George Rogers Clark conquered the Northwest. Or did he? We talk with Larry Nelson, historian of Ohio, co-author (with David Curtis Skaggs) of The Sixty Years War for the Great Lakes 1754-1814, about the Northwest Territory in the Revolution, and a book about Alexander McKee. This area, larger than the existing 13 colonies, was contested by the Native People who lived in it, the British, Spanish, French, and Americans. Clark could invade it, could win it, but could not keep it. The Revolutionary period was one episode in a long series of wars over this contested middle ground.
George Rogers Clark conquered the Northwest. Or did he? We talk with Larry Nelson, historian of Ohio, co-author (with David Curtis Skaggs) of The Sixty Years War for the Great Lakes 1754-1814, about the Northwest Territory in the Revolution, and a book about Alexander McKee. This area, larger than the existing 13 colonies, was contested by the Native People who lived in it, the British, Spanish, French, and Americans. Clark could invade it, could win it, but could not keep it. The Revolutionary period was one episode in a long series of wars over this contested middle ground.
WEBVTT
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Hello, everyone.
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Welcome to the Revolution 250 podcast.
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Revolution 250 is a
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consortium of about 70
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groups in Massachusetts
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planning ways to
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commemorate the American Revolution.
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I am Bob Allison.
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I chair the Rev 250 advisory group.
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And our guest today is Larry Nelson.
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And Larry Nelson has a
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doctorate in history from
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Bowling Green State University,
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where he's actually now
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been on the faculty as an
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assistant professor.
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He teaches at Bowling Green
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after a long career at the
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Ohio History Connection,
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the Ohio Historical Society,
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where he was the site
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director for Fort Meigs State Memorial.
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He'll be telling us more about this,
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as well as about three of
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the books he has written,
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a man of distinction among
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them about Alexander
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McKee,
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an Indian agent in the Ohio country.
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He edited a history of Jonathan Alder,
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who was captured by Native
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Americans in the 18th century.
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And he also wrote a terrific
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book about the 60 years war
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for the Great Lakes from
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1754 to 1814 with David Skaggs.
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So Larry, thanks for joining us.
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Well, thank you.
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And what a pleasure to be here.
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So a lot's happening in Ohio
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in this period.
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And
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ohio is a big country at
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this time so you can tell
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us set the scene for us
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about what the territory
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looks like well uh
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The Revolutionary War in the
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West is the war that takes
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place west of the crest of
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the Appalachian Mountains
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all the way to the Mississippi River.
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The theater that we're going
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to talk about today is an important one.
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It's the theater that takes
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place in the Old Northwest.
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And the Old Northwest is the
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territory that's west and
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north of the Ohio River.
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It's today what is made up of Ohio,
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Indiana,
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Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
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And the United States
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acquires the Old Northwest
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in the 1783 Treaty of Paris
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that concludes the American Revolution.
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We get the Old Northwest
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because of the actions that
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were fought there during the war.
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And this is extraordinarily consequential.
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There is more land in the
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Old Northwest than there is
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in the 13 original colonies combined.
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So with the stroke of the
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pen that ends the American Revolution,
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we not only end the war,
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but we more than double the
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size of the United States.
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So these events are
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extraordinarily consequential for the,
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not only for the future
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history of the area,
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but for the future of the United States.
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And I would argue for the
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history of the world as well.
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That's true.
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That's true.
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That's right,
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because the Quebec Act in
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1773 had extended the
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borders of Canada to the Ohio River,
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so it's quite plausible
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that the British would have
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held on to this territory
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after the Revolution,
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if not for what happens
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during the years of the war.
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Exactly right.
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And, you know,
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the war in the West is
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entirely different than the
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war that's fought in the East.
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It's, well,
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obviously it's fought in a
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different place,
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but it's fought by different people.
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It's fought for different reasons,
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and I will talk about that
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in just a second.
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It's fought in different ways,
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and it's fought to an
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entirely different
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conclusion than the
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campaigns that are fought in the East.
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So we want to look carefully at it.
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The Quebec, the war in the West...
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is not fought because of the tax on tea.
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It's not fought because of
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the quartering of British
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troops and private property.
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The war in the West is
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fought for one reason,
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and that's control of the land.
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Who is going to control the vast,
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mostly unexplored,
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unoccupied land that's west
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of the Appalachian Mountains?
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Great Britain ends the
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French and Indian War.
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It ends the Seven Year War,
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understanding very clearly, first of all,
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that this war bankrupted them,
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and they simply cannot
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afford a Second Indian War.
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So they take lots of
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measures to try to prevent one.
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One is the Proclamation of 1763,
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which prohibits colonial
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expansion beyond the crest
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of the Appalachians.
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That
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That proclamation is difficult,
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if not impossible, to enforce.
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So like you say, in 1773,
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they passed the Quebec Act,
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but one of the notorious
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intolerable acts that are
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passed in the wake of the
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of the Boston Tea Party.
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And again,
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that tries to codify the
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provisions of the proclamation of 1763,
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tries to prevent, you know,
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if you keep white settlers out of there,
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we're not going to have
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trouble with Indians.
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But again, it's impossible to enforce it.
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And Westerners act
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or respond to the Quebec Act
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in precisely the same way
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that people in the East
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responded to the tax on tea
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or stamp on public
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documents or the closing of
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Boston Harbor.
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They push back hard against
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those restrictions.
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So the war in the West is a
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war that's fought almost
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entirely about land.
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That's the one big issue in the West.
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Okay.
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Larry, about how many people
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White people are living west
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of the Appalachians at this time.
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And about how many native
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people are out here in this territory?
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There's about 10,000 native
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people who live throughout
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the Old Northwest, numerous tribes.
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these are Eastern woodland Indians.
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So it's one broad, uh, culture,
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but many ethnic kind of
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variations in there.
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You have Sioux and people
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who are living in the upper great lakes.
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You have Iroquois and
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Algonquin people who are living in Ohio.
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You have an infiltration of, uh,
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Muskegon people who are
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coming up Cherokees and
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Choctaws who are kind of
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migrating up from the South.
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So there's,
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there's many Indian cultures in Ohio.
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Um,
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I want to make the point
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that Indians understand
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absolutely that they own that land,
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period.
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It's theirs.
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Nobody else has it.
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That they are sovereign there,
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that they control there,
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that that land is
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absolutely under their governance.
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And if they elect,
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Native people are very aware
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of their own diplomatic and
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economic and military self-interests.
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And so when they elect to
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help allies such as the British, you know,
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they understand that that
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help is going to be done
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absolutely on their terms
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and their terms only.
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So they're sovereign and
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they understand that
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they're in control of that area.
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Right, right.
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And then about how many
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Americans or whites have
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moved west despite the
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proclamation and where
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would they be living in this territory?
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I can't give you an exact number,
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but most of the people who
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are living in that area are
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living along the Ohio River Valley.
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They're living in Western Pennsylvania.
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They're living in what's now
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West Virginia and Western Virginia.
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They're living along the Ohio River Valley,
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along what is now Kentucky.
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There is virtually no white
00:07:21.745 --> 00:07:25.447
penetration into Ohio at this point.
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That comes after the Revolutionary War.
00:07:28.180 --> 00:07:28.901
are very,
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very effective at keeping people out.
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And so there's virtually no
00:07:34.024 --> 00:07:35.165
penetration into what is
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now Ohio or Indiana or Illinois.
00:07:37.305 --> 00:07:37.425
Okay.
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Now, aren't there some French, too,
00:07:40.408 --> 00:07:41.990
in places like along the
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Illinois River and other places?
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Oh, gosh, yes.
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And listen,
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there's lots of people who are
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interested in the Ohio country,
00:07:50.394 --> 00:07:51.656
in the American West.
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First of all,
00:07:55.475 --> 00:07:56.576
Great Britain and the United
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States are fighting for it.
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But there's other actors as well.
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And some of these actors are nations,
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the most prominent of which is France.
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France, of course,
00:08:07.300 --> 00:08:09.199
is expelled from North
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America at the conclusion
00:08:10.341 --> 00:08:11.321
of the French and Indian War.
00:08:11.800 --> 00:08:13.322
So they don't have military
00:08:13.422 --> 00:08:14.762
resources in the area.
00:08:15.182 --> 00:08:16.483
They don't have diplomatic
00:08:16.783 --> 00:08:18.083
resources in the area,
00:08:18.403 --> 00:08:21.504
but they still have very powerful,
00:08:21.904 --> 00:08:23.084
compelling assets.
00:08:23.425 --> 00:08:24.826
And one of those assets is
00:08:25.245 --> 00:08:27.206
that that area that much of
00:08:27.266 --> 00:08:28.867
North America is populated
00:08:28.966 --> 00:08:31.528
by people who just a few years earlier,
00:08:32.248 --> 00:08:34.090
considered themselves French, well,
00:08:34.169 --> 00:08:35.471
they were French citizens.
