Unsettling the West

by Rob Harper

  gressional emissaries had brushed aside in their quest for land.

  meanwhile, indians and colonists continued to seek more advantageous

  relationships with colonial governments. pipe, dunquat, and cornplanter

  befriended american officials, while Brant, Buckongahelas, Blue Jacket, and

  little turtle solicited and periodical y received aid from the British. govern-

  ment patronage bolstered leaders’ personal influence and— erratical y—

  brought needed resources to native communities. colonists similarly strived

  to maintain local autonomy but found themselves increasingly reliant on

  governing institutions. They resisted tax collection and debt enforcement,

  and they also pressed for the subdivision of townships in order to make local

  courts more accountable (and useful) to their communities. as rival factions

  contended for control of local government, they sought vindication from

  eastern officials. as with indians, internecine divisions magnified the value of

  official patronage, binding leaders more closely to the emerging federal

  state.45 Just as the region’s violence stemmed from government interventions,

  so the eventual consolidation of state power reflected Ohio Valley inhabi-

  tants’ long- standing attempts to make governments work for them.

  conclusion

  in march 1785 colonist John amberson called for a convention to form a new

  government for colonists living north of the Ohio river. Brazenly defying the

  confederation congress, he posted an advertisement declaring that “all

  mankind . . . have an undoubted right to pass into every vacant country, and

  there to form their own constitution.” The United states, he claimed, had no

  authority either to restrain colonization or to sell uninhabited lands. to some

  nineteenth- and twentieth- century historians, this daring proposal exempli-

  fied the mentality of early Ohio Valley colonists. Frederick Jackson turner

  may have had amberson in mind when he celebrated those who “turned

  their backs upon the atlantic Ocean, and with a grim energy and self- reliance

  began to build up a society free from the dominance of ancient forms.”1

  This book, by contrast, argues that amberson was an anomaly. instead of

  spreading indiscriminately across the land, colonists migrated in large num-

  bers only where shifting government policies offered hope of military protec-

  tion, links to markets, and a chance at a legitimate land title. migrants often

  violated such policies, but government initiatives nonetheless shaped their

  behavior. While some, like amberson, directly challenged state power or ad-

  vocated political separation, they most often attached themselves to another

  established government, rather than echoing amberson’s call for self- rule.

  many others acquiesced to state authority while trying to manipulate it to

  serve their own ends. if colonists shared amberson’s dogged independence,

  they seldom allowed it to govern their actions. perhaps for these reasons, his

  call for a new constitution fell stil born: one meeting endorsed the plan, but it

  proceeded no further.2

  as amberson’s bid for self- government fizzled, western indians pursued

  a political revolution of their own. abandoned by British allies, and con-

  fronted with congress’s intractable demands for Ohio, representatives of a

  host of western nations declared themselves a confederation and insisted that

  no members could cede territory without the consent of al . Their project

  echoed both the wartime unity of the British alliance and an older movement

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  conclusion

  rooted in nativist spirituality. like amberson, the confederationists envi-

  sioned an independent polity able to defend its peoples from congress’s de-

  mands. Unlike amberson, they made considerable progress: resolving

  disputes, conducting diplomacy, and defeating american troops in battle.

  But even the confederationists fell short of the unity they sought. some west-

  ern indians sought separate accommodations with the United states. Others

  left the region entirely, moving west across the mississippi. and even the

  confederation’s most ardent leaders recognized that they could preserve po-

  litical independence only with the commercial and military backing of Brit-

  ish canada. When that support fizzled, their movement col apsed.3

  much as the myth of self- reliant colonists has obscured their dependence

  on colonial governments, so, too, the drama of warfare has overshadowed

  the politics of Ohio indians. hindsight— the knowledge of subsequent

  dispossession— tempts us to discount natives’ legal and diplomatic strategies

  and instead celebrate military resistance. But examined more closely, and

  without retrospective blinders, the political maneuverings of White eyes,

  cornstalk, dunquat, pipe, nonhelema, and guyasuta, among others, show a

  subtlety and sophistication that belie easy distinctions between accommoda-

  tion and militancy. rather than either submitting to anglo- american power

  or waging war against it, such leaders aimed to protect native territory and

  sovereignty by forging new relationships with colonial neighbors. They pur-

  sued varied and often conflicting strategies, both diplomatic and military,

  while also rebuilding their own political systems to contend with colonial

  demands. in the near term, they failed; cornstalk and White eyes were mur-

  dered. By the mid- 1800s, the federal government recognized only one indian

  nation in the entire Ohio Valley: the small seneca territory on the upper al-

  legheny. nonetheless, these efforts to build a new political order shaped the

  emerging United states, most notably by establishing precedents for the

  modern government- to- government relationship between the federal repub-

  lic and tribal nations. rather than discounting White eyes as a tragic victim

  of colonial violence, we might better salute his vision of self- governing in-

  dian peoples within a composite anglo- american state. he and his allies

  were about two hundred years ahead of their time.

