High above the Connecticut River sits a mile-long shelf comfortably nestled within the broad curve of the oxbowing waterway in the fertile eastern valley beneath the rolling foothills of the Green Mountains. It had long attracted inhabitants, but the vagaries of violence had repeatedly forced them out.
The land lies dormant. But enticing. Open. Exposed. Its potential untapped.
Beyond the mountains, out of sight, Albany holds court, too distant to exercise its authority over the outer reaches of its boundary. Closer, on the opposite shore of the river, New Hampshire saw it as an avenue of expansion.
Both colonies claimed it. Neither controlled it.
Yet, into that void, settlers arrived.
The first colonists to settle what would become Westminster, Vermont, came from Continue Reading “The Shot Not Heard ’Round the World: Vermont’s First Taste of Independence”
The British–Iroquois Alliance and the Fractured Confederacy
Portrait of Samuel Kirkland by Augustus Rockwell
Internal disputes weren’t limited to the Green Mountains on the Province of New York’s eastern edge. But what unfolded there would pale in comparison to what was about to erupt on the western frontier.
Here, in the wild, untamed forests, far beyond the reach of authority, conflict took on a different character. Courts gave way to violence. Diplomacy gave way to force. Far from the centers of power, restraint disappeared. Local actors dictated events, and alliances, long maintained, began to crack.
The conflict did not simply reach the frontier. It entered the Confederacy itself.
Once inside, it would tear it apart.
Samuel Kirkland became that inside man. Ironically, long-time British Superintendent of Indian Continue Reading “The British–Iroquois Alliance and the Fractured Confederacy”