00:08:36.032 --> 00:08:37.894
And I think if you would ask
00:08:37.974 --> 00:08:41.918
them in 1776 to self-identify, they'd say,
00:08:41.937 --> 00:08:42.999
yeah, we're French.
00:08:43.559 --> 00:08:44.341
I always have that.
00:08:45.221 --> 00:08:47.384
And they are positioned,
00:08:47.823 --> 00:08:49.525
this was probably mostly a
00:08:49.605 --> 00:08:50.907
historical accident,
00:08:51.721 --> 00:08:52.822
but they're positioned in
00:08:52.842 --> 00:08:53.945
the place where if you
00:08:53.985 --> 00:08:55.807
wanted to control the Mississippi Valley,
00:08:55.847 --> 00:08:56.548
that's where you would
00:08:56.609 --> 00:08:58.432
purposely position people.
00:08:58.731 --> 00:08:59.793
They're located throughout
00:08:59.854 --> 00:09:00.796
the upper Great Lakes,
00:09:00.836 --> 00:09:02.499
they're in the upper Mississippi Valley,
00:09:02.859 --> 00:09:04.061
down through Louisiana,
00:09:04.381 --> 00:09:06.384
and there's a really strong component
00:09:07.000 --> 00:09:08.441
French-speaking people, of course,
00:09:08.480 --> 00:09:11.160
down at the mouth, down in New Orleans.
00:09:11.541 --> 00:09:12.741
So they're in the right place.
00:09:13.081 --> 00:09:13.802
Now,
00:09:14.381 --> 00:09:17.363
can France exploit that asset they have?
00:09:17.763 --> 00:09:18.224
I don't know.
00:09:18.524 --> 00:09:19.464
I don't think they knew.
00:09:19.844 --> 00:09:21.024
I think that what they knew
00:09:21.083 --> 00:09:22.485
was we're still in the game.
00:09:23.006 --> 00:09:24.668
And we're going to play it
00:09:24.727 --> 00:09:25.589
as hard as we can.
00:09:26.049 --> 00:09:27.311
So you have the United States,
00:09:27.350 --> 00:09:28.792
you have England, you have France.
00:09:29.091 --> 00:09:30.712
You also have Spain that
00:09:30.753 --> 00:09:32.053
controls access to the
00:09:32.094 --> 00:09:33.676
Mississippi region from the
00:09:33.735 --> 00:09:34.777
American Southwest.
00:09:35.157 --> 00:09:37.438
So Spain is in the game as well.
00:09:38.716 --> 00:09:38.897
Right.
00:09:39.217 --> 00:09:40.778
We're talking with Larry Nelson,
00:09:40.878 --> 00:09:42.940
who is from Bowling Green
00:09:43.000 --> 00:09:43.899
State University,
00:09:43.960 --> 00:09:45.480
the author of a number of books.
00:09:45.561 --> 00:09:46.861
Actually, you have a forthcoming book,
00:09:47.361 --> 00:09:48.663
a documentary history of
00:09:48.743 --> 00:09:50.783
Fort Meigs to your posts.
00:09:51.083 --> 00:09:53.304
You spent about 25 years at Fort Meigs.
00:09:53.384 --> 00:09:54.926
So it's great that you'll be
00:09:55.287 --> 00:09:56.486
telling us that story.
00:09:56.547 --> 00:09:59.188
So we have this big mix of
00:09:59.249 --> 00:10:01.450
folks out in this big territory.
00:10:02.205 --> 00:10:04.086
And so how then,
00:10:04.307 --> 00:10:06.970
what happens then to make
00:10:07.110 --> 00:10:09.292
it American territory after the war?
00:10:09.392 --> 00:10:10.253
Can we talk about what
00:10:10.312 --> 00:10:12.095
happens itself during the war years?
00:10:13.068 --> 00:10:13.828
Yeah, we can.
00:10:14.509 --> 00:10:16.191
And the most important
00:10:16.311 --> 00:10:17.671
figure that we have to look
00:10:17.811 --> 00:10:20.432
at when we determine what
00:10:20.472 --> 00:10:21.253
happened in the Old
00:10:21.312 --> 00:10:23.234
Northwest is George Rogers Clark.
00:10:23.715 --> 00:10:25.394
And George Rogers Clark
00:10:25.635 --> 00:10:27.495
occupies an enormously
00:10:27.616 --> 00:10:29.397
important position among
00:10:29.437 --> 00:10:32.719
historians of the Old Northwest.
00:10:35.801 --> 00:10:39.222
George Rogers Clark is a young man.
00:10:39.243 --> 00:10:39.322
Well,
00:10:43.557 --> 00:10:45.859
A buddy of mine, Ken Karsten,
00:10:46.278 --> 00:10:47.418
who just retired from
00:10:47.578 --> 00:10:48.899
Murray State down in Kentucky,
00:10:48.919 --> 00:10:50.221
he's probably America's
00:10:50.561 --> 00:10:51.942
best George Rogers Clark
00:10:52.062 --> 00:10:53.903
scholar right now.
00:10:54.543 --> 00:10:55.984
Ken told me a few years ago
00:10:56.024 --> 00:10:57.345
that if you do a literature
00:10:57.404 --> 00:10:58.585
search of the
00:10:58.644 --> 00:11:00.505
trans-Appalachian frontier
00:11:00.886 --> 00:11:02.687
during the Revolutionary War era,
00:11:03.048 --> 00:11:04.148
there's more books
00:11:04.288 --> 00:11:05.288
published about George
00:11:05.328 --> 00:11:07.490
Rogers Clark than there are
00:11:07.549 --> 00:11:08.630
about Daniel Boone.
00:11:09.010 --> 00:11:10.352
And I thought, wow,
00:11:10.633 --> 00:11:12.576
that is an amazing statistic.
00:11:12.895 --> 00:11:13.897
It's just incredible.
00:11:14.238 --> 00:11:16.360
But it gives you a sense of
00:11:16.421 --> 00:11:18.062
just how important Clark is
00:11:18.643 --> 00:11:21.126
to historians of this era.
00:11:21.486 --> 00:11:23.109
And he's important for two reasons.
00:11:23.328 --> 00:11:24.831
One is that I think that everybody...
00:11:25.591 --> 00:11:28.514
has heard that George Rogers Clark,
00:11:28.874 --> 00:11:30.335
why did we get the old
00:11:30.394 --> 00:11:31.596
Northwest following the
00:11:31.655 --> 00:11:32.476
American Revolution?
00:11:32.537 --> 00:11:34.878
Because George Rogers Clark conquered it,
00:11:35.197 --> 00:11:35.458
right?
00:11:35.839 --> 00:11:37.720
And not only did he conquer it,
00:11:37.879 --> 00:11:40.562
he's so good at it, he conquers it twice.
00:11:40.822 --> 00:11:42.143
He does it in 78 and then
00:11:42.202 --> 00:11:43.183
turns around and comes back
00:11:43.244 --> 00:11:45.264
and does it again in 79.
00:11:45.264 --> 00:11:46.966
So he conquers the territory
00:11:47.166 --> 00:11:48.106
for the United States.
00:11:48.126 --> 00:11:48.967
So that's one reason.
00:11:49.668 --> 00:11:51.971
But there's another really persistent,
00:11:52.272 --> 00:11:54.014
very strong thread of
00:11:54.073 --> 00:11:55.155
George Rogers Clark
00:11:55.196 --> 00:11:57.177
scholarship that says that
00:11:57.658 --> 00:11:59.280
George Rogers Clark, when you do,
00:11:59.642 --> 00:12:01.865
when you look at all the
00:12:01.924 --> 00:12:02.885
general officers,
00:12:04.601 --> 00:12:05.722
in the American Revolution.
00:12:05.743 --> 00:12:07.504
There are two figures that
00:12:07.543 --> 00:12:09.125
stand out as being most
00:12:09.245 --> 00:12:10.586
important for bringing
00:12:10.666 --> 00:12:11.907
victory to the United States,
00:12:11.986 --> 00:12:13.327
not just in the Northwest,
00:12:13.727 --> 00:12:15.469
but a victory to the entire war.
00:12:15.830 --> 00:12:17.130
And that's Washington.
00:12:17.730 --> 00:12:19.451
And then immediately to his right,
00:12:19.511 --> 00:12:20.452
standing in his shoulders
00:12:20.513 --> 00:12:21.754
is George Rogers Clark
00:12:21.774 --> 00:12:23.315
because of his command of
00:12:23.855 --> 00:12:25.756
strategy and tactics, his brave,
00:12:26.037 --> 00:12:28.538
braveness, his daring, his intrepidness,
00:12:28.578 --> 00:12:29.798
his leadership ability.
