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”
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”