There sat the Seneca between nations. To the west lay the British. To the east stood Americans who could not even agree among themselves who possessed authority over the region.
On paper, Western New York belonged to everyone. Massachusetts had its colonial charter mandate. New York cited both conquest and treaty. Recalcitrant Connecticut clung to its thin claims. Congress may have possessed the authority, but it lacked the means to settle the matter.
These interstate disputes, however, remained largely theoretical. Traders still moved Continue Reading “The Seneca Between Nations: Western New York After the Treaty of Paris”
Sullivan’s Soldiers Discover The Genesee Valley
Before that, however, there was the Sullivan Expedition. It entered the Genesee Valley as a military campaign. It left behind something far more enduring. More than 4,000 soldiers carried home eyewitness accounts of a fertile country few Americans had ever seen.
Shortly after noon on Tuesday, September 14th, 1779, Lieutenant Erkuries Beatty and his fellow soldiers had finished destroying a “great abundance” of corn and beans.1 He—and the men with him—were about to behold a sight unlike anything they had seen before. For a Continue Reading “Sullivan’s Soldiers Discover The Genesee Valley”