00:12:30.200 --> 00:12:32.020
So you have this pantheon of
00:12:32.100 --> 00:12:33.062
American heroes
00:12:33.522 --> 00:12:35.943
with Washington, you know, down at one end,
00:12:36.365 --> 00:12:38.306
and then there's George Rogers Clark,
00:12:38.606 --> 00:12:40.087
and then way down there is
00:12:40.187 --> 00:12:40.989
everybody else.
00:12:41.509 --> 00:12:45.312
So that theme is extremely important.
00:12:45.352 --> 00:12:47.274
So that's why, you know,
00:12:47.394 --> 00:12:48.696
that's why when you try to
00:12:48.735 --> 00:12:50.017
figure out what's going on
00:12:50.057 --> 00:12:50.898
in the Old Northwest,
00:12:50.918 --> 00:12:52.678
you start with George Rogers Clark,
00:12:53.279 --> 00:12:55.160
but you have to move out.
00:12:55.902 --> 00:12:56.763
Right, right.
00:12:58.614 --> 00:12:59.894
How many men does he have?
00:12:59.934 --> 00:13:01.115
What kind of organization
00:13:01.176 --> 00:13:02.376
does George Rogers Clark
00:13:02.417 --> 00:13:03.738
have to do all of this?
00:13:03.798 --> 00:13:04.057
Well,
00:13:04.158 --> 00:13:06.720
George Rogers Clark is operating out
00:13:06.759 --> 00:13:07.399
of Kentucky.
00:13:08.240 --> 00:13:09.881
Historians get kind of lazy.
00:13:09.922 --> 00:13:11.023
They use a shorthand.
00:13:13.104 --> 00:13:13.625
Kentucky
00:13:15.005 --> 00:13:17.889
exists as a county in 1776
00:13:17.889 --> 00:13:19.211
throughout the American Revolution.
00:13:19.772 --> 00:13:21.234
The State Assembly of
00:13:21.313 --> 00:13:22.755
Virginia creates Kentucky
00:13:22.836 --> 00:13:25.740
out of its western colonies in 1776.
00:13:25.740 --> 00:13:30.525
So it's the colony of, pardon me,
00:13:30.566 --> 00:13:33.668
it's the county of Kentucky.
00:13:35.434 --> 00:13:37.638
that is virtually identical
00:13:37.697 --> 00:13:39.179
in its area to the
00:13:39.240 --> 00:13:41.302
Commonwealth or the state of Kentucky,
00:13:41.743 --> 00:13:43.684
but the county doesn't
00:13:43.745 --> 00:13:44.947
achieve statehood until 1792.
00:13:44.947 --> 00:13:49.472
So Clark is operating out of Kentucky.
00:13:49.913 --> 00:13:51.014
And what he's trying to do,
00:13:51.073 --> 00:13:52.355
it's a pretty simple plan.
00:13:53.154 --> 00:13:54.056
He wants to lead an
00:13:54.155 --> 00:13:55.535
expedition out of Kentucky
00:13:55.576 --> 00:13:57.197
or expeditions out of
00:13:57.236 --> 00:14:00.879
Kentucky into Ohio or Illinois,
00:14:01.299 --> 00:14:02.379
establish a base,
00:14:02.721 --> 00:14:05.621
and then use that base to attack Detroit.
00:14:05.682 --> 00:14:08.043
And Detroit is the seat of
00:14:08.823 --> 00:14:09.644
political power.
00:14:09.705 --> 00:14:11.005
It's a seat of military
00:14:11.066 --> 00:14:13.366
power in the old Northwest at the time.
00:14:14.144 --> 00:14:14.884
Now I will tell you,
00:14:14.923 --> 00:14:16.024
we talked a little earlier
00:14:16.065 --> 00:14:17.044
about all the people who
00:14:17.125 --> 00:14:18.446
are interested in Ohio.
00:14:19.166 --> 00:14:21.027
There are colonies at the
00:14:21.067 --> 00:14:23.548
time who are interested in Ohio as well.
00:14:23.748 --> 00:14:25.589
And who most important are
00:14:25.668 --> 00:14:29.490
Pennsylvania and Virginia.
00:14:30.370 --> 00:14:32.491
And when you go back to the
00:14:32.552 --> 00:14:34.472
establishment of both of these colonies,
00:14:34.552 --> 00:14:36.254
according to their colonial charters,
00:14:36.614 --> 00:14:38.554
when nobody had any clue about
00:14:38.999 --> 00:14:40.100
the geography of North
00:14:40.139 --> 00:14:41.640
America or where it was or
00:14:41.681 --> 00:14:43.121
how it played itself out.
00:14:44.523 --> 00:14:45.844
Both charters,
00:14:46.085 --> 00:14:46.845
the charters of both
00:14:46.904 --> 00:14:48.385
Pennsylvania and Virginia
00:14:48.466 --> 00:14:49.547
say that if you take these
00:14:49.647 --> 00:14:50.607
boundary lines and you
00:14:50.988 --> 00:14:53.309
extend it out to the Western Ocean,
00:14:53.370 --> 00:14:54.831
wherever that is, you know,
00:14:54.870 --> 00:14:55.971
that's Pennsylvania.
00:14:56.011 --> 00:14:57.673
And if you extend lines out
00:14:58.234 --> 00:14:59.894
to the same place, you know,
00:14:59.934 --> 00:15:00.775
this is Virginia.
00:15:00.936 --> 00:15:03.038
Well, what they didn't know at the time,
00:15:03.097 --> 00:15:04.198
but what they learn in the
00:15:04.278 --> 00:15:05.559
subsequent 150 years or so.
00:15:07.691 --> 00:15:09.392
is that if you do exactly
00:15:09.412 --> 00:15:10.471
what the colonial charters
00:15:10.532 --> 00:15:11.951
of both colonies say and
00:15:12.052 --> 00:15:13.373
run those lines out, well,
00:15:13.393 --> 00:15:15.133
they intersect.
00:15:16.373 --> 00:15:19.214
And they intersect in the old northwest.
00:15:19.614 --> 00:15:20.914
They intersect beyond the
00:15:20.995 --> 00:15:23.315
Ohio west and north of the Ohio River.
00:15:23.775 --> 00:15:24.956
So both Virginia
00:15:25.802 --> 00:15:28.884
or Kentucky and Pennsylvania has, you know,
00:15:28.903 --> 00:15:30.085
are those claims legitimate?
00:15:30.105 --> 00:15:31.065
Yeah, I guess they are.
00:15:31.245 --> 00:15:32.826
And are they in conflict?
00:15:32.865 --> 00:15:33.326
You bet.
00:15:33.385 --> 00:15:34.687
And have they been adjudicated?
00:15:35.126 --> 00:15:35.827
No, they haven't.
00:15:36.447 --> 00:15:39.029
So what Clark is doing,
00:15:39.330 --> 00:15:40.730
which is to go into Ohio,
00:15:40.791 --> 00:15:42.652
establish a base and attack Detroit,
00:15:43.072 --> 00:15:43.913
that's clearly,
00:15:43.952 --> 00:15:45.974
it's without question in
00:15:46.214 --> 00:15:48.475
full conformity to the
00:15:48.595 --> 00:15:49.956
ideological aims of the
00:15:49.995 --> 00:15:51.236
Continental Congress and to
00:15:51.476 --> 00:15:53.638
tactical aims and the strategic aims,
00:15:53.977 --> 00:15:55.158
and he's doing what the
00:15:55.219 --> 00:15:56.719
Continental Congress wants.
00:15:57.360 --> 00:15:59.520
But those actions can
00:15:59.780 --> 00:16:01.221
clearly be understood,
00:16:01.581 --> 00:16:03.361
and I think maybe even better understood,
00:16:03.621 --> 00:16:04.863
what he's trying to do is
00:16:04.982 --> 00:16:07.124
to diminish Pennsylvania's
00:16:07.203 --> 00:16:08.224
claims to the area,
00:16:08.825 --> 00:16:10.644
and at the same time strengthen his own,
00:16:10.725 --> 00:16:11.426
even mitigate
00:16:11.966 --> 00:16:13.027
Pennsylvania's claims.
00:16:13.126 --> 00:16:14.567
And Pennsylvania, by the way,
00:16:15.067 --> 00:16:16.528
we just don't hear very much about it,
00:16:16.568 --> 00:16:17.750
but Pennsylvania is doing
00:16:17.830 --> 00:16:19.811
exactly the same thing for
00:16:19.890 --> 00:16:21.552
exactly the same reasons.
00:16:21.591 --> 00:16:22.092
They're trying,
00:16:22.613 --> 00:16:23.452
Pennsylvania is trying to
00:16:23.493 --> 00:16:25.674
mitigate Virginia's claims to the area.
00:16:26.014 --> 00:16:27.495
So it's wheels within wheels.
