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“`An Extream Bad Collection of Broken Innkeepers, Horse Jockeys, and Indian Traders’: How Anarchy, Violence, and Resistance in Eighteenth-Century Pennsylvania Transformed Provincial Society”

Downing, Brandon C
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1423580910

Abstract Details

2014, PhD, University of Cincinnati, Arts and Sciences: History.
This dissertation considers how an anarchic and violent backcountry provided the setting for both Native Americans and backcountry farmers to resist the control of imperial and colonial institutions in eighteenth-century Pennsylvania, which ultimately transformed provincial society. Rural insurrections plagued Pennsylvania, but the causes and outcomes of these events are often only recorded by elite discourse. By contrast, this dissertation seeks to recover the various methods that backcountry yeoman farmers and Native Americans used to attain their goal of land possession and independence from the metropole. It examines the complex tasks of managing vast new spaces and resources, administering an army, and assimilating the Indian population within their broader social and cultural contexts through the analysis of archival sources, petitions, Indian treaties, and newspaper reports. The various perspectives of writers, traders, missionaries, diplomats, and interpreters enable us to recover the voices of the frontier. Pennsylvania’s provincial officials tried to contain backcountry defiance by suppressing mobilization, guiding population relocation, enforcing justice, and securing boundaries between Euro Americans and Native Americans. The proprietary government also repeatedly sought to incorporate yeoman farmers and Indians into the political, economic and cultural orbit of Philadelphia. The tactics used to control the backcountry, however, further irritated relations between the government and frontier populations. The driving force behind these policies was the fear of insurrections, and violence that could descend upon the capital if not controlled. This dissertation illuminates both the culture of backcountry insurrections and the British periphery in eighteenth-century North America. Furthermore, it argues that the radical and anarchic characteristics of backcountry Pennsylvania contributed to the coming of the American Revolution, in contrast to historians’ overemphasis on the role played by the eastern seaboard cities in the break with Britain in 1776.
Wayne Durrill, Ph.D. (Committee Chair)
Karim M. Tiro, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Geoffrey Plank, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
232 p.
American History
Pennsylvania; Backcountry; Native Americans; Seven Years War; Settlers; William Penn

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Downing, B. C. (2014). “`An Extream Bad Collection of Broken Innkeepers, Horse Jockeys, and Indian Traders’: How Anarchy, Violence, and Resistance in Eighteenth-Century Pennsylvania Transformed Provincial Society” [Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1423580910

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Downing, Brandon. “`An Extream Bad Collection of Broken Innkeepers, Horse Jockeys, and Indian Traders’: How Anarchy, Violence, and Resistance in Eighteenth-Century Pennsylvania Transformed Provincial Society”. 2014. University of Cincinnati, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1423580910.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Downing, Brandon. "“`An Extream Bad Collection of Broken Innkeepers, Horse Jockeys, and Indian Traders’: How Anarchy, Violence, and Resistance in Eighteenth-Century Pennsylvania Transformed Provincial Society”." Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1423580910

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ucin1423580910
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This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.