Previous: Lafayette’s Farewell Tour: The State Of Greater Western New York In 1825
At the turn of the 19th century, a dense forest covered the southwest corner of New York State—what is now Chautauqua County. A rough trail that followed the Lake Erie shore represented the only visible evidence of human occupation. Except for what appeared to be remnants of a chimney right on the lake.1 The trail was brutal. Settlers journeying to Connecticut’s lands in the future state of Ohio preferred to take the water route over Lake Erie from Black Rock, just off Buffalo Creek.2
That chimney might well have been the ruins of what Sir William Johnson described as a Continue Reading “Lafayette’s Farewell Tour: The Making Of The Buffalo And Erie Road”
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”