By the eve of the Revolutionary War, with the French out of the way, Great Britain held dominant power in eastern North America—especially our region.
Or so it would appear.
Greater Western New York had been claimed many times before it was ever governed. European powers declared it theirs, and when Britain removed its rivals, the claims didn’t disappear—they multiplied. Now they came from within, as competing colonial charters layered atop one another. At one point, no fewer than five colonies claimed the region.
Yet, not one ever truly governed it.
Authority did not collapse at the forest’s edge. It contradicted itself at the source.
Long before a single settler felled a tree in Western New York, the kings of England were Continue Reading “A Royal Mess Of Competing Colonial Charters”
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”