00:16:28.596 --> 00:16:30.998
The war in the old Northwest is very,
00:16:31.077 --> 00:16:31.839
very complex.
00:16:32.503 --> 00:16:32.883
It really is.
00:16:33.244 --> 00:16:34.144
And it's actually one of the
00:16:34.203 --> 00:16:35.565
reasons the British didn't
00:16:35.625 --> 00:16:36.466
think these American
00:16:36.525 --> 00:16:37.866
colonies would be able to
00:16:38.006 --> 00:16:39.368
work together because they
00:16:39.408 --> 00:16:42.591
did have so many conflicting claims,
00:16:42.770 --> 00:16:44.312
particularly in this Western country.
00:16:44.491 --> 00:16:46.894
Connecticut claims a chunk of it.
00:16:47.254 --> 00:16:48.775
And there are these various
00:16:48.975 --> 00:16:50.636
Ohio companies that have
00:16:51.177 --> 00:16:52.278
investors from these
00:16:52.337 --> 00:16:54.019
different colonies saying
00:16:54.059 --> 00:16:54.840
this is going to be our
00:16:54.899 --> 00:16:56.981
claim out in this big territory.
00:16:58.475 --> 00:16:59.995
that's exactly right and
00:17:00.375 --> 00:17:01.735
listen in addition to
00:17:02.155 --> 00:17:03.456
nations and in addition to
00:17:03.495 --> 00:17:04.717
these colonies there are
00:17:04.757 --> 00:17:06.396
these what I refer to as
00:17:06.537 --> 00:17:08.038
apolitical opportunists
00:17:08.057 --> 00:17:09.817
there's these investors who
00:17:10.077 --> 00:17:11.838
who understand that the war
00:17:11.999 --> 00:17:13.419
is going to create enormous
00:17:13.739 --> 00:17:15.099
disruption that political
00:17:15.140 --> 00:17:16.619
control is going to loosen
00:17:16.700 --> 00:17:17.440
up a little bit that
00:17:17.500 --> 00:17:19.040
nobody's their attention is
00:17:19.101 --> 00:17:19.941
being diverted to
00:17:20.500 --> 00:17:23.244
to, uh, uh, events in, in the East.
00:17:23.685 --> 00:17:24.967
And so you have numerous
00:17:25.027 --> 00:17:26.249
people who are coming into the,
00:17:26.650 --> 00:17:27.951
the area and trying to
00:17:28.031 --> 00:17:31.115
establish their own fiefdoms or colonies,
00:17:31.135 --> 00:17:32.357
you know, on their own.
00:17:34.019 --> 00:17:34.681
there's, uh,
00:17:36.597 --> 00:17:37.097
Let me think.
00:17:37.438 --> 00:17:38.939
The Free Republic of Franklin,
00:17:38.959 --> 00:17:41.059
which is in what is now Tennessee.
00:17:41.420 --> 00:17:43.020
There's the proprietary
00:17:43.101 --> 00:17:44.441
colony of Transylvania,
00:17:44.760 --> 00:17:46.761
which is in Western Virginia.
00:17:47.082 --> 00:17:48.643
One of the reasons that
00:17:48.762 --> 00:17:50.343
Virginia establishes the
00:17:50.383 --> 00:17:52.644
colony of Kentucky, pardon me,
00:17:53.183 --> 00:17:54.184
one of the reasons that
00:17:54.285 --> 00:17:56.385
Virginia establishes the
00:17:56.506 --> 00:17:59.307
County of Kentucky is because these
00:18:00.643 --> 00:18:01.903
Apolitical opportunists are
00:18:01.923 --> 00:18:04.086
trying to establish a colony there.
00:18:04.425 --> 00:18:05.166
And so they want to
00:18:05.307 --> 00:18:06.508
explicitly extend
00:18:06.587 --> 00:18:08.269
legislative control over
00:18:08.288 --> 00:18:10.590
the region and get these guys out.
00:18:12.192 --> 00:18:13.834
Immediately after the war,
00:18:14.273 --> 00:18:15.756
here's an interesting statistic.
00:18:17.237 --> 00:18:19.838
Ohio has more Revolutionary
00:18:19.898 --> 00:18:21.200
War veterans buried.
00:18:21.220 --> 00:18:23.122
There are more Revolutionary
00:18:23.182 --> 00:18:24.702
War veterans buried in Ohio
00:18:24.742 --> 00:18:26.064
than in any other state.
00:18:26.751 --> 00:18:28.451
There are more Revolutionary
00:18:28.551 --> 00:18:30.373
War generals buried in Ohio
00:18:30.752 --> 00:18:31.992
than in any other state
00:18:32.093 --> 00:18:33.573
except for Massachusetts.
00:18:34.054 --> 00:18:35.153
Well, why is that?
00:18:35.753 --> 00:18:37.993
Well, following the American Revolution,
00:18:38.535 --> 00:18:39.835
America emerges from the
00:18:39.894 --> 00:18:41.214
conflict bankrupt,
00:18:42.095 --> 00:18:43.115
and they've got enormous
00:18:43.195 --> 00:18:44.875
debts to foreign powers.
00:18:45.215 --> 00:18:46.276
They want to pay off their
00:18:46.355 --> 00:18:47.615
own soldiers who had fought
00:18:47.635 --> 00:18:48.517
in the Continental Army.
00:18:48.856 --> 00:18:49.717
And to their credit,
00:18:50.156 --> 00:18:54.038
they live up to their obligation.
00:18:54.958 --> 00:18:56.759
Well, the United States doesn't have money,
00:18:56.798 --> 00:18:58.119
but it's got resources.
00:18:58.200 --> 00:18:59.201
It's got a ton of resources.
00:18:59.780 --> 00:19:01.321
It's got the land that they
00:19:01.362 --> 00:19:02.903
won in the old Northwest.
00:19:03.163 --> 00:19:04.983
So what they want to do is
00:19:05.564 --> 00:19:06.785
they want to sell this land
00:19:06.924 --> 00:19:08.425
off and use the money to
00:19:08.486 --> 00:19:10.507
pay their obligations.
00:19:11.548 --> 00:19:12.769
But they make a special
00:19:12.888 --> 00:19:14.189
offer to Revolutionary War
00:19:14.450 --> 00:19:17.371
veterans and said, we can pay you,
00:19:17.431 --> 00:19:18.592
you can buy the land.
00:19:19.550 --> 00:19:21.471
But if we can just give you
00:19:21.612 --> 00:19:22.932
more land than what your
00:19:22.971 --> 00:19:24.373
money will buy if you just
00:19:24.452 --> 00:19:26.193
come out to Ohio and settle here.
00:19:26.753 --> 00:19:28.375
And you think, wow, why did, I mean,
00:19:28.734 --> 00:19:30.555
the United States is desperate for money.
00:19:31.415 --> 00:19:32.355
Why are they doing that?
00:19:32.895 --> 00:19:33.155
Well,
00:19:33.175 --> 00:19:36.117
the reason is the Indians are gone
00:19:36.857 --> 00:19:38.999
from Ohio after 1795,
00:19:38.999 --> 00:19:40.098
after the Treaty of Greenville.
00:19:40.538 --> 00:19:41.900
And Great Britain doesn't
00:19:42.319 --> 00:19:45.141
threaten the area until the War of 1812.
00:19:45.141 --> 00:19:46.041
Why do they want these
00:19:46.122 --> 00:19:47.701
Revolutionary War veterans
00:19:48.202 --> 00:19:48.883
moving into Ohio?
00:19:49.670 --> 00:19:49.930
Well,
00:19:51.211 --> 00:19:52.672
Revolutionary War veterans are
00:19:52.731 --> 00:19:53.813
trained in firearms.
00:19:53.853 --> 00:19:55.013
They're trained in tactics.
00:19:55.034 --> 00:19:58.317
They're trained in military organization.
00:19:59.218 --> 00:20:01.019
And they have absolutely
00:20:01.138 --> 00:20:02.559
demonstrated their complete
00:20:02.619 --> 00:20:04.102
loyalty to the federal government.
00:20:04.682 --> 00:20:05.383
Done it before.
00:20:05.803 --> 00:20:07.064
So they bring these guys
00:20:07.144 --> 00:20:08.744
into the state to keep
00:20:08.805 --> 00:20:11.567
these political opportunists out.
00:20:11.847 --> 00:20:12.868
And if they're there already,
00:20:13.308 --> 00:20:14.349
get them out and get them
00:20:14.390 --> 00:20:15.611
out as fast as they can.
00:20:16.010 --> 00:20:18.393
So the federal government recognizes that.
00:20:19.146 --> 00:20:20.847
the danger that these people post.
00:20:21.429 --> 00:20:22.829
And you were talking about
00:20:23.150 --> 00:20:24.510
how the colonies come together.
