants:

  cash- poor western pennsylvanians typical y did without official marriage li-

  censes, but the colts and millers paid for them despite their dubious legality.

  and they were not alone: in the weeks after the double wedding, howell re-

  portedly planned to conduct three more marriages “of the same kind.”17 pay-

  ing for the local magistrate’s stamp of approval helped overcome doubts

  about the legality and perhaps morality of the marital rearrangement. When

  the state took the form of philip Jenkins, tax collector, many upper Ohio col-

  onists considered it a scourge. But when it manifested as abner howel , a

  magistrate willing to bend the law to his neighbors’ interests, it found a much

  warmer welcome.

  The usefulness of pliable officials spurred western pennsylvanians to peti-

  tion their government to subdivide townships, shrinking the bailiwicks of

  local magistrates like howel . in smaller townships, constituents were more

  likely to know their magistrates personal y, and they did not travel as far to

  plead their cases. in theory, at least, colonists could have managed without

  such official y commissioned magistrates. They could have either resolved

  their disputes privately or created local courts independent of state authority.

  But in practice, the fractiousness of colonial society hindered independent

  conflict resolution. moreover, the courtroom provided a useful site for the

  public performance of reconciliation, goodwil , and mutual respect. For

  many Ohio Valley colonists, then, the localization of judicial authority made

  the courts more useful, more accountable, and more convenient to their pur-

  poses.18 tax collectors faced persecution. Violent resistance went unpun-

  ished. But colonists still looked to governments to help them achieve their

  Failures, 1783–95

  157

  goals, less because of respect for state authority than the bitter divisions be-

  tween them and their neighbors. amid countless local conflicts over mar-

  riages, property disputes, and local elections, contending factions sought

  advantage by enlisting the support of public officials. Out of such internecine

  quarrels, the flimsy frontier state began to gain traction.

  On a fine evening in October 1785, in the pine forests that have since become

  greater cincinnati, fifteen cattle declared their independence from the United

  states. For two weeks, the animals had floated down the Ohio on a leaky
flat-

  boat, unsheltered from repeated downpours and chil y autumn nights. con-

  gressional indian commissioner richard Butler had brought them to feed his

  soldiers while they built a new fort and hosted an upcoming treaty with the

  shawnees. On reaching their destination, near the mouth of the miami river,

  Butler brought the beasts ashore but “they seemed wild and not inclined to

  settle.” That night, the cattle slipped away and headed back upriver. The sol-

  diers’ attempts to round them up made them only “more wild and ungovern-

  able.” after two nights and a day of searching the woods, their pursuers gave

  up the chase.19

  Butler had hoped to awe indians and colonists alike with the power of the

  United states, but he could not manage even his ambulatory meat locker.

  hungry soldiers would likely follow the cattle’s example. Those who remained

  would hardly intimidate anyone. But where congress’s resources fell short,

  the peoples of the Ohio Valley stepped into the breach. Four visiting Wyan-

  dots helped recover some of the cattle and carried speeches from Butler to

  indian towns. Kentucky colonists hunted deer to replace Butler’s lost beef. a

  few days later, a Kentucky woman paddled across the Ohio with a day’s sup-

  ply of bear meat. another nearby community sold him eighty pounds of

  salted bison. some colonists even sold Butler meat on credit, tactful y over-

  looking congress’s financial woes. meanwhile, nonhelema, a leader of the

  mekoche shawnees, promoted Butler’s mission among her people. her son

  and daughter carried messages constantly between the new outpost— Fort

  Finney— and the shawnee towns, assuring all who listened of Butler’s good

  intentions. together, this eclectic mix of allies enabled Butler to welcome a

  large shawnee delegation for the treaty.20

  Butler received so much help because Ohio Valley inhabitants hoped that

  he might negotiate a treaty that addressed their disparate concerns. a few

  months earlier, an Ohio haudenosaunee leader called captain Wolf had

  mapped out such an agreement. a Virginian delegation, led by James

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  sherlock, had come to the shawnee town of Wakatomica to retrieve wartime

  captives. Wolf instead handed over a tightly bound land hunter, recently

  found with several others north of the Ohio river. Wolf noted that at previ-

  ous meetings, sherlock and others had announced that the United states

  would not object if indians harmed “the people who were encroaching upon

  us,” reasoning that such intruders brought it “upon themselves.” acting on

  this suggestion, a cherokee band had recently killed and scalped seven tres-

  passers near the mouth of the scioto. But most Ohio indians preferred to

  handle the problem diplomatical y. captain Wolf had sent most of his cap-

  tives home with a stern warning; now he brought the last of them to the

  council to make a point. he demanded that colonists respect the boundary

  “settled by our forefathers”: the Ohio river. if they did so, the assembled in-

  dian leaders pledged to return the captives that sherlock sought and to con-

  tinue peaceful trade and diplomacy.21

  Wolf’s proposal addressed leading concerns of both indians and colo-

  nists. after a decade of war and colonization, many indians were resigned to

  the loss of Kentucky but were loath to surrender land north of the Ohio.

  many insisted that no nation could cede more territory until all western na-

  tions reached consensus. as Wolf made clear to sherlock, securing peace

  hinged on maintaining the Ohio river boundary. For their part, many Ken-

  tucky colonists cared less about Ohio land than protecting the families and

  property they already had. during the war, British- allied indians had ad-

  opted countless captives into their own families, spiritual y replacing lost

  loved ones. in 1783, colonists and shawnees began negotiating an exchange of

  prisoners, but the adoptees’ families of origin struggled to get them back.