  The image of independent and defiant indians and colonists arose in

  large part from the self- serving complaints of government officials. however

  much Ohio Valley inhabitants depended on state aid, they rarely submitted

  meekly to official dictates. colonists drove off tax collectors, seized land pre-

  emptively, and flouted the orders of military superiors. indians ignored trade

  conclusion

  175

  regulations, demanded goods, and largely ignored British commands. Both

  groups readily appropriated government- supplied weaponry for their own

  purposes, sometimes to kill people their patrons did not want them to kil .

  moreover, the specter of unstoppably land- hungry and war- mongering colo-

  nists rationalized a profitable policy of aggressive dispossession. if govern-

  ments displaced indians too slowly, aspiring speculators argued, colonists’

  relentless westering could cost the United states its budding western empire,

  leaving the region “an assylum for a Banditti without principle or law at-

  tached to no government.”4 By depicting Ohio Valley inhabitants as rebel-

  lious and bloodthirsty, British and ame
rican officials justified policies that

  further empowered— and often enriched— themselves and their friends.

  ironical y, the interventions that officials promoted brought about much

  of the bloodshed they decried. to be sure, colonists and indians often killed

  each other on their own initiative, but most large- scale violence took place as

  part of, or because of, government- funded or government- led operations.

  small groups of colonists built local stockades and fended off attacks, but

  they failed to orchestrate substantial campaigns without the money, supplies,

  and organizational structure of formal institutions. The culture of Ohio indi-

  ans was better suited to small- scale campaigning, but past traumas made

  them loath to renew hostilities without the support of a competing empire.

  rather than springing directly from hatred, vengeance, and competition,

  major atrocities hinged on access to weapons and other supplies, as well as

  the political capital necessary to mobilize potential killers. British and revo-

  lutionary officers commonly bemoaned and denied responsibility for the

  savagery of their allies, but such protests were disingenuous or at best naive.

  equal y important, by encouraging colonization and violence, governments

  further destabilized the region, deepening indians’ and colonists’ depen-

  dence on official patronage.

  The politics of the revolutionary Ohio Valley thus involved a many- sided

  process of statecraft, understood literal y as ongoing attempts to shape a new

  political order. From the 1760s through the 1780s, a wide range of indians,

  colonists, and government officials sought to revise the structures that had

  prevailed in previous decades. delaware and shawnee leaders labored to bal-

  ance traditions of local autonomy with new structures for centralized deci-

  sion making. some western haudenosaunee sought independence from the

  six nations, while others hoped to restore the league’s supremacy. in both

  pennsylvania and Virginia, provincial and later revolutionary officials

  claimed jurisdiction over large swaths of the Ohio Valley, while coteries of

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  conclusion

  investors angled to win royal and later congressional approval of their

  schemes. as colonists moved into the region, they— like Ohio indians—

  assessed how well these disparate claims to authority might serve their own

  needs and then built coalitions accordingly. One government after another

  failed to subdue the Ohio Valley’s peoples, but their attempts both spurred

  and drew strength from the ensuing intrigues and bloodshed. This unsettling

  helped constitute, in fits and starts, an emerging federal state.

  This western revolution was less a dramatic break than a staggered and

  nonlinear process. in the 1760s, the region’s inhabitants had contended with

  a composite British empire, which comprised a messy array of provincial and

  proprietary governments as well as more or less formal alliances with native

  polities. in the 1770s, that system col apsed, triggering war, uncertainty, and

  opportunities to shape a new political order. in the 1780s and 1790s, a new

  composite polity emerged: an imperial republic independent of the old

  metropole, comprising member states, territories, and indian nations. each

  of these possessed some measure of self- government, subordinated to vary-

  ing degrees to the oversight and protection of the union. Over thirty years of

  upheaval, a rough- hewn order, marked by significant local autonomy, diverse

  government forms, and a transoceanic imperial center, gave way to a more

  precisely defined system, characterized by reduced local autonomy, more

  standardized government forms, and a less distant, but still transmontane

  imperial center. The new system proved adept at dispossessing indian na-

  tions, redistributing land to colonists, and integrating the resulting territories

