WEBVTT
00:00:00.626 --> 00:00:01.506
Hello, everyone.
00:00:01.687 --> 00:00:04.650
Welcome to the Revolution 250 podcast.
00:00:04.791 --> 00:00:06.173
Revolution 250 is a
00:00:06.232 --> 00:00:07.995
consortium of about 70
00:00:07.995 --> 00:00:09.256
groups in Massachusetts
00:00:09.817 --> 00:00:10.497
planning ways to
00:00:10.538 --> 00:00:12.279
commemorate the American Revolution.
00:00:12.839 --> 00:00:13.721
I am Bob Allison.
00:00:13.760 --> 00:00:15.923
I chair the Rev 250 advisory group.
00:00:16.626 --> 00:00:19.327
And our guest today is Larry Nelson.
00:00:19.367 --> 00:00:21.088
And Larry Nelson has a
00:00:21.129 --> 00:00:22.570
doctorate in history from
00:00:22.609 --> 00:00:24.431
Bowling Green State University,
00:00:24.830 --> 00:00:26.012
where he's actually now
00:00:26.051 --> 00:00:27.231
been on the faculty as an
00:00:27.271 --> 00:00:28.393
assistant professor.
00:00:28.452 --> 00:00:29.893
He teaches at Bowling Green
00:00:30.094 --> 00:00:32.335
after a long career at the
00:00:32.475 --> 00:00:33.875
Ohio History Connection,
00:00:33.896 --> 00:00:35.697
the Ohio Historical Society,
00:00:36.097 --> 00:00:36.796
where he was the site
00:00:36.817 --> 00:00:39.298
director for Fort Meigs State Memorial.
00:00:39.658 --> 00:00:40.978
He'll be telling us more about this,
00:00:41.039 --> 00:00:42.479
as well as about three of
00:00:42.500 --> 00:00:43.640
the books he has written,
00:00:43.740 --> 00:00:45.161
a man of distinction among
00:00:45.201 --> 00:00:46.381
them about Alexander
00:00:46.481 --> 00:00:46.962
McKee,
00:00:47.021 --> 00:00:49.584
an Indian agent in the Ohio country.
00:00:50.423 --> 00:00:52.966
He edited a history of Jonathan Alder,
00:00:53.026 --> 00:00:54.686
who was captured by Native
00:00:54.726 --> 00:00:56.328
Americans in the 18th century.
00:00:56.828 --> 00:00:58.128
And he also wrote a terrific
00:00:58.168 --> 00:00:59.950
book about the 60 years war
00:01:00.030 --> 00:01:01.390
for the Great Lakes from
00:01:01.390 --> 00:01:05.112
1754 to 1814 with David Skaggs.
00:01:05.593 --> 00:01:07.034
So Larry, thanks for joining us.
00:01:07.573 --> 00:01:08.274
Well, thank you.
00:01:08.334 --> 00:01:09.435
And what a pleasure to be here.
00:01:10.975 --> 00:01:12.996
So a lot's happening in Ohio
00:01:13.156 --> 00:01:14.237
in this period.
00:01:14.317 --> 00:01:14.378
And
00:01:15.248 --> 00:01:16.691
ohio is a big country at
00:01:16.751 --> 00:01:17.873
this time so you can tell
00:01:17.954 --> 00:01:19.216
us set the scene for us
00:01:19.278 --> 00:01:21.001
about what the territory
00:01:21.042 --> 00:01:23.466
looks like well uh
00:01:25.191 --> 00:01:27.171
The Revolutionary War in the
00:01:27.231 --> 00:01:29.212
West is the war that takes
00:01:29.293 --> 00:01:31.134
place west of the crest of
00:01:31.174 --> 00:01:32.373
the Appalachian Mountains
00:01:32.754 --> 00:01:34.375
all the way to the Mississippi River.
00:01:34.975 --> 00:01:35.956
The theater that we're going
00:01:35.975 --> 00:01:37.816
to talk about today is an important one.
00:01:37.897 --> 00:01:39.578
It's the theater that takes
00:01:39.658 --> 00:01:41.799
place in the Old Northwest.
00:01:42.358 --> 00:01:44.719
And the Old Northwest is the
00:01:44.780 --> 00:01:46.960
territory that's west and
00:01:47.061 --> 00:01:48.882
north of the Ohio River.
00:01:49.421 --> 00:01:51.963
It's today what is made up of Ohio,
00:01:52.063 --> 00:01:52.623
Indiana,
00:01:53.123 --> 00:01:56.066
Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
00:01:56.885 --> 00:01:58.027
And the United States
00:01:58.227 --> 00:02:00.108
acquires the Old Northwest
00:02:00.608 --> 00:02:02.789
in the 1783 Treaty of Paris
00:02:02.808 --> 00:02:04.530
that concludes the American Revolution.