00:20:24.550 --> 00:20:26.531
This is a rare opportunity
00:20:26.972 --> 00:20:28.713
for the federal government
00:20:28.773 --> 00:20:29.855
and others to come into
00:20:29.875 --> 00:20:31.355
Ohio in a cooperative
00:20:31.415 --> 00:20:33.457
effort to establish federal
00:20:33.497 --> 00:20:34.557
control over the region.
00:20:35.337 --> 00:20:35.659
Interesting.
00:20:35.898 --> 00:20:37.660
We're talking with Larry Nelson,
00:20:37.799 --> 00:20:39.981
who is from Bowling Green
00:20:40.021 --> 00:20:41.021
State University,
00:20:41.202 --> 00:20:42.522
author of a number of books
00:20:42.604 --> 00:20:43.983
about this contested region.
00:20:44.025 --> 00:20:45.285
For a quarter of a century,
00:20:45.345 --> 00:20:47.007
he was the site director at
00:20:47.047 --> 00:20:48.548
the Fort Meigs State Memorial.
00:20:49.326 --> 00:20:50.726
And Larry, a couple of things.
00:20:50.766 --> 00:20:51.727
I wonder if we can talk a
00:20:51.767 --> 00:20:53.846
little bit more about, by the way,
00:20:53.886 --> 00:20:55.028
Jonathan mentions that
00:20:55.067 --> 00:20:56.488
there are two Boston Tea
00:20:56.548 --> 00:20:57.769
Party participants who were
00:20:57.788 --> 00:20:58.729
buried in Ohio.
00:20:58.808 --> 00:20:59.729
And last year,
00:20:59.749 --> 00:21:01.150
the Tea Party ships and
00:21:01.190 --> 00:21:02.690
museum marks their graves.
00:21:02.789 --> 00:21:04.990
So that's another,
00:21:05.010 --> 00:21:07.152
these folks moving out to Ohio.
00:21:07.172 --> 00:21:08.152
I wonder if we could talk a
00:21:08.192 --> 00:21:09.412
little bit about Detroit
00:21:09.451 --> 00:21:11.032
and why Detroit was the
00:21:11.212 --> 00:21:13.854
object that Clark was after.
00:21:13.913 --> 00:21:14.854
What's going on there?
00:21:16.035 --> 00:21:16.275
Yeah,
00:21:16.315 --> 00:21:18.778
Detroit is the seat of political
00:21:18.857 --> 00:21:20.259
power for Great Britain in
00:21:20.298 --> 00:21:21.119
the Old Northwest,
00:21:21.539 --> 00:21:22.800
and it's also the seat of
00:21:22.901 --> 00:21:26.644
military power in the region as well.
00:21:27.486 --> 00:21:28.747
Great Britain has two other
00:21:28.807 --> 00:21:29.928
posts on the Great Lakes.
00:21:29.988 --> 00:21:33.270
It has Fort Niagara over Niagara, New York,
00:21:33.652 --> 00:21:34.972
and it has Michilimackinac
00:21:34.992 --> 00:21:36.394
up at the Straits.
00:21:36.835 --> 00:21:40.097
But Detroit is by far the strongest post.
00:21:41.118 --> 00:21:42.420
It was started as a trading
00:21:42.460 --> 00:21:44.162
post and now is the seat of
00:21:44.221 --> 00:21:45.103
military power.
00:21:45.522 --> 00:21:47.644
And it's the seat of Great
00:21:47.684 --> 00:21:49.247
Britain's attempts to
00:21:50.888 --> 00:21:52.230
create and control a
00:21:52.750 --> 00:21:53.951
lasting alliance with the
00:21:54.392 --> 00:21:56.213
nations or with the area's
00:21:57.414 --> 00:21:58.096
native peoples.
00:21:58.115 --> 00:22:00.097
Fort Detroit is a very, very...
00:22:03.776 --> 00:22:05.696
difficult military tactic.
00:22:06.076 --> 00:22:08.758
So if Clark had been able to attack it,
00:22:09.218 --> 00:22:10.758
I'm not certain that he
00:22:10.798 --> 00:22:12.338
would have been able to succeed.
00:22:12.838 --> 00:22:15.240
It's got a garrison of about 500 men.
00:22:16.779 --> 00:22:18.800
Detroit itself is a trading
00:22:18.840 --> 00:22:20.941
village of about 1500 people.
00:22:21.481 --> 00:22:24.142
It's about 500 of those
00:22:24.201 --> 00:22:26.083
people are French extraction.
00:22:26.143 --> 00:22:28.124
So their loyalty is unknown,
00:22:28.183 --> 00:22:29.663
but an equal number are
00:22:30.544 --> 00:22:32.265
English extraction and their loyalty
00:22:32.905 --> 00:22:33.950
is known and they would have
00:22:34.332 --> 00:22:35.336
rushed to the defense of
00:22:35.355 --> 00:22:37.746
the post the the post um
00:22:38.481 --> 00:22:40.242
The town of Detroit is
00:22:40.363 --> 00:22:42.002
fortified by a stockade.
00:22:42.483 --> 00:22:44.564
And then immediately after the war starts,
00:22:44.624 --> 00:22:47.244
that stockade is reinforced
00:22:47.285 --> 00:22:48.605
by what's called a readout
00:22:48.665 --> 00:22:51.186
or a strong fortified position,
00:22:51.807 --> 00:22:53.167
which is professionally
00:22:53.228 --> 00:22:54.548
designed and as
00:22:54.667 --> 00:22:56.249
professionally built as you can get,
00:22:56.269 --> 00:22:58.009
you know, way out on the frontier.
00:22:58.409 --> 00:22:59.829
But it's stockaded.
00:22:59.930 --> 00:23:01.049
It has earthworks.
00:23:01.131 --> 00:23:04.332
It has defensive moating and ditching.
00:23:04.392 --> 00:23:07.492
It has artillery bastions that are...
00:23:08.181 --> 00:23:09.262
have artillery in them,
00:23:09.863 --> 00:23:11.505
and Detroit would have been
00:23:11.545 --> 00:23:14.367
an extremely tough nut to crack,
00:23:14.548 --> 00:23:14.949
for sure.
00:23:16.151 --> 00:23:16.830
So, Clark,
00:23:17.011 --> 00:23:18.653
did the British hold on to it
00:23:18.733 --> 00:23:20.476
after the war, despite the treaty?
00:23:22.758 --> 00:23:22.958
Well,
00:23:24.690 --> 00:23:26.010
There are many reasons to
00:23:26.050 --> 00:23:27.772
believe that Clark never
00:23:27.893 --> 00:23:29.394
conquers the old Northwest.
00:23:30.875 --> 00:23:32.657
Clark's earliest biographers,
00:23:33.759 --> 00:23:34.880
the first biography was
00:23:34.920 --> 00:23:36.040
written by a guy by the
00:23:36.080 --> 00:23:37.142
name of William English,
00:23:37.162 --> 00:23:38.042
who's from Indiana.
00:23:38.123 --> 00:23:39.423
All his early biographers
00:23:39.463 --> 00:23:40.384
are from the Midwest.
00:23:40.826 --> 00:23:44.088
William English writes a book entitled
00:23:45.007 --> 00:23:45.547
oh gosh,
00:23:45.606 --> 00:23:47.107
it's the conquest of the old
00:23:47.188 --> 00:23:48.208
Northwest with the
00:23:48.268 --> 00:23:50.048
biography of George Rogers Clark.
00:23:50.347 --> 00:23:52.628
So immediately that idea of
00:23:52.729 --> 00:23:54.548
conquest lands on George
00:23:54.588 --> 00:23:55.890
Rogers Clark and he retains
00:23:55.930 --> 00:23:57.250
it right down to the present day.
00:23:58.029 --> 00:23:59.711
There are two other biographies,
00:23:59.990 --> 00:24:01.030
one by Ruben Thwaites,
00:24:01.070 --> 00:24:03.050
who is the secretary of the
00:24:03.411 --> 00:24:05.271
Wisconsin Historical Society,
00:24:05.951 --> 00:24:07.932
who writes a similarly
00:24:08.333 --> 00:24:10.133
titled book and then a book by
00:24:10.573 --> 00:24:11.413
Milo Quaife,
00:24:11.432 --> 00:24:13.653
who's an archivist with the
00:24:13.753 --> 00:24:14.954
Detroit Public Library.
00:24:16.734 --> 00:24:17.035
Anyway,
00:24:17.075 --> 00:24:19.096
this idea of conquest is
00:24:19.195 --> 00:24:20.896
established with Clark very,
00:24:20.957 --> 00:24:22.116
very early on.
00:24:24.775 --> 00:24:26.556
There's lots of reasons to
00:24:26.596 --> 00:24:27.915
believe that that conquest
00:24:27.976 --> 00:24:28.695
was incomplete.