  Wa- ba- kah- kah- to, a prominent pekowi shawnee leader, refused several of-

  fers to ransom his adopted daughter, insisting that she “was not a slave to be

  sold” but rather “one of his family.” When congressional commissioners ar-

  rived in Kentucky to hold a treaty with the shawnees and their neighbors,

  colonists traveled long distances to beg for the return of lost children. Others

  complained that they had lost nearly all their horses, the region’s most mobile

  and lucrative commodity, to indian raiders.22 a new peace agreement could

  have satisfied both shawnees’ and Kentuckians’ demands. affirming the

  Ohio river boundary would have bolstered the influence of moderate indian

  leaders, enabling them to more effectively deter horse stealing and return ad-

  opted captives. With no prospect of obtaining legal title, the rush of land

  hunters across the Ohio would likely have slowed, and those who persisted

  would have had to confront their indian neighbors without military protec-

  Failures, 1783–95

  159

  tion. to be sure, some indians and colonists would have continued stealing

  one another’s horses and sometimes killing each other, but with meaningful

  concessions moderate leaders could have more easily contained such out-

  breaks of violence.

  however, congress’s appointed treaty commissioners insisted on Ohio’s

  colonization, making any such agreement impossible. Their obstinacy re-

  flected speculative ambitions as much as official instructions. Butler, a vet-

  eran trader and diplomat, had been noting desirable locations for over a

  decade. his letters seamlessly moved from discussing politics to describing

  valuable tracts. samuel parsons, a connecticut jurist and continental gen-

  eral, had lost his personal fortune in the war and now sought to regain it in

  Ohio. during his trip west, he scouted out promising lands for family and

  friends. neither had any love for the colonists of Kentucky. Butler called for

  more army outposts to keep Kentuckians under control, while parsons re-

  portedly dismissed them as “a Banditty of refugees not worthy of congress’s

  notice.” The third commissioner, george rogers clark, sought to create a

  new colony across the river from louisville.23 congress had chosen agents

  who cared far more about acquiring Ohio than befriending indians, protect-

  ing Kentucky horse herds, or recovering adopted captives.

  Because of these personal ambitions, as well as their orders from con-

  gress, the commissioners flatly refused to negotiate. during the Fort Finney

  meeting, the shawnee war leader Kekewepellethe promised that he and his

  fellow warriors would return “every one” of their nation’s adopted captives:

  an important step toward addressing Kentuckians’ chief grievance. The com-

  missioners, however, demanded that the shawnees join the delawares and

  Wyandots in surrendering all of southern and eastern Ohio to the United

  states. When delawares and Wyandots questioned that cession’s legitimacy,

  the commissioners held firm, dashing any hope of recovering the captives. in

  reply, Kekewepellethe challenged the americans’ claim to sovereignty. “god
<
br />   gave us this country,” he declared: “it is all ours.” laying on the council table

  a string of black and white wampum beads, a sacred symbol of his people’s

  voice, he insisted that the americans retract their demands. clark lifted his

  cane, swept Kekewepellethe’s wampum onto the floor, and crushed the beads

  under his boot. Then, threatening “the destruction of your women and chil-

  dren,” the commissioners stormed out, leaving the shawnees six days to

  change their minds.24

  This dramatic display won the commissioners their treaty but dashed any

  hope of peace. after a short but heated debate, molunthy, the shawnees’ head

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  civil chief; Kekewepellethe; and several other shawnee leaders signed and left

  hostages as security for their compliance. Over the months that followed,

  shawnee hunters regularly visited the fort to trade. enforcing the treaty,

  though, proved impossible. molunthy delivered only a handful of captives,

  some of whom soon ran away to rejoin their adoptive families. With con-

  gress demanding all or nothing, most shawnees preferred to yield nothing.

  desperate for other options, molunthy and other treaty signers appealed to

  Britain for help, complaining that the americans were “striving to work our

  destruction.” meanwhile, Wyandots, delawares, and shawnees warned

  american traders that they would resist any surveyors north of the Ohio.

  even the accommodating pipe and dunquat urged congress to postpone

  surveying until they made “a firm peace first with all the nations.” Fear of

  attack delayed the surveys for months. at the same time, raids against Ken-

  tucky homesteads escalated. Though one army officer dismissed the raiders

  as “a few Banditi of the cherokees,” shawnees, Ohio haudenosaunees, and

  anishinaabeg now joined them. increasingly, the raiders killed and captured

  colonists in addition to taking horses. and unlike the war years, when

  British- allied indians had adopted or ransomed most of their prisoners, now

  those they captured were less likely to survive. in september 1786, a chero-