00:02:04.930 --> 00:02:06.650
We get the Old Northwest
00:02:06.990 --> 00:02:08.312
because of the actions that
00:02:08.352 --> 00:02:09.853
were fought there during the war.
00:02:10.353 --> 00:02:12.734
And this is extraordinarily consequential.
00:02:13.174 --> 00:02:15.395
There is more land in the
00:02:15.495 --> 00:02:17.717
Old Northwest than there is
00:02:17.796 --> 00:02:19.777
in the 13 original colonies combined.
00:02:21.300 --> 00:02:22.740
So with the stroke of the
00:02:22.780 --> 00:02:25.221
pen that ends the American Revolution,
00:02:25.640 --> 00:02:26.881
we not only end the war,
00:02:27.200 --> 00:02:29.002
but we more than double the
00:02:29.062 --> 00:02:30.361
size of the United States.
00:02:30.861 --> 00:02:31.742
So these events are
00:02:31.842 --> 00:02:33.763
extraordinarily consequential for the,
00:02:34.143 --> 00:02:35.043
not only for the future
00:02:35.082 --> 00:02:36.024
history of the area,
00:02:36.503 --> 00:02:38.183
but for the future of the United States.
00:02:38.243 --> 00:02:39.723
And I would argue for the
00:02:39.764 --> 00:02:40.944
history of the world as well.
00:02:41.104 --> 00:02:41.504
That's true.
00:02:41.525 --> 00:02:41.884
That's true.
00:02:42.245 --> 00:02:43.066
That's right,
00:02:43.366 --> 00:02:45.546
because the Quebec Act in
00:02:45.546 --> 00:02:46.388
1773 had extended the
00:02:46.448 --> 00:02:48.769
borders of Canada to the Ohio River,
00:02:49.008 --> 00:02:51.090
so it's quite plausible
00:02:51.150 --> 00:02:52.131
that the British would have
00:02:52.191 --> 00:02:53.852
held on to this territory
00:02:54.271 --> 00:02:55.532
after the Revolution,
00:02:55.673 --> 00:02:56.913
if not for what happens
00:02:57.354 --> 00:02:58.735
during the years of the war.
00:02:59.681 --> 00:03:00.481
Exactly right.
00:03:00.681 --> 00:03:01.603
And, you know,
00:03:01.723 --> 00:03:03.543
the war in the West is
00:03:03.703 --> 00:03:05.704
entirely different than the
00:03:05.764 --> 00:03:07.044
war that's fought in the East.
00:03:07.604 --> 00:03:09.125
It's, well,
00:03:09.344 --> 00:03:10.284
obviously it's fought in a
00:03:10.344 --> 00:03:10.925
different place,
00:03:10.985 --> 00:03:13.205
but it's fought by different people.
00:03:13.686 --> 00:03:15.046
It's fought for different reasons,
00:03:15.127 --> 00:03:16.507
and I will talk about that
00:03:16.546 --> 00:03:17.326
in just a second.
00:03:17.768 --> 00:03:19.108
It's fought in different ways,
00:03:19.608 --> 00:03:20.467
and it's fought to an
00:03:20.548 --> 00:03:21.408
entirely different
00:03:21.468 --> 00:03:22.449
conclusion than the
00:03:22.508 --> 00:03:24.030
campaigns that are fought in the East.
00:03:24.449 --> 00:03:25.909
So we want to look carefully at it.
00:03:26.289 --> 00:03:28.591
The Quebec, the war in the West...
00:03:29.681 --> 00:03:31.864
is not fought because of the tax on tea.
00:03:31.903 --> 00:03:33.185
It's not fought because of
00:03:33.224 --> 00:03:34.407
the quartering of British
00:03:34.447 --> 00:03:36.008
troops and private property.
00:03:37.610 --> 00:03:38.711
The war in the West is
00:03:38.770 --> 00:03:39.831
fought for one reason,
00:03:39.872 --> 00:03:41.673
and that's control of the land.
00:03:41.733 --> 00:03:43.514
Who is going to control the vast,
00:03:44.116 --> 00:03:45.537
mostly unexplored,
00:03:46.038 --> 00:03:47.679
unoccupied land that's west
00:03:47.718 --> 00:03:49.600
of the Appalachian Mountains?
00:03:50.969 --> 00:03:52.610
Great Britain ends the
00:03:52.651 --> 00:03:53.491
French and Indian War.
