Unsettling the West

by Rob Harper

  nov. 1776, rUO 211– 12; [Jehu hay], journal, 24 dec. 1776 and 19 Jan. 1777, henry hamilton pa-

  pers, Burton historical collection, detroit public library (this journal was formerly attributed

  to hamilton, but internal evidence indicates it was written by hay); James h. merrel , Into the

  American Woods: Negotiators on the Pennsylvania Frontier (new york: W. W. norton,

  1999), 57– 59.

  2. alyssa mt. pleasant, “independence for Whom? expansion and conflict in the northeast

  and northwest,” in The World of the Revolutionary American Republic: Land, Labor, and the

  Conflict for a Continent, ed. andrew shankman (new york: routledge, 2014), 124 (hanodago-

  nyes); Thomas s. abler, “Kayahsota,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 4 (University of

  toronto/Université laval, 2003), http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/kayahsota_4e.html (“the cross”); exhibit labels, seneca- iroquois national museum, salamanca, ny (“standing paddles”); [george morgan], note, 30 July 1776, frame 77, george morgan papers, 1775– 1822, library

  of congress, microfilm, https://lccn.loc.gov/mm77033464 (“coquai,tah,ghai,tah”).

  3. answer of the Five nations, 6 sept. 1722, History of the Dividing Line and Other Tracts, 2

  vols. (richmond, Va, 1866), 2:251 (“assaragoa”); merrel , Into the American Woods, 122– 23

  (“Onas”); mmd 168n294 (“schwonnaks”); Thomas mcelwain, “ ‘Then i Thought i must Kill

  too’: logan’s lament: a ‘mingo’ perspective,” in Native American Speakers of the Eastern Wood-

  lands: Selected Speeches and Critical Analyses, ed. Barbara alice mann (Westport, ct: green-

  wood, 2001), 108 (“mingos”). according to one story, White eyes’s people accepted the label

  “delaware” as a courtesy to their european visitors, recognizing that their guests could not pro-

  nounce “lenape” correctly: see the section entitled “Why did the lenape people accept the

  name ‘delaware’?,” official website of the delaware tribe of indians, http://delawaretribe.org/

  blog/2013/06/26/faqs/ (accessed 30 sept. 2016).

  4. harriet maxwell converse, Myths and Legends of the New York State Iroquois, museum

  Bulletin no. 125, ed. arthur caswell parker (albany: state University of the state of new york,

  1908), 33.

  5. see James h. merrel , “second Thoughts on colonial historians and american indians,”

  Wil iam and Mary Quarterly 69, no. 3 (July 2012): 473– 76. contra merrel , a burgeoning (and

  general y anticolonial) literature uses the term “settler colonialism,” and therefore “settler,” to

  distinguish colonialisms that displace or eliminate indigenous peoples from those who extract

  resources and control commerce and labor while leaving the local population in place: see, for

  example, daiva stasiulis and nira yuval- davis, eds., Unsettling Settler Societies: Articulations of

  180

  notes to pages 1–3

  Gender, Race, Ethnicity and Class (london: sage, 1995); lynette russel , ed., Colonial Frontiers:

  Indigenous- European Encounters in Settler Societies (manchester: manchester University press,

  2001); a. dirk moses, ed., Genocide and Settler Society: Frontier Violence and Stolen Indigenous

  Children in Australian History (new york: Berghahn, 2004); James Belich, Replenishing the

  Earth: The Settler Revolution and the Rise of the Angloworld, 1783– 1939 (new york: Oxford Uni-

  versity press, 2009); lisa Ford, Settler Sovereignty: Jurisdiction and Indigenous People in America

  and Australia, 1788– 1836 (cambridge, ma: harvard University press, 2011); patrick Wolfe, “set-

  tler colonialism and the elimination of the native,” Journal of Genocide Research 8, no. 4

  (2006): 387– 409. i think the distinction is worth making, but the euphemistic history behind

  “settler” and “settlement” leaves me wary of these terms. “territorial colonialism” and “geno-

  cidal colonialism” are possible alternatives. david preston provocatively applies the term “set-

  tler” to both native and colonial populations in The Texture of Contact: European and Indian

  Settler Communities on the Frontiers of Iroquoia, 1667– 1783 (lincoln: University of nebraska

  press, 2009).

  introduction

  1. mcclure 27, 40.

