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The Battles along the Rivers, Mountains, and in the Deep Woods of the South that Changed the Fate of Nations

The American Revolution marked a dramatic change in the struggle for land along the southern frontier. In the colonial era, American Indian leaders and British offi cials attempted to accommodate the westward expansion of Anglo-Americans through land cessions designed to have the least impact on Indian societies. The region remained generally peaceful, but with the onset of the Revolution, the British no longer exercised sole authority to curb the settlements appearing within territory claimed by the Creeks, Shawnee, and most importantly, the Cherokee. Whether it was to escape the economic uncertainty of the east, the rigors of the confl ict, or the depredations of troops and militias on both sides, settlers fl ooded west. Under these conditions, the war in the south took on a savage character as Indians, Loyalists, and Whigs all desperately fought to defend their communities and maintain control of their own destinies. Taking advantage of the political turmoil in the east, the Cherokee Nation launched a coordinated offensive in 1776 against illegal frontier settlements. The Whigs responded with a series of expeditions from each of the Southern colonies that razed Cherokee towns and their food supplies. All the while, both British and Whig leaders walked a fi ne line: If the Indians attacked settlers without distinguishing between Loyalists and Whigs, those groups could unite and thwart both British and Indian interests; if the Indians attacked the western frontier with Loyalist and British support, the Whigs would face a two-front war—an event that ended up happening.

In Dark and Bloody Ground: The American Revolution Along the Southern Frontier, Richard Blackmon uses a wealth of primary source material to recount the confl ict between American Indians and Anglo-Americans in the colonial South during one of the most turbulent periods of North American history. He explains the complex points of contact in Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia between native groups and settlers, while revealing the political gamesmanship between rival British and Whig traders and offi cials to secure Indian loyalty. The author also explains the critical role of the southern frontier to the American victory, a victory achieved long after the decision at Yorktown. Before the war, clashes between Cherokee and Shawnee hunters in Kentucky had become so commonplace that it was known as a “dark and bloody ground.” With the rise in Anglo-American settlements there, led by Daniel Boone and others, the dark and bloody ground became a metaphor for the entire struggle for the Southern frontier.

In The Divided Dominion, Ethan A. Schmidt examines the social struggle that created Bacon's Rebellion, focusing on the role of class antagonism in fostering violence toward native people in seventeenth-century Virginia. This provocative volume places a dispute among Virginians over the permissibility of eradicating Native Americans for land at the forefront in understanding this pivotal event.

Myriad internal and external factors drove Virginians to interpret their disputes with one another increasingly along class lines. The decades-long tripartite struggle among elite whites, non-elite whites, and Native Americans resulted in the development of mutually beneficial economic and political relationships between elites and Native Americans. When these relationships culminated in the granting of rights—equal to those of non-elite white colonists—to Native Americans, the elites crossed a line and non-elite anger boiled over. A call for the annihilation of all Indians in Virginia united different non-elite white factions and molded them in widespread social rebellion.

The Divided Dominion places Indian policy at the heart of Bacon's Rebellion, revealing the complex mix of social, cultural, and racial forces that collided in Virginia in 1676. This new analysis will interest students and scholars of colonial and Native American history.

Established in 1630, Watertown was among the original six towns of Massachusetts. Its early history was marked by frequent disputes, a penchant for questioning authority, and an atmosphere of tension and discord. In recounting the story of Watertown's formative years, Roger Thompson examines how the community managed to avoid descending into anarchy. He also explores the ways in which English settlers preserved their habits of behavior in a new-world environment, even as they were obliged to innovate and embrace change.

Thompson describes Watertown's early government, its relations with Native Americans and neighboring communities, its religious and economic affairs, and the day-to-day experiences of its people. Conflict occurred over a wide variety of issues: land allocation, administrative accountability, religious orthodoxy and exclusivity, generational and gender differences, livestock and fencing, haves and have-nots.

Thompson brings these disputes to life through a series of vivid case studies drawn from the unpublished Middlesex County Court Records. Among others, we meet John Sawin, who despite his best efforts at subterfuge was convicted of stealing and selling a neighbor's horse; Susanna Woodward, whose pregnancy resulted in a fiercely contested paternity case; and Edward Sanders, whose punishment for child abuse was both a whipping and a ruling that when in public he must "wear a rope round his neck openly to be seen hanging down two feet."

Throughout the book, the same themes reappear: continuity and change, the persistent conflicts of the first two generations, and the countervailing forces of communal cohesion.

The War for the Ohio Country that Gave the Colonies the Critical Time to Debate and Declare Independence
Known to history as “Dunmore’s War,” the 1774 campaign against a Shawnee-led Indian confederacy in the Ohio Country marked the final time an American colonial militia took to the field in His Majesty’s service and under royal command. Led by John Murray, the fourth Earl of Dunmore and royal governor of Virginia, a force of colonials including George Rogers Clark, Daniel Morgan, Michael Cresap, Adam Stephen, and Andrew Lewis successfully enforced the western border established by treaties in parts of present-day West Virginia and Kentucky. The campaign is often neglected in histories, despite its major influence on the conduct of the Revolutionary War that followed. In Dunmore’s War: The Last Conflict of America’s Colonial Era, award-winning historian Glenn F. Williams describes the course and importance of this campaign. Supported by extensive primary source research, the author corrects much of the folklore concerning the war and frontier fighting in general, demonstrating that the Americans did not adopt Indian tactics for wilderness fighting as is often supposed, but rather used British methods developed for fighting irregulars in the woods of Europe, while incorporating certain techniques learned from the Indians and experience gained from earlier colonial wars.
            As an immediate result of Dunmore’s War, the frontier remained quiet for two years, giving the colonies the critical time to debate and declare independence before Britain convinced its Indian allies to resume attacks on American settlements. Ironically, at the same time Virginia militiamen were fighting under command of a king’s officer, the colony was becoming one of the leaders in the move toward American independence. Although he was hailed as a hero at the end of the war, Lord Dunmore’s attempt to maintain royal authority put him in direct opposition to many of the subordinates who followed him on the frontier, and in 1776 he was driven from Virginia and returned to England.