00:03:53.551 --> 00:03:55.092
It ends the Seven Year War,
00:03:55.573 --> 00:03:57.774
understanding very clearly, first of all,
00:03:57.794 --> 00:03:59.474
that this war bankrupted them,
00:03:59.915 --> 00:04:01.616
and they simply cannot
00:04:01.676 --> 00:04:03.538
afford a Second Indian War.
00:04:03.957 --> 00:04:05.038
So they take lots of
00:04:05.139 --> 00:04:06.699
measures to try to prevent one.
00:04:07.199 --> 00:04:10.301
One is the Proclamation of 1763,
00:04:10.301 --> 00:04:12.122
which prohibits colonial
00:04:12.182 --> 00:04:13.524
expansion beyond the crest
00:04:13.584 --> 00:04:14.424
of the Appalachians.
00:04:14.864 --> 00:04:15.125
That
00:04:16.478 --> 00:04:18.922
That proclamation is difficult,
00:04:19.021 --> 00:04:20.785
if not impossible, to enforce.
00:04:21.185 --> 00:04:24.009
So like you say, in 1773,
00:04:24.009 --> 00:04:26.353
they passed the Quebec Act,
00:04:26.653 --> 00:04:28.235
but one of the notorious
00:04:28.375 --> 00:04:29.757
intolerable acts that are
00:04:29.838 --> 00:04:31.000
passed in the wake of the
00:04:31.660 --> 00:04:33.540
of the Boston Tea Party.
00:04:33.880 --> 00:04:34.281
And again,
00:04:34.322 --> 00:04:35.983
that tries to codify the
00:04:36.083 --> 00:04:38.644
provisions of the proclamation of 1763,
00:04:38.644 --> 00:04:41.185
tries to prevent, you know,
00:04:41.345 --> 00:04:43.045
if you keep white settlers out of there,
00:04:43.365 --> 00:04:44.026
we're not going to have
00:04:44.067 --> 00:04:44.786
trouble with Indians.
00:04:44.846 --> 00:04:48.048
But again, it's impossible to enforce it.
00:04:48.569 --> 00:04:51.511
And Westerners act
00:04:52.110 --> 00:04:53.891
or respond to the Quebec Act
00:04:54.291 --> 00:04:56.173
in precisely the same way
00:04:56.252 --> 00:04:57.374
that people in the East
00:04:57.454 --> 00:05:00.495
responded to the tax on tea
00:05:00.574 --> 00:05:02.596
or stamp on public
00:05:02.656 --> 00:05:04.536
documents or the closing of
00:05:04.596 --> 00:05:05.358
Boston Harbor.
00:05:05.737 --> 00:05:08.439
They push back hard against
00:05:09.180 --> 00:05:10.920
those restrictions.
00:05:11.261 --> 00:05:13.281
So the war in the West is a
00:05:13.341 --> 00:05:14.843
war that's fought almost
00:05:14.942 --> 00:05:16.382
entirely about land.
00:05:16.442 --> 00:05:18.663
That's the one big issue in the West.
00:05:19.285 --> 00:05:19.824
Okay.
00:05:19.845 --> 00:05:20.925
Larry, about how many people
00:05:22.230 --> 00:05:23.591
White people are living west
00:05:23.632 --> 00:05:25.132
of the Appalachians at this time.
00:05:25.153 --> 00:05:26.153
And about how many native
00:05:26.192 --> 00:05:28.613
people are out here in this territory?
00:05:28.653 --> 00:05:30.435
There's about 10,000 native
00:05:30.475 --> 00:05:31.615
people who live throughout
00:05:32.055 --> 00:05:34.096
the Old Northwest, numerous tribes.
00:05:36.211 --> 00:05:37.932
these are Eastern woodland Indians.
00:05:38.112 --> 00:05:40.613
So it's one broad, uh, culture,
00:05:40.673 --> 00:05:42.014
but many ethnic kind of
00:05:42.053 --> 00:05:43.175
variations in there.
00:05:43.475 --> 00:05:44.514
You have Sioux and people
00:05:44.555 --> 00:05:46.136
who are living in the upper great lakes.
00:05:46.156 --> 00:05:47.516
You have Iroquois and
00:05:47.596 --> 00:05:49.776
Algonquin people who are living in Ohio.
00:05:50.117 --> 00:05:52.237
You have an infiltration of, uh,
00:05:52.278 --> 00:05:53.579
Muskegon people who are
00:05:53.619 --> 00:05:55.338
coming up Cherokees and
00:05:55.699 --> 00:05:57.079
Choctaws who are kind of
00:05:57.120 --> 00:05:58.480
migrating up from the South.