00:24:29.276 --> 00:24:30.817
One of the reasons is that
00:24:30.876 --> 00:24:32.257
when the war is complete,
00:24:33.998 --> 00:24:35.157
Great Britain simply
00:24:35.258 --> 00:24:37.317
refuses to give up its
00:24:37.397 --> 00:24:40.019
posts at Michilimackinac or
00:24:40.138 --> 00:24:42.099
at Detroit or at Niagara.
00:24:42.400 --> 00:24:44.240
And those are posts that are clear,
00:24:44.480 --> 00:24:45.181
absolutely.
00:24:45.300 --> 00:24:46.740
There is no question that
00:24:46.780 --> 00:24:48.521
those are American posts in
00:24:48.561 --> 00:24:49.781
American territory.
00:24:50.321 --> 00:24:51.563
But Great Britain just
00:24:51.623 --> 00:24:53.303
thumbs their nose at the United States.
00:24:53.423 --> 00:24:57.464
They do that for a couple of reasons.
00:24:57.825 --> 00:24:57.964
One,
00:24:58.065 --> 00:25:01.766
it's an open and public insult to this
00:25:01.945 --> 00:25:03.787
idea that America has
00:25:03.866 --> 00:25:05.208
sovereignty within the region.
00:25:05.248 --> 00:25:07.067
America is very feeble, as you know,
00:25:07.428 --> 00:25:08.868
during this period of time,
00:25:08.909 --> 00:25:10.569
and it simply can't extend
00:25:11.250 --> 00:25:13.290
the sovereignty that it claims to hold.
00:25:13.990 --> 00:25:16.152
And so Great Britain holds on to those
00:25:17.372 --> 00:25:18.773
facilities until 1796,
00:25:18.773 --> 00:25:22.116
the Jay's Treaty in 1796.
00:25:22.116 --> 00:25:22.457
Finally,
00:25:22.477 --> 00:25:24.839
it's within that treaty that Great
00:25:24.880 --> 00:25:25.480
Britain finally
00:25:25.540 --> 00:25:26.842
relinquishes its hold on
00:25:26.882 --> 00:25:28.943
those posts and cedes them
00:25:29.003 --> 00:25:30.066
to the United States.
00:25:31.186 --> 00:25:31.386
Okay.
00:25:31.406 --> 00:25:34.851
So Clark doesn't get Detroit,
00:25:35.631 --> 00:25:36.813
but he does get other things.
00:25:36.853 --> 00:25:36.932
So
00:25:37.621 --> 00:25:38.761
I'm just curious now about
00:25:38.821 --> 00:25:40.042
how he then becomes,
00:25:40.403 --> 00:25:43.023
for the biographers and for
00:25:43.064 --> 00:25:44.785
the lore of the Northwest,
00:25:44.965 --> 00:25:46.866
the conqueror of it,
00:25:47.567 --> 00:25:48.508
what does he get if he
00:25:48.548 --> 00:25:52.190
doesn't get Detroit and Michilimackinac?
00:25:54.411 --> 00:25:57.012
Well, in my opinion, Bob,
00:25:57.353 --> 00:25:58.453
he doesn't get anything.
00:25:59.433 --> 00:26:06.723
He comes up, he attacks Vincennes in 1778.
00:26:06.723 --> 00:26:10.365
He occupies Vincennes in 1778,
00:26:10.365 --> 00:26:11.625
but that occupation is
00:26:11.865 --> 00:26:13.705
absolutely unopposed by any
00:26:13.766 --> 00:26:14.925
kind of military force.
00:26:15.826 --> 00:26:17.926
And once he gets there, he can't stay.
00:26:18.406 --> 00:26:21.087
The American West is
00:26:21.248 --> 00:26:23.708
enormously vast and it's
00:26:23.929 --> 00:26:25.528
enormously porous as well.
00:26:25.788 --> 00:26:26.808
You can't defend it.
00:26:26.949 --> 00:26:30.970
I think one of the key
00:26:31.150 --> 00:26:32.990
understandings that Great Britain
00:26:34.590 --> 00:26:36.291
carries away from the war is
00:26:36.593 --> 00:26:38.473
that you can win it but you
00:26:38.574 --> 00:26:39.894
can't keep it that's why
00:26:39.934 --> 00:26:40.875
they give it to the united
00:26:40.935 --> 00:26:44.298
states so anyway he clark
00:26:44.417 --> 00:26:47.560
occupies vincennes in 1778
00:26:47.560 --> 00:26:49.301
but has to withdraw he
00:26:49.362 --> 00:26:50.583
comes back and this is a
00:26:50.682 --> 00:26:52.183
very famous march through
00:26:52.223 --> 00:26:53.904
the illinois wilderness
00:26:53.925 --> 00:26:56.126
swamps which is a master
00:26:56.166 --> 00:26:57.367
stroke there's no doubt
00:26:57.428 --> 00:27:00.790
about it that that this campaign is is uh
00:27:01.799 --> 00:27:03.381
an enormous American victory.
00:27:03.761 --> 00:27:06.002
So he comes back in 1779.
00:27:06.403 --> 00:27:07.805
He attacks British forces,
00:27:07.845 --> 00:27:10.987
which are occupying a fort in Vincennes,
00:27:11.067 --> 00:27:11.907
Fort Sackville.
00:27:12.367 --> 00:27:13.848
And he defeats the fort,
00:27:13.888 --> 00:27:14.970
defeats the garrison,
00:27:15.550 --> 00:27:17.471
captures Henry Hamilton,
00:27:17.511 --> 00:27:19.173
the infamous hair buyer
00:27:19.233 --> 00:27:21.115
Hamilton out of Detroit, you know,
00:27:21.556 --> 00:27:23.416
his second-in-command, Jehu Hay,
00:27:23.916 --> 00:27:26.239
and hauls them back to Virginia.
00:27:26.259 --> 00:27:28.121
But again, after he captures the post,
00:27:29.218 --> 00:27:29.917
He can't stay.
00:27:29.958 --> 00:27:31.278
He doesn't have enough men.
00:27:31.318 --> 00:27:33.078
He doesn't have the logistical support.
00:27:33.419 --> 00:27:34.579
He has to withdraw.
00:27:35.400 --> 00:27:37.000
Later on in the war,
00:27:37.060 --> 00:27:38.780
he takes two expeditions up
00:27:38.840 --> 00:27:40.162
into Ohio along the Ohio
00:27:40.221 --> 00:27:41.481
River Valley and attacks
00:27:42.962 --> 00:27:44.042
Shawnee and Wyandotte
00:27:44.063 --> 00:27:46.124
villages that have been
00:27:46.163 --> 00:27:47.743
attacking Kentucky settlers.
00:27:48.644 --> 00:27:51.505
But again, he moves into those regions,
00:27:51.565 --> 00:27:52.506
attacks the villages,
00:27:52.905 --> 00:27:54.145
and immediately withdraws.
00:27:54.846 --> 00:27:55.987
So at the end of the day,
00:27:56.896 --> 00:27:57.657
In my opinion,
00:27:57.718 --> 00:27:59.679
there's not much of a conquest there.
00:28:01.339 --> 00:28:04.781
The fact that there's no conquest, I think,
00:28:04.842 --> 00:28:05.722
is just emphasized.
00:28:05.742 --> 00:28:06.143
First of all,
00:28:06.163 --> 00:28:06.844
we've talked about the
00:28:07.243 --> 00:28:09.085
British don't think so
00:28:09.164 --> 00:28:10.286
little of this conquest
00:28:10.586 --> 00:28:11.747
that they refuse to give up
00:28:11.826 --> 00:28:12.646
military posts.
00:28:12.727 --> 00:28:14.788
I mean, clearly, American military posts,
00:28:15.048 --> 00:28:15.809
they don't give them up.
00:28:17.210 --> 00:28:20.352
Secondly, the Indian wars in Ohio,
00:28:22.614 --> 00:28:23.654
I mentioned earlier that
00:28:24.457 --> 00:28:25.717
the war in the West is
00:28:25.797 --> 00:28:26.936
fought to a completely
00:28:27.017 --> 00:28:28.218
different conclusion than
00:28:28.238 --> 00:28:29.218
the war in the East.
00:28:30.117 --> 00:28:31.637
At the Treaty of 1783,
00:28:31.637 --> 00:28:33.298
the American Revolution in
00:28:33.318 --> 00:28:34.358
the East comes to an end
00:28:34.719 --> 00:28:36.219
and things are restored to peace.
00:28:36.798 --> 00:28:37.778
But in the West,
00:28:37.898 --> 00:28:39.500
which is mostly an Indian war,
00:28:39.799 --> 00:28:41.799
these Indian wars just continue.
00:28:41.839 --> 00:28:43.539
And when I say continue, man,
00:28:43.920 --> 00:28:45.260
they don't even slow down
00:28:45.320 --> 00:28:46.221
to catch their breath.
00:28:46.740 --> 00:28:48.701
I mean, it's the marauds, the rage,
00:28:48.760 --> 00:28:50.701
they just keep going back and forth.
00:28:51.261 --> 00:28:53.122
And these kind of informal raids,
00:28:54.554 --> 00:28:56.734
take on an air of legitimacy
00:28:57.336 --> 00:28:58.355
in the mid-1780s.
00:28:58.536 --> 00:29:00.176
There's a series of raids
00:29:00.257 --> 00:29:01.718
out of Kentucky that Clark
00:29:01.798 --> 00:29:03.499
participates in that are
00:29:03.519 --> 00:29:05.000
known as the desultory raids.
00:29:05.500 --> 00:29:07.560
But they attack Indians who
00:29:07.601 --> 00:29:08.761
are living in southern Ohio.
00:29:09.102 --> 00:29:11.583
Native people just move west and north.
00:29:11.643 --> 00:29:12.824
They move up into what is
00:29:12.864 --> 00:29:14.144
now northwest Ohio,
00:29:14.525 --> 00:29:16.105
where they have access to Detroit.
00:29:20.037 --> 00:29:20.817
In the mid-80s,
00:29:20.856 --> 00:29:22.258
you have the desultory raids.
00:29:22.577 --> 00:29:23.778
In the 1790s,
00:29:23.818 --> 00:29:25.739
you have the Ohio Country Indian Wars.
00:29:26.099 --> 00:29:28.099
Those were fought from 1790
00:29:28.099 --> 00:29:29.941
to 94 and end with the
00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:32.642
Treaty of Greenville in 1795.
00:29:32.642 --> 00:29:35.383
Following those, you have the War of 1812.
00:29:35.383 --> 00:29:38.005
The War of 1812 is the last
00:29:38.105 --> 00:29:39.105
Indian War in Ohio.
00:29:39.464 --> 00:29:40.065
So that goes to 1814.
00:29:41.865 --> 00:29:43.346
So there's a long extent
00:29:43.366 --> 00:29:44.267
there where the Indian Wars
00:29:44.326 --> 00:29:45.268
just don't slow down.
00:29:45.307 --> 00:29:46.748
But if you go west,
00:29:48.775 --> 00:29:50.797
and you go towards the Mississippi Valley,
00:29:51.277 --> 00:29:52.738
the Indian Wars continue
00:29:52.837 --> 00:29:53.939
even beyond the War of 1812.
00:29:53.939 --> 00:29:56.300
The last Indian War in
00:29:56.361 --> 00:29:58.923
Illinois is the Black Hawk War,
00:29:58.963 --> 00:30:00.684
and that ended in 1832.
00:30:00.684 --> 00:30:03.507
And you think, holy cow, 1832,
00:30:03.507 --> 00:30:05.989
that's 50 years after Carter said,
00:30:06.410 --> 00:30:07.049
I conquered it.
00:30:08.692 --> 00:30:09.192
No, he didn't.
00:30:09.813 --> 00:30:11.074
So there's lots of reasons
00:30:11.134 --> 00:30:12.075
to believe that that
00:30:12.355 --> 00:30:14.376
reputation is overstated.
00:30:15.176 --> 00:30:15.997
It's interesting.
00:30:16.017 --> 00:30:17.478
We're talking with Larry Nelson.
00:30:17.798 --> 00:30:18.378
And Larry,
00:30:18.598 --> 00:30:20.900
I know we've covered a lot of ground.
00:30:20.940 --> 00:30:22.319
There's a lot more to talk about.
00:30:22.359 --> 00:30:23.141
I wonder if we could talk a
00:30:23.201 --> 00:30:24.820
little bit about a man of
00:30:24.881 --> 00:30:26.082
distinction among them,
00:30:26.221 --> 00:30:28.462
Alexander McKee in The Ohio Frontier.
00:30:28.522 --> 00:30:30.683
He's a fascinating character.
00:30:30.743 --> 00:30:32.204
And you've written a book
00:30:32.265 --> 00:30:35.665
about his career as part of this.
00:30:35.726 --> 00:30:36.606
And it's, again,
00:30:36.767 --> 00:30:37.967
as the story you've been telling,
00:30:38.027 --> 00:30:39.028
it's a bit at odds with
00:30:40.037 --> 00:30:41.337
our Eastern understanding of
00:30:41.377 --> 00:30:42.238
the revolution.
00:30:42.357 --> 00:30:44.199
His story is also something
00:30:44.239 --> 00:30:46.980
that's anomalous to us and explains a lot,
00:30:47.019 --> 00:30:47.279
I think.
00:30:48.121 --> 00:30:48.441
Yeah,
00:30:48.980 --> 00:30:50.922
Alexander McKee is one of the most
00:30:51.021 --> 00:30:51.761
influential,
00:30:51.821 --> 00:30:53.522
becomes one of the most influential
00:30:54.575 --> 00:30:56.557
characters on the Northwest Frontier.
00:30:57.076 --> 00:30:58.218
He is a loyalist.
00:30:58.538 --> 00:31:00.619
He is from the Pittsburgh
00:31:00.980 --> 00:31:02.402
Forks of the Ohio region,
00:31:02.882 --> 00:31:05.903
who in 1776 defects from
00:31:05.923 --> 00:31:07.224
the Americans and makes his
00:31:07.285 --> 00:31:09.247
way to Detroit with two others,
00:31:09.386 --> 00:31:10.208
Matthew Elliott,
00:31:10.347 --> 00:31:11.828
who later becomes a very
00:31:12.189 --> 00:31:14.651
important Indian agent, and Simon Gurdie,
00:31:14.711 --> 00:31:16.152
who I don't know if you know in the East,
00:31:16.211 --> 00:31:17.834
but in the Midwest is one
00:31:17.854 --> 00:31:18.954
of the most notorious
00:31:19.414 --> 00:31:21.916
renegades ever to inhabit the area.
00:31:22.538 --> 00:31:23.239
And together,
00:31:23.318 --> 00:31:24.499
the three men joined the
00:31:24.539 --> 00:31:25.720
British Indian Department
00:31:25.799 --> 00:31:27.101
and worked extremely hard
00:31:27.161 --> 00:31:28.041
for British interests
00:31:28.422 --> 00:31:29.702
throughout the remainder of the war.
00:31:30.423 --> 00:31:33.085
All three men are what we
00:31:33.144 --> 00:31:36.587
refer to as Métis or Synethnic.
00:31:37.208 --> 00:31:39.328
They were raised both in
00:31:39.368 --> 00:31:40.509
white households and in
00:31:40.609 --> 00:31:41.471
native households.
00:31:41.891 --> 00:31:43.051
They are bilingual,
00:31:43.071 --> 00:31:44.593
they are multicultural.
00:31:45.066 --> 00:31:47.611
They're very familiar with
00:31:47.671 --> 00:31:48.833
the kind of rituals that
00:31:48.893 --> 00:31:50.194
are required to bring about
00:31:50.736 --> 00:31:52.239
diplomatic alliances or
00:31:52.298 --> 00:31:53.821
military alliances or even
00:31:53.961 --> 00:31:55.144
economic alliances.
00:31:55.765 --> 00:31:57.468
And they use those skills
00:31:58.156 --> 00:32:00.878
to bridge the gap between
00:32:00.959 --> 00:32:02.840
British interests and Native interests.
00:32:04.082 --> 00:32:06.042
When Great Britain tries to
00:32:06.123 --> 00:32:07.243
forge alliances,
00:32:07.304 --> 00:32:08.345
either large formal
00:32:08.365 --> 00:32:11.827
alliances or alliances that
00:32:11.887 --> 00:32:13.509
are immediately consequential,
00:32:13.950 --> 00:32:15.530
they rely on these people
00:32:15.570 --> 00:32:17.772
who can speak both languages,
00:32:17.853 --> 00:32:19.294
who understand the cultural
00:32:19.354 --> 00:32:22.896
nuances among both parties.
00:32:23.277 --> 00:32:25.778
to establish those relationships.
00:32:26.357 --> 00:32:27.598
So McKee is one of those.
00:32:27.659 --> 00:32:31.299
McKee starts as a translator
00:32:31.480 --> 00:32:33.881
and an Indian agent for the
00:32:33.921 --> 00:32:35.182
British and eventually he
00:32:35.241 --> 00:32:36.541
becomes superintendent of
00:32:37.182 --> 00:32:39.462
Indian affairs in British North America.
00:32:39.482 --> 00:32:40.983
It's the second most
00:32:41.064 --> 00:32:42.384
important position in North
00:32:42.444 --> 00:32:43.964
America when Great Britain
00:32:44.005 --> 00:32:45.726
attempts to deal with the Indians.
00:32:46.940 --> 00:32:48.381
One of the reasons that
00:32:48.901 --> 00:32:51.103
Great Britain scrambles so
00:32:51.242 --> 00:32:53.403
hard after the war to
00:32:53.463 --> 00:32:54.765
maintain its relationship
00:32:54.805 --> 00:32:56.405
with the Indians is that
00:32:57.146 --> 00:32:57.926
when Great Britain
00:32:57.967 --> 00:32:59.588
negotiates with the United
00:32:59.628 --> 00:33:00.888
States for a conclusion of
00:33:00.909 --> 00:33:05.152
the war in the 1780s,
00:33:05.972 --> 00:33:07.153
they don't inform their
00:33:07.213 --> 00:33:08.634
native allies that they're
00:33:08.694 --> 00:33:09.795
entering negotiations.
00:33:10.395 --> 00:33:11.497
They don't inform their
00:33:11.537 --> 00:33:12.656
native allies that the
00:33:12.717 --> 00:33:13.938
peace has been concluded.
00:33:14.238 --> 00:33:14.679
They don't
00:33:15.509 --> 00:33:20.191
form their allies that the
00:33:20.270 --> 00:33:22.111
treaty has been formalized.
00:33:22.692 --> 00:33:25.532
And so that almost brings
00:33:25.573 --> 00:33:26.472
the British and Indian
00:33:26.553 --> 00:33:27.593
alliance to an end.
00:33:27.932 --> 00:33:30.273
But Great Britain tries
00:33:30.394 --> 00:33:32.154
extremely hard in the
00:33:32.255 --> 00:33:33.194
subsequent years to
00:33:33.255 --> 00:33:35.536
maintain that alliance.
00:33:35.915 --> 00:33:37.336
And they're successful up to
00:33:37.376 --> 00:33:41.925
a point up through the War of 1812.
00:33:41.925 --> 00:33:42.967
Amazing stories.
00:33:43.107 --> 00:33:43.788
It seems like we've just
00:33:43.828 --> 00:33:45.190
scratched the surface with this.
00:33:45.471 --> 00:33:46.632
And there's a lot more I
00:33:46.652 --> 00:33:47.593
know we could talk about.
00:33:47.613 --> 00:33:48.454
We'll probably have to have
00:33:48.474 --> 00:33:51.137
you back to tell us more
00:33:51.218 --> 00:33:53.240
about the Ohio country and
00:33:53.260 --> 00:33:54.521
the revolution and beyond.
00:33:54.582 --> 00:33:56.565
I mean, it really is fascinating stuff.
00:33:57.385 --> 00:33:58.086
Is there anything else?
00:33:59.503 --> 00:34:00.685
Let me tell you one thing,
00:34:01.307 --> 00:34:02.887
and that is that when you
00:34:02.929 --> 00:34:04.450
look at the scholarship for
00:34:04.470 --> 00:34:05.471
the Old Northwest,
00:34:05.872 --> 00:34:07.354
it has absolutely been
00:34:07.493 --> 00:34:09.896
revolutionized in the last 30 years.
00:34:10.677 --> 00:34:13.240
A guy in 1991, Richard White,
00:34:13.300 --> 00:34:15.402
wrote a book entitled The Middle Ground.
00:34:15.583 --> 00:34:15.983
And that
00:34:16.541 --> 00:34:17.802
an extraordinarily
00:34:17.882 --> 00:34:19.244
influential book that just
00:34:19.344 --> 00:34:20.744
turned the whole field on its end.
00:34:20.844 --> 00:34:22.045
And since Richard White,
00:34:22.425 --> 00:34:24.045
there's a ton of people who
00:34:24.065 --> 00:34:26.128
have done native studies, women's studies,
00:34:26.268 --> 00:34:28.128
economic studies, political studies,
00:34:28.409 --> 00:34:29.449
demographic studies.
00:34:30.130 --> 00:34:32.771
The entire field has been
00:34:33.231 --> 00:34:35.172
revolutionized in the
00:34:35.233 --> 00:34:39.476
subsequent years by Richard White.
00:34:40.516 --> 00:34:43.056
So much of this scholarship, as you know,
00:34:43.137 --> 00:34:45.617
is driven by historical anniversaries.
00:34:45.978 --> 00:34:49.420
So as we come into the 250th, my gosh,
00:34:49.659 --> 00:34:50.900
this entire field is
00:34:51.201 --> 00:34:52.942
absolutely ripe for revision.
00:34:53.242 --> 00:34:54.922
There's a ton of studies.
00:34:55.143 --> 00:34:56.782
There's graduate students, I hope,
00:34:56.822 --> 00:34:57.903
right now who are watching
00:34:57.943 --> 00:34:58.903
this and saying, man,
00:34:58.943 --> 00:35:00.045
here's my dissertation.
00:35:00.425 --> 00:35:01.947
because the material's there.
00:35:02.327 --> 00:35:03.108
It's all there.
00:35:04.030 --> 00:35:05.231
I guarantee that the next
00:35:05.291 --> 00:35:07.074
time you do this in 25 years,
00:35:07.494 --> 00:35:08.657
you're going to be talking
00:35:09.056 --> 00:35:11.539
about an enormous change in scholarship.
00:35:11.820 --> 00:35:13.884
The opportunities right now are enormous.
00:35:14.744 --> 00:35:15.485
That's tremendous.
00:35:16.085 --> 00:35:17.146
And thank you for all you
00:35:17.186 --> 00:35:18.467
have done over your career
00:35:18.568 --> 00:35:20.289
to tell these stories and
00:35:20.329 --> 00:35:21.771
to think about what
00:35:21.811 --> 00:35:23.452
happened and who these people were.
00:35:23.492 --> 00:35:25.494
We've been talking with Larry Nelson,
00:35:26.114 --> 00:35:27.215
doctor from Bowling Green
00:35:27.235 --> 00:35:28.215
State University.
00:35:28.275 --> 00:35:29.297
He worked for the Ohio
00:35:29.317 --> 00:35:30.958
Historical Society and was
00:35:31.039 --> 00:35:32.599
the site director at Fort
00:35:32.619 --> 00:35:33.740
Meigs State Memorial.
00:35:33.782 --> 00:35:34.963
And he's the author now of a
00:35:35.023 --> 00:35:35.702
number of books.
00:35:36.164 --> 00:35:37.844
Looking forward to your post,
00:35:37.945 --> 00:35:39.947
a documentary history of Fort Meigs.
00:35:41.349 --> 00:35:42.610
Your and David Skaggs' book
00:35:42.690 --> 00:35:44.132
on the 60 Years War for the
00:35:44.192 --> 00:35:45.333
Great Lakes really captures
00:35:45.353 --> 00:35:47.695
that this is a long continuum.
00:35:48.177 --> 00:35:49.297
These wars we think about
00:35:49.338 --> 00:35:50.599
were just part of a much
00:35:50.760 --> 00:35:53.543
bigger story happening in this area.
00:35:54.824 --> 00:35:56.706
So thank you so much for joining us, Larry,
00:35:56.726 --> 00:35:58.168
and we hope to have you back again.
00:35:59.041 --> 00:36:00.182
thanks bob appreciate it
00:36:00.322 --> 00:36:01.264
thank you thank you and I
00:36:01.284 --> 00:36:02.525
want to thank jonathan lane
00:36:02.565 --> 00:36:03.925
our producer and our
00:36:04.005 --> 00:36:04.967
listeners you know larry we
00:36:04.987 --> 00:36:06.027
do have listeners all over
00:36:06.088 --> 00:36:07.588
the world who are tuning in
00:36:07.648 --> 00:36:09.429
and uh every week I thank
00:36:09.530 --> 00:36:10.351
some of them and if you're
00:36:10.391 --> 00:36:11.452
in one of these places
00:36:11.552 --> 00:36:12.672
thanks for joining us and
00:36:12.713 --> 00:36:14.293
send jonathan lane an email
00:36:14.333 --> 00:36:15.916
jay lane revolution250.org
00:36:16.016 --> 00:36:17.436
and they'll send you some of our
00:36:22.849 --> 00:36:25.592
Hanover, Massachusetts, in Houston, Texas,
00:36:26.353 --> 00:36:27.735
and in the Buckeye State,
00:36:27.815 --> 00:36:29.836
listeners in Columbus, Cleveland,
00:36:29.938 --> 00:36:32.260
Marietta, Steubenville, and Springfield.
00:36:32.340 --> 00:36:33.882
Thank you all in those places,
00:36:34.481 --> 00:36:35.983
places beyond and between.
00:36:36.063 --> 00:36:36.985
Thanks for joining us.
00:36:37.025 --> 00:36:38.407
And now we will be piped out
00:36:38.467 --> 00:36:39.467
on the road to Boston.
00:36:41.028 --> 00:36:41.429
Thanks, Bob.