  into the union, but indian nations themselves remained, both cultural y and

  constitutional y, within the new composite order. This new anglo- american

  colonialism accelerated in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with gov-

  ernment initiatives, resources, and incentives playing an ever more central

  role.5

  in september 2014, mexican police opened fire on several busloads of stu-

  dent protesters in the city of iguala, killing six. another forty- three students

  were taken away and never heard from again. Their disappearance sparked

  nationwide protests. Four months later, the nation’s attorney general an-

  nounced that local police, acting on the orders of iguala’s mayor, handed the

  students over to drug traffickers, who murdered them, incinerated their bod-

  ies, and threw the remains in a river. The atrocity, officials maintained,

  stemmed from local corruption and had nothing to do with the ruling re-

  gime. But many mexicans rejected (and still reject) this theory. in the months

  conclusion

  177

  that followed, thousands filled the streets with the slogan “fue el estado” (it

  was the state).6

  in conventional usage, “the state” is understood to exist alongside, but

  separate from, civil society. it theoretical y monopolizes the legitimate use of

  force and thus stands against those who, like drug cartels, use force illegiti-

  mately. Where criminals wield extensive power, the state is considered to be

  weak. The mexican protesters have little use for these theoretical distinctions.

  instead, they call attention to close ties between government, police, and mil-

  itary officials and the criminals they nominal y oppose. The ubiquity of such

  connections, at many levels of government, explains why state initiatives

  against drug cartels, as well as popular challenges to federal policies, make so

  little headway. as one arm of the state pursues drug traffickers, others abet

  their crimes. Both licit and illicit resources enable government forces to sup-

  press opposition. The mass murder at iguala exemplified this wider trend,

  creating a flashpoint for popular outcry. Whether the lost students died at the

  hands of the police, the army, or government- protected drug traffickers, pro-

  testers insist on calling to account the multifaceted mexican state.

  like the mexican protesters, the peoples of the revolutionary Ohio Valley

  recognized that the state took many shapes, and served many functions, well

  beyond the domain of formal government officials. in the sense of effective

  administration— enacting policies, enforcing laws, punishing crimes, even

  waging war— governments were notoriously weak and depended on local co-

  operation. rather than top- down institutions imposing order, frontier gov-

  ernments comprised coalitions of individuals, many of them working at cross

  purposes. nonetheless, by distributing and mobilizing resources, govern-

  ments reshaped the region’s history. army roads and quasi- legal land grants,

  deliveries of gunpowder, and the organization of militias together made pos-

  sible both mass colonization and horrific violence. These outcomes often flew

  in the face of official pronouncements, and thus appear to reflect state weak-

  ness, but they nonetheless hinged on the availability of— or hope
s for—

  resources that only governments could provide. ascribing these events to

  impulsiveness or hatred obscures how state institutions and government offi-

  cials made them possible.

  histories of the United states devote considerable attention to conflicts

  between different governments, or between governments and their critics.

  These concerns predispose historians to define “government” in narrow

  terms, denoting certain public institutions and the people who run them. The

  case of the revolutionary Ohio Valley suggests that this narrow conception of

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  conclusion

  “government” often shortchanges historical reality. much like the iguala po-

  lice, the murderers of cornstalk, White eyes, and the gnadenhütten moravi-

  ans committed crimes their governments condemned. like their present- day

  mexican counterparts, British and revolutionary officials wrung their hands

  at their allies’ and subordinates’ wrongdoing. But unintended outcomes re-

  main outcomes. anglo- american colonialism took hold in the Ohio Valley

  largely because governments offered both incentives to move and resources

  to kil .

  governments wielded such influence because of indians’ and colonists’

  ongoing attempts to build a new political order that might offer physical se-

  curity, economic prosperity, and formal recognition of landownership. Few,

  if any, imagined the federal republic that ultimately took shape. But as gov-

  ernments came and went, their collective efforts lent cohesion and ultimately

  coercive power to the emerging regime. in contrast to the classic Weberian

  state, this frontier polity comprised a nebulous, fragmented, and multifac-

  eted array of individuals and communities, linked together by networks that

  facilitated the distribution of resources and the escalation of violence. it ap-

  pears powerless— one might even call it a “failed state”— but looks are deceiv-

  ing. government resources, and government- led mobilization, plunged the

  Ohio Valley into horror.

  Notes

  note on naming

  1. matthew arbuckle to John neville, 26 dec. 1776, morgan 1:32; arbuckle to John stuart, 2