00:05:58.940 --> 00:05:59.420
So there's,
00:05:59.680 --> 00:06:01.742
there's many Indian cultures in Ohio.
00:06:02.502 --> 00:06:02.581
Um,
00:06:03.122 --> 00:06:04.124
I want to make the point
00:06:04.204 --> 00:06:06.165
that Indians understand
00:06:07.026 --> 00:06:09.569
absolutely that they own that land,
00:06:09.728 --> 00:06:10.288
period.
00:06:10.509 --> 00:06:11.170
It's theirs.
00:06:11.511 --> 00:06:14.713
Nobody else has it.
00:06:15.093 --> 00:06:16.754
That they are sovereign there,
00:06:16.855 --> 00:06:17.956
that they control there,
00:06:18.396 --> 00:06:19.177
that that land is
00:06:19.418 --> 00:06:21.278
absolutely under their governance.
00:06:21.779 --> 00:06:23.942
And if they elect,
00:06:26.024 --> 00:06:28.545
Native people are very aware
00:06:29.153 --> 00:06:30.713
of their own diplomatic and
00:06:30.812 --> 00:06:32.913
economic and military self-interests.
00:06:33.533 --> 00:06:35.194
And so when they elect to
00:06:35.274 --> 00:06:37.694
help allies such as the British, you know,
00:06:37.735 --> 00:06:38.954
they understand that that
00:06:38.995 --> 00:06:39.995
help is going to be done
00:06:40.536 --> 00:06:42.175
absolutely on their terms
00:06:42.276 --> 00:06:43.196
and their terms only.
00:06:43.636 --> 00:06:46.516
So they're sovereign and
00:06:46.797 --> 00:06:47.576
they understand that
00:06:47.596 --> 00:06:48.898
they're in control of that area.
00:06:49.298 --> 00:06:50.098
Right, right.
00:06:50.658 --> 00:06:51.718
And then about how many
00:06:53.038 --> 00:06:54.259
Americans or whites have
00:06:54.338 --> 00:06:55.978
moved west despite the
00:06:56.019 --> 00:06:57.100
proclamation and where
00:06:57.139 --> 00:06:58.759
would they be living in this territory?
00:07:01.096 --> 00:07:02.456
I can't give you an exact number,
00:07:02.497 --> 00:07:03.517
but most of the people who
00:07:03.557 --> 00:07:06.459
are living in that area are
00:07:06.499 --> 00:07:08.339
living along the Ohio River Valley.
00:07:08.379 --> 00:07:10.100
They're living in Western Pennsylvania.
00:07:10.500 --> 00:07:11.721
They're living in what's now
00:07:12.101 --> 00:07:13.742
West Virginia and Western Virginia.
00:07:14.142 --> 00:07:16.024
They're living along the Ohio River Valley,
00:07:16.064 --> 00:07:18.545
along what is now Kentucky.
00:07:18.944 --> 00:07:21.646
There is virtually no white
00:07:21.745 --> 00:07:25.447
penetration into Ohio at this point.
00:07:25.487 --> 00:07:27.369
That comes after the Revolutionary War.
00:07:28.180 --> 00:07:28.901
are very,
00:07:29.040 --> 00:07:31.281
very effective at keeping people out.
00:07:31.903 --> 00:07:33.983
And so there's virtually no
00:07:34.024 --> 00:07:35.165
penetration into what is
00:07:35.204 --> 00:07:37.225
now Ohio or Indiana or Illinois.
00:07:37.305 --> 00:07:37.425
Okay.
00:07:38.427 --> 00:07:40.307
Now, aren't there some French, too,
00:07:40.408 --> 00:07:41.990
in places like along the
00:07:42.009 --> 00:07:43.269
Illinois River and other places?
00:07:43.391 --> 00:07:44.170
Oh, gosh, yes.
00:07:44.411 --> 00:07:44.872
And listen,
00:07:44.911 --> 00:07:47.112
there's lots of people who are
00:07:47.233 --> 00:07:50.375
interested in the Ohio country,
00:07:50.394 --> 00:07:51.656
in the American West.
00:07:53.076 --> 00:07:53.577
First of all,
00:07:55.475 --> 00:07:56.576
Great Britain and the United
00:07:56.615 --> 00:07:58.057
States are fighting for it.
00:07:58.357 --> 00:08:00.658
But there's other actors as well.
00:08:00.718 --> 00:08:03.137
And some of these actors are nations,
00:08:03.838 --> 00:08:05.918
the most prominent of which is France.
00:08:06.379 --> 00:08:07.160
France, of course,
00:08:07.300 --> 00:08:09.199
is expelled from North
00:08:09.259 --> 00:08:10.321
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.