  2. Walter l. hixson, American Settler Colonialism: A History (new york: palgrave macmil-

  lan, 2013), 1 (“from the bottom up”); James h. merrel , Into the American Woods: Negotiators on

  the Pennsylvania Frontier (new york: W. W. norton, 1999), 295 (“land fever”); patrick griffin,

  American Leviathan: Empire, Nation, and Revolutionary Frontier (new york: hill and Wang,

  2007). aquatic metaphors bubble up throughout Ohio Valley historiography, including my own

  work: John robinson harper, “revolution and conquest: politics, Violence, and social change

  in the Ohio Valley, 1765– 1795” (ph.d. diss., University of Wisconsin– madison, 2008), 30, 71, 136,

  161. i thank david preston for pointing out the similarly prominent analogies to madness and

  for identifying the crucial role of government in monongahela Valley colonization: david l.

  preston, The Texture of Contact: European and Indian Settler Communities on the Frontiers of

  Iroquoia, 1667– 1783 (lincoln: University of nebraska press, 2009), 245– 52. see also r. Brian

  Ferguson and neil l. Whitehead, eds., War in the Tribal Zone: Expanding States and Indigenous

  Warfare (santa Fe, nm: school of american research press, 2000), acls humanities e- Book,

  http://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.03246.

  3. For detailed studies of these intergovernmental disputes, see James patrick mcclure,

  “The ends of the american earth: pittsburgh and the Upper Ohio Valley to 1795” (ph.d. diss.,

  University of michigan, 1983); daniel p. Barr, “contested land: competition and conflict along

  the Upper Ohio Frontier, 1744– 1784” (ph.d. diss., Kent state University, 2001); paul B. moyer,

  Wild Yankees: The Struggle for Independence Along Pennsylvania’s Revolutionary Frontier (ithaca,

  ny: cornell University press, 2007).

  4. Bethel saler, The Settlers’ Empire: Colonialism and State Formation in America’s Old

  Northwest (philadelphia: University of pennsylvania press, 2014), 7 (“fluid networks”); Kathleen

  duVal, Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution (new york: random

  house, 2015), xxi (“advantageous interdependence”); Jeremy adelman and stephen aron,

  “From Borderlands to Borders: empires, nation- states, and the peoples in Between in north

  american history,” American Historical Review 104, no. 3 (1999): 841 (“car[ing] little”); robert

  michael morrissey, Empire by Col aboration: Indians, Colonists, and Governments in Colonial

  Illinois Country (philadelphia: University of pennsylvania press, 2015); Jack p. greene, “colonial

  history and national history: reflections on a continuing problem,” Wil iam and Mary

  notes to pages 3–4

  181

  Quarterly 64, no. 2 (2007): 235– 50. here i draw heavily on the historiography of state formation,

  including g. m. Joseph and daniel nugent, eds., Everyday Forms of State Formation: Revolution

  and the Negotiation of Rule in Modern Mexico (durham, nc: duke University press, 1994);

  Florencia e. mallon, Peasant and Nation: The Making of Postcolonial Mexico and Peru (Berkeley:

  University of california press, 1994); michael J. Braddick, State Formation in Early Modern En-

  gland c. 1550– 1700 (cambridge: cambridge University press, 2000), 90; st
eve hindle, The State

  and Social Change in Early Modern England, c. 1550– 1640 (Basingstoke, UK: palgrave, 2000);

  lauren Benton, “colonial law and cultural difference: Jurisdictional politics and the Forma-

  tion of the colonial state,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 41, no. 3 (July 1999): 563–

  88; Wim Blockmans, andré holenstein, and Jon mathieu, eds., Empowering Interactions:

  Political Cultures and the Emergence of the State in Europe 1300– 1900 (Farnham, UK: ashgate,

  2009); mara loveman, “The modern state and the primitive accumulation of symbolic power,”

  American Journal of Sociology 110, no. 6 (may 2005): 1651– 83; mats hallenberg, Johan holm, and

  dan Johansson, “Organization, legitimation, participation: state Formation as a dynamic

  process— the swedish example, c. 1523– 1680,” Scandinavian Journal of History 33, no. 3 (sept.

  2008): 247– 68. in refuting the hobbesian assumption of stateless chaos, and in chronicling local

  attempts to shape new regulatory systems, i echo elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons: The

  Evolution of Institutions for Col ective Action (cambridge: cambridge University press, 1990).

  5. richard White argues that eighteenth- century great lakes diplomacy relied on creative

  responses to cultural misunderstandings. europeans and indians could build alliances because

  their mutual confusion fostered new ways of resolving differences: richard White, The Middle

  Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650– 1815 (new york: cam-

  bridge University press, 1991). in late eighteenth- century diplomacy, confusion remained cen-

  tral, but the most important misunderstandings were intentional. On social networks, coalition

  building, and brokers, see Jeremy Boissevain, Friends of Friends: Networks, Manipulators and

  Coalitions (Oxford: Basil Blackwel , 1974), 171; rogers Brubaker and Frederick cooper, “Beyond

  ‘identity,’ ” Theory and Society 29, no. 1 (2000): 14– 16; daniel K. richter, “cultural Brokers and

  intercultural politics: new york- iroquois relations, 1664– 1701,” Journal of American History 75,

  no. 1 (1988): 40– 67; clara sue Kidwel , “indian Women as cultural mediators,” Ethnohistory 39,

  no. 2 (1992): 97– 107; susan sleeper- smith, Indian Women and French Men: Rethinking Cultural

  Encounter in the Western Great Lakes (amherst: University of massachusetts press, 2001).

  6. Boissevain, Friends of Friends, 147– 48; andré holenstein, “empowering interactions:

  looking at statebuilding from Below,” in Empowering Interactions: Political Cultures and the

  Emergence of the State in Europe 1300– 1900, ed. Wim Blockmans, andré holenstein, and Jon

  mathieu (Farnham, UK: ashgate, 2009), 15– 16; roger V. gould, “patron- client ties, state cen-

  tralization, and the Whiskey rebellion,” American Journal of Sociology 102, no. 2 (sept.

  1996): 400– 429; roger V. gould, “political networks and the local/national Boundary in the

  Whiskey rebellion,” in Chal enging Authority: The Historical Study of Contentious Politics, ed.

  michael p. hanagan, leslie page moch, and Wayne t. Brake (minneapolis: University of minne-

  sota press, 1998), 36– 53.

  7. gregory evans dowd, A Spirited Resistance: The North American Indian Struggle for

  Unity, 1745– 1815 (Baltimore: Johns hopkins University press, 1992), 13– 15; White, Middle

  Ground, 75– 93; gregory evans dowd, War Under Heaven: Pontiac, the Indian Nations and the

  British Empire (Baltimore: Johns hopkins University press, 2002), 191– 203. cf. richard slotkin,

  Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600– 1860 (middle-

  town, ct: Wesleyan University press, 1973); richard drinnon, Facing West: The Metaphysics of

  182

  notes to pages 5–6

  Indian- Hating and Empire- Building (minneapolis: University of minnesota press, 1980); peter

  silver, Our Savage Neighbors: How Indian War Transformed Early America (new york: W. W.

  norton, 2008); alden t. Vaughan, “Frontier Banditti and the indians: The paxton Boys’ legacy,”

  Pennsylvania History 51, no. 1 (1984): 1– 29.

  8. charles tilly, The Politics of Col ective Violence (cambridge: cambridge University press,

  2003), 8. see also ian Kenneth steele, Betrayals: Fort Wil iam Henry and the Massacre (new

  york: Oxford University press, 1990); christopher r. Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police

  Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, 2nd ed. (new york: harpercollins, 1998); alison

  palmer, Colonial Genocide (adelaide, australia: crawford house, 2000); Ferguson and White-

  head, War in the Tribal Zone; Wayne e. lee, Crowds and Soldiers in Revolutionary North Caro-

  lina: The Culture of Violence in Riot and War (gainesville: University press of Florida, 2001);

  ned Blackhawk, “The displacement of Violence: Ute diplomacy and the making of new mexi-

  co’s eighteenth- century northern Borderlands,” Ethnohistory 54, no. 4 (2007): 723– 55; James d.

  Fearon and david d. laitin, “explaining interethnic cooperation,” American Political Science

  Review 90 (1996): 715– 35; christian gerlach, “extremely Violent societies: an alternative to the

  concept of genocide,” Journal of Genocide Research 8, no. 4 (2006): 455– 71. By restricting this

  discussion to deadly intercultural violence, i consciously and regretful y omit countless other

  forms of violence. see, for example, sharon Block, Rape and Sexual Power in Early America

  (chapel hill: University of north carolina press, 2006); elliott J. gorn, “ ‘gouge and Bite, pull

  hair and scratch’: The social significance of Fighting in the southern Backcountry,” American

  Historical Review 90, no. 1 (Feb. 1985): 18– 43.

