xvii [1], 268, [1]] pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm.
Notes
Autographed by the author.
Includes author's note, notes, about the author and index.
"The Black Boys, also known as the Brave Fellows and the Loyal Volunteers, were members of a white settler movement in the Conococheague Valley of colonial Pennsylvania sometimes known as the Black Boys Rebellion. The Black Boys, so-called because they sometimes blackened their faces during their actions, were upset with British policy regarding American Indians following Pontiac's War. When that war came to an end in 1765, the Pennsylvania government began to reopen trade with the Native Americans who had taken part in the uprising. Many settlers of the Conococheague Valley were outraged, having suffered greatly from Indian raids during the war. The 1764 Enoch Brown School Massacre, in which ten school children had been killed and scalped, was the most notorious example of these raids." [from Wikipedia]
Summary
"The American Revolution has traditionally been depicted as a struggle between North American settlers and British imperial forces, but this intensively researched study from Spero, the director of Philadelphia's American Philosophical Society Library, analyzes the crucial role of settler attitudes toward Native Americans in sparking the conflict. While administrators in London viewed Native people as important trading partners within their American empire, many white colonists saw them as a terrifying menace and 'wanted to be free of the Indians as much as they wanted to be free of their imperial overlords.' Spero tells of the little-studied Pennsylvania backcountry rebels called the Black Boys, who in 1765 revolted against Britain's willingness to accommodate Native interests. Readers who have been accustomed to considering the Revolutionary War as a conflict between American liberty and British oppression may find this account discomfiting, but Spero presents convincing support for his thesis that hatred of Indians and desire for their lands played a pivotal role in fomenting the revolution and 'produced the roadmap' for the next century of American history, delving deeply into previously underutilized sources, including the journals of fur trader George Croghan. Spero's thoughtful work is an important contribution to ongoing reassessments of the nature and meaning of the American founding." (from Publishers Weekly.com)
Journal of Capt. Jonathan Heart on the march with his company from Connecticut to Fort Pitt, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from the seventh of September, to the twelfth of October, 1785, inclusive : to which is added the Dickinson-Harmar correspondence of 1784-5 ; the whole illustrated with notes and preceded by a biographical sketch of Captain Heart by Consul Willshire Butterfield
with some new annals of the old West, and the records of some strong men and some bad ones, by Charles A. Hanna ... with eighty maps and illustrations.
2 v. fronts., plates, maps (part fold.) facsim. 25 cm.
Notes
"Of this work one thousand copies have been printed from type, and the type destroyed."
Contents
Chapters in volume 1: The debatable land // The Iroquoians of the Susquehanna // The Petticoat indians of Petticoat land // The Shawnees // The early traders of Conestoga, Donegal and Paxtang // The young red man goes west // The Shamokin traders and the Shamokin Path // Andrew Montour, the "Half Indian" // The Frankstown Path // The Raystown Path // The traders at Allegheny on the main path; with some annals of Kittanning and Chartier's Town // The Ohio Mingoes of the White River and the Wendats // Kuskuskies on the the Beaver // Logstown on the Ohio.
Chapters in volume 2: George Croghan , the king of the traders // The Ohio Valley before the white man came // The Lower Shanee town; or Chillicothe on the Ohio // The Chonchake Route and other Ohio paths // John Finley and Kentucky before Boone // Pickawillany Path // The Indian trade and Pennsylvania traders // The perils of the path.