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Frontier rebels : the fight for independence in the American West, 1765-1776

https://collections.lancasterhistory.org/en/permalink/lhdo21709
Author
Spero, Patrick,
Date of Publication
2018.
Call Number
974.802 S749f
Responsibility
Patrick Spero.
Author
Spero, Patrick,
Place of Publication
New York
Publisher
W W. Norton & Company,
Date of Publication
2018.
Physical Description
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)
Subjects
Callendar, Robert.
Johnson, William, - Sir.
Insurgency - Pennsylvania
Croghan, George, - 1720?-1782
Frontier and pioneer life - Ohio River Valley
Black Boys Rebellion - Colonial period ca 1600-1775.
Illinois - Colonial peiod ca 1600-1775
Ohio - Colonial period ca 1600-1775.
Indians of North America - Ohio River Valley.
Indians of North Americd
Indiana - Colonial period ca 1600-1775.
Gage, Thomas, - 1721-1787,
Pontiac's Conspiracy, - 1763-1765
Pennsylvania - History - Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775.
Frontier
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania - History - Colonial period ca. 1600-1775.
Location
Lancaster History Library - Book
Call Number
974.802 S749f
Less detail