  9. patricia nelson limerick, The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American

  West (new york: W. W. norton, 1987); richard White, “It’s Your Misfortune and None of My

  Own”: A History of the American West (norman: University of Oklahoma press, 1991); William

  cronon, george a. miles, and Jay gitlin, eds., Under an Open Sky: Rethinking America’s Western

  Past (new york: W. W. norton, 1992); maría e. montoya, Translating Property: The Maxwell

  Land Grant and the Conflict over Land in the American West, 1840– 1900 (Berkeley: University of

  california press, 2002); Jeffrey Ostler, The Plains Sioux and U.S. Colonialism from Lewis and

  Clark to Wounded Knee (cambridge: cambridge University press, 2004); stacey l. smith, Free-

  dom’s Frontier: California and the Struggle over Unfree Labor, Emancipation, and Reconstruction

  (chapel hill: University of north carolina press, 2013); michel hogue, Metis and the Medicine

  Line: Creating a Border and Dividing a People (chapel hill: University of north carolina press,

  2015); Benjamin madley, An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian

  Catastrophe, 1846– 1873 (new haven, ct: yale University press, 2016); William J. novak, “The

  myth of the ‘Weak’ american state,” American Historical Review 113, no. 3 (June 2008): 752– 72.

  10. here i draw heavily on the historiography of settler colonialism, which has only begun

  to inform early american historiography: daiva stasiulis and nira yuval- davis, eds., Unsettling

  Settler Societies: Articulations of Gender, Race, Ethnicity and Class (london; sage, 1995); lynette

  russel , ed., Colonial Frontiers: Indigenous- European Encounters in Settler Societies (manchester:

  manchester University press, 20
01); alan lester, Imperial Networks: Creating Identities in Nine-

  teenth Century South Africa and Britain (new york: routledge, 2001); lauren Benton, Law and

  Colonial Cultures: Legal Regimes in World History, 1400– 1900 (cambridge: cambridge Univer-

  sity press, 2001); John c. Weaver, The Great Land Rush and the Making of the Modern World:

  1650– 1800 (montreal: mcgill- Queen’s University press, 2003); a. dirk moses, ed., Genocide and

  Settler Society: Frontier Violence and Stolen Indigenous Children in Australian History (new

  york: Berghahn, 2004); James Belich, Replenishing the Earth: The Settler Revolution and the Rise

  notes to pages 6–10

  183

  of the Angloworld, 1783– 1939 (new york: Oxford University press, 2009); lisa Ford, Settler Sov-

  ereignty: Jurisdiction and Indigenous People in America and Australia, 1788– 1836 (cambridge,

  ma: harvard University press, 2011); saler, Settlers’ Empire; elizabeth elbourne, “The sin of the

  settler: The 1835– 36 select committee on aborigines and debates over Virtue and conquest in

  the early nineteenth- century British White settler empire,” Journal of Colonialism and Colo-

  nial History 4, no. 3 (2003): 1– 49; patrick Wolfe, “settler colonialism and the elimination of the

  native,” Journal of Genocide Research 8, no. 4 (2006): 387– 409; greene, “colonial history and

  national history.”

  11. helen hornbeck tanner, ed., Atlas of Great Lakes Indian History (norman: University of

  Oklahoma press, 1987), 43– 44; White, Middle Ground, 187– 88; michael n. mcconnel , A Coun-

  try Between: The Upper Ohio Val ey and Its Peoples, 1724– 1774 (lincoln: University of nebraska

  press, 1992), 208– 9; amy c. schutt, Peoples of the River Val eys: The Odyssey of the Delaware In-

  dians (philadelphia: University of pennsylvania press, 2007), 103– 14; stephen Warren, The

  Worlds the Shawnees Made: Migration and Violence in Early America (chapel hill: University of

  north carolina press, 2014), 180– 207.

  12. mcclure 27 (“tribes”), 42; report from philadelphia, Virginia Gazette (rind), no. 343, 3

  dec. 1772, [2].

  13. dgW 1:143, 154; White, Middle Ground, 223– 56; Fred anderson, The Crucible of War: