Frontier Wars

Abstract

George Rogers Clark was Virginia’s western military commander from 1778 until 1783. As such, it was his responsibility to remedy the ongoing Native war waged against Kentucky’s settlers, although the actions that fed this war originated as far away as North Carolina and Fort Pitt. Boone lost two sons to the violence, a peaceful village of Christian Delawares was massacred by irate Pennsylvania militiamen, and a widelyadmired frontier colonel was literally baked by revenge-minded Delawares in a horrific chain of events recorded by William Croghan at Fort Pitt. The frontier terror led Clark to mount two campaigns into Ohio to quash the territory’s largest Indian population centers, leading Joseph Brant to write from Detroit, “I have been very uneasy since we heard the News of the Shawanese Misfortune who fell into the hands of the White